Fox Soccer Channel

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Fox Soccer Channel
Launched	February 7, 2005
Owned by	News Corporation
Formerly called	Fox Sports World
Website	FoxSoccerChannel.com
Availability
Satellite
DirecTV	Channel 613
Dish Network	Channel 149
Cable
Verizon FiOS	Channel 312
Comcast	Channels Vary
Time Warner Cable	Channels Vary
Charter	Channels Vary
Cox Cable	Channels Vary
IO Digital Cable (Cablevision)	Channel 142

Fox Soccer Channel is a United States digital cable network, owned by News Corporation, that specializes in soccer. The channel took its current name on February 7, 2005; before then, the network was known as Fox Sports World. In 2006, all non-soccer programming was dropped.

Contents 1 Current programming 1.1 Argentina 1.2 Australia 1.3 England 1.4 Italy 1.5 Japan 1.6 Mexico 1.7 United States 1.8 Other events 2 Past programming 3 Sky Sports News 4 Fox Soccer Report 5 Additional information 6 See also 7 Rival channels 8 References 9 External links

[edit] Current programming

The channel focuses on soccer throughout the world. Among the countries whose matches it currently televises:

[edit] Argentina

• One match every week from the Primera División, plus a weekly highlights show. The featured Argentine League matches begins on Sunday usually at 3:10 Eastern and is tape-delayed on FSC until 5pm Eastern (with the exception of the Boca Juniors-River Plate superclasico, which will air live). Also, the network broadcasts a dubbed version of Fútbol de Primera, Torneos y Competencias' weekly review show, every Wednesday usually at 11 PM Eastern.

[edit] Australia

• A weekly highlights package from the A-League, plus live coverage of the A-League Grand Final.

[edit] England

• About 4-5 live and tape-delayed matches each week from the English Premier League (EPL), plus weekly preview (EPL Preview) and recap (EPL Review and Super Saturday +) shows. FOX Sports International has sublicensed 4-5 EPL matches each week to Setanta Sports North America during the 2006-2007 season for exclusive presentation on that network. Both networks air matches in consistent timeslots.
• The season-opening FA Community Shield live.
• FA Cup ties. Some are broadcast live on pay-per-view and then re-aired on FSC a few days later.
• England under-21 home matches.
• England national football team home matches. Most weekend matches air live on pay-per-view. FSC rebroadcasts the matches during the following week.

[edit] Italy

• One or two live Serie A matches weekly from Media Partners Group (Lazio, Cagliari, Torino and Catania home games^[1]), plus A.C. Milan Weekly, a weekly news magazine featuring AC Milan, through the 2006-2007 season.

• Exclusive English-language coverage of Serie A for the 2007-2008 through 2009-2010 via an agreement with Media Partners & Silva and SPORTFIVE.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Japan

• A weekly highlights package from the J. League.

[edit] Mexico

• One weekly match from the Mexican Primera División (First Division) narrated by former Spanish-language sportscaster Daniel Arreola featuring club teams whose home games are normally televised on Azteca América. These teams include: Cruz Azul, Pachuca, Tecos UAG, Veracruz, Santos Laguna, Querétaro and Jaguares de Chiapas.
• All these games are shown on tape delay every Tuesday at 2 a.m. Eastern Time (Monday 11 p.m. Pacific Time).

[edit] United States

• Major League Soccer (MLS): rights to a package of weekly matches, usually on Saturday nights, through 2010 (beginning in 2007, selected matches will be the only ones scheduled during their time-slots), via a deal with Soccer United Marketing (SUM) that includes the 2006 FC Barcelona tour of the US, summer tour matches in 2007-2010, and the 2007-2010 Mexican InterLiga.
• Exclusive rights to United Soccer Leagues matches, including:
  • One live match weekly from the second-level USL First Division.
  • Occasional regular-season matches from the women's W-League.
  • The championship matches of all USL leagues—the First Division, Second Division, Premier Development League, and W-League.
• Up to three live college soccer matches each week in September and October via an agreement with the National Soccer Coaches Association of America (NSCAA).
• Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup final (2006-2010). The competition is the U.S. equivalent of the English FA Cup.
• Dream Team: Englis football soap-opera, currently in its 10th and final season in England but only in its 6th on FSC in the United States.

[edit] Other events

• UEFA:
  • Live coverage of the UEFA Cup starting with the quarterfinal round, with 6 (out of 8) quarterfinal matches, all 4 semifinal matches, and the final through May 2009.
  • Live coverage of the UEFA Super Cup through August 2009.
  • Live coverage of the UEFA Women's Championship.
  • Live qualifiers for the UEFA European Football Championship and FIFA World Cup via sublicense from Setanta Sports North America.

• CONCACAF: Live coverage of many matches from the CONCACAF Champions' Cup, including any that involve MLS teams. FSC also has rights to the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup (matches involving the U.S. only, plus the final) and 2006 Women's Gold Cup.

• CONMEBOL: Live and tape-delayed coverage of selected Copa Libertadores and Copa Sudamericana matches.

• FIFA:
  • Club World Cup through December 2006.
    • Through 2006, FSC aired several other FIFA events (see "Past programming" section immediately below). However, ESPN has acquired the US English-language television rights to all FIFA events except for the Club World Cup (whose rights are not sold by FIFA), from 2007 through 2015.

[edit] Past programming

In the past, FSC also aired the following leagues and competitions:

• France: Ligue 1 through the 2005-2006 season. Ligue 1 coverage moved to Setanta Sports North America effective with the 2006-2007 season.
• Germany: First Bundesliga through the 2005-2006 season. Bundesliga coverage moved to GolTV effective with the 2006-2007 season.
• Spain: Selected La Liga matches that notably did not have FC Barcelona, Valencia CF, Real Madrid or Atlético Madrid, four of Spain's biggest clubs, involved in them. Coverage was moved to GolTV effective 2004-5, where all teams can be shown.
• Netherlands: Eredivisie in the 2004-2005 season. Coverage is now on Setanta Sports North America.
• FIFA:
  • Confederations Cup through the 2005 season.
  • FIFA World Youth Championship, now the FIFA U-20 World Cup, through 2005.
  • FIFA U-17 World Championship, now the FIFA U-17 World Cup, through 2005.

[edit] Sky Sports News

FSC picks up the feed from its corporate cousin, Sky Sports News in the United Kingdom (delayed from their 11pm GMT one-hour nightly slot) and reruns the feed twice during the following 23 hours. This arrangement dates back to its days as Fox Sports World, and serves largely to wrap-up the day's events. Occasionally, FSC has offered live broadcasts, especially during the European Championships or World Cup.

[edit] Fox Soccer Report

Main article: Fox Soccer Report

FSC's flagship studio program is the Fox Soccer Report, anchored by Carlos Machado, Jeremy St. Louis, Mitch Peacock and Derek Taylor. The show is produced by Fox Sports World Canada, a Canadian international sports network owned by CanWest Global Communications (parent of Global Television Network). The show was formerly called the Fox Sports World Report, which also featured occasional news and highlights of Formula 1 prior to the format change. It airs nightly at 10 p.m. Eastern (or after a live prime-time match- though highlights of that game usually cannot be edited in time for inclusion), with a few re-airs overnight and during the morning.

[edit] Additional information

Most of FSC's coverage that originates outside the CONCACAF region (North America, Central America, Caribbean) consists of picking up international broadcast feeds to which FSC has U.S. broadcast rights. All of FSC's South American coverage, including the Argentine highlights show, is overdubbed in English by FSC announcers (having originally been produced in whole or in part by FOX Sports International), as is most game coverage from Italy. The Australian League highlights show is produced by FOX Sports' Australian-unit. The English coverage generally comes to FSC direct from the marketing agencies who produce the match feeds and magazine shows.

The network's soccer coverage is not limited to game play; FSC airs reruns of Dream Team, a British soap opera that airs in the UK on FSC's corporate cousin Sky One and focuses on a fictional Premiership team (although several seasons behind Sky One). The channel also televises a live soccer talk-show, Fox Football Fone-in (formerly Fox Football Friday), featuring viewer calls and predictions for that weekend's Premier League matches.

In 2006, Fox Soccer Channel announced that they had dropped coverage of other sports other than soccer. Amongst the leagues dropped were Super 14 rugby union, the Australian Football League (the principal Australian rules football league), and the Australian National Rugby League. The Super 14 and Australian Football League games now reside on fellow niche-sport network, Setanta Sports. In return, Setanta has given FSC the rights to some national team matches that would not otherwise air live.

Fox Sports World filled out its schedule with an eclectic mix of programming; among the sports featured (either in anthology form or actual events) were motorsports, cricket, pool, darts, and extreme sports. It also aired the Final Four of the Euroleague in basketball; that league is now more extensively covered by NBA TV.

However, FSC has not yet filled out its day with sports programming; the morning hours are usually the province of infomercials as well as the random half-hour in between games on some days.

Since its relaunch as FSC, the channel has had various well-known people in and out of the soccer world do promos. The first of these aired on the Fox network pregame show for Super Bowl XXXIV. It featured Freddy Adu, Clint Mathis and Mia Hamm giving the channel's slogan: "Your world, your life, your game." Since then, other celebrities have popped up doing FSC promos including David Beckham, Jon Stewart, Kobe Bryant, Simon LeBon and Andy Taylor of Duran Duran, Andrew Fletcher and Martin Gore of Depeche Mode, and even Paris Hilton. Two additional spots featured Eddie Pope and Chris Albright of the U.S. national team, but they were no longer aired after the conclusion of the 2006 World Cup.

Ethan Zohn, winner of Survivor: Africa in 2001, hosts FC Fox, a show mostly focused on youth soccer.

[edit] See also

• List of DirecTV channels
• List of Dish Network channels

[edit] Rival channels

• GOL TV

[edit] References

1. ^ http://msn.foxsports.com/other/story/3551828

[edit] External links

• Official Site
• Sky Sports
• Official Store of Fox Soccer Channel