Fox Sports 1 Promises Fun, But Do You Feel It?

Fox Sports 1 used a 90-second commercial during the All-Star Game to kick off its promotional blitz leading to the launch of the all-sports network on Aug. 17 and in the month-plus leading to the launch of the network the pitch can only get better.

That's because the commercial was just OK, full of almost as much computer-generated action as anything else, with an ultimate promise of fun.

It's fine for fun to be how FS1 plans to differentiate itself in the growing world of all-sports television. It's just that the commercial itself was not all that fun -- even if the challenges, dedication and hard work associated with high-level athletic performance are supposed to be fun.

FS1 used Georges St. Pierre, NASCAR and college basketball and football prominently in the commercial, and those entities will form the backbone of the network.

Fun can only be a start, though. Next up in FS1's promotional efforts must be its personality, it's reporting, it's talent. A month is plenty of time to to that, and all of that will come when the network launches as well, but while fun can be an appropriate start for an all-sports network, there needs to be more. And, a little more reality (and less CGI) would be nice, too.