No such channel has ever been as well-positioned to succeed. By rebranding Speed Channel, FS1 will debut Aug. 17 in more than 90 million homes. That's a head start ESPN2 never had and a plateau to which CBS Sports Network and NBC Sports Network aspire.
In addition, FS1 has some of what matters most for success: content. Not enough, but some.
That initially includes college basketball (a likely deal with the restructured Big East basketball schools could mean extensive exposure for those schools) and football and the UFC. Coverage of Major League Baseball, NASCAR and soccer will follow.
In the world of sports networks, live events matter most. They're valuable because viewers watch rather than record, as they might with other TV programming. While viewers "time-shift" more and more content by recording and watching on their own schedule, that does not happen with sports.
Still, FS1 needs more content -- and it will work to wrestle that away from ESPN and other rights holders in the coming years. Thanks to the power and relationships of Fox Sports, FS1 might have a decent possibility to land some sort of NFL programming sooner rather than later. But, along with high-profile properties, the channel needs a lot of programming to fill 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
As a result, bigger decisions about what FS1 wants to be remain. Especially in its firsts few months and years.
With "Rush Hour," a panel discussion show to be hosted by Regis Philbin, channel leaders have already reached for a combination of entertainment and sports. They've also elected to invest in programming at a time of day -- the show will air at 5 p.m. weekdays -- that ESPN has shown can draw advertisers, eyeballs and reaction. In lieu of more games, some solid, studio shows would provide important programming during the channel's infancy.
Deciding just who hosts those shows, and how they're structured really matters, though. Imitators of "Pardon the Interruption" and "Around the Horn" have been searching for years for formats that feel just enough to be different but somehow similar enough to keep people form changing the channel.
Because of that, FS1 officials must decide soon who will become the initial faces of the channel. Without a ton of "tonnage," some personality must define and drive the channel. It probably should not be Regis Philbin. Then again, if they're differentiating, mabye it will be.
Fox Sports has plenty of options on its roster (Erin Andrews, anyone?), and will probably do as NBC Sports Network has done with Bob Costas and try to find a forum for some of existing talent to create original content and utilize that work across several different distribution platforms. In addition, some high-profile free agent signings in the next few months, or beyond, would not be a surprise.
Either way, they're important decisions, and they're magnified by the fact that FS1 needs more content -- in the form of live games -- to make easier decisions on a more regular basis. After all, it's almost always easier, and smarter, to show a live sporting event than a studio show.
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