SPEED channel is now Fox Sports 1

  • Thread starter Earth
  • 370 comments
  • 28,803 views
Earth

Earth

7,986
GTP_Royalton
Whats this about Fox turning SPEED into a Fox Sports One channel that carries stick and ball sports?

Is this the end of a dedicated motorsports channel in the United States?

Maybe its not a bad thing. Maybe someone else can take SPEED's place and offer better motorsport programming thats not focused on NASCAR.
 
Sanji Himura
From April...

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Journal/Issues/2012/04/02/Media/Fox-channel.aspx
Click to expand...

👍

I found this bit particularly intriguing:

It’s unclear how NASCAR would respond to a potential switch of Speed into an all-sports network. NASCAR Media Group opened a $43 million facility in downtown Charlotte in 2010. The facility has four floors of studio and production space and an extensive digital archive that would allow NASCAR to start its own network if it chose to do so. The assumption is that it wouldn’t make that decision until after its current broadcast agreements end in 2014.
Click to expand...

Very interesting. Not that it would change things much, with the current Speed channel essentially being a NASCAR channel at the moment anyways.
new5_muttley.gif


But it would open up an opportunity for some other major broadcaster, or a new broadcaster to start a motorsports channel. Question is, who is willing to start one? When will this happen? What racing categories will they cover? Am I going to go insane trying to find out who is covering which F1 races and blacking out the other channel??? :crazy: :mad: :banghead:

:lol:
 
NBC Sports perhaps? They currently do Indy.
ESPN may make a dedicated Racing channel?

For as much bad as they do, I still think Speed should stay. If they'd show IRC, WRC, WEC, Touring Cars, and BES instead of the garbage gameshows, they'd do better I reckon.
 
With NBC having its own channel, I could see FOX getting their own channel to market their sports programming, and I'm kind of surprised they haven't jumped into that water by now. I could also see F1 getting a year on this new network, and then they'd replace it with yet another useless recap program about baseball/football because it would get the same ratings as live Grand Prix race. On the other hand, it has almost no other live broadcasting competition, except for their FOX Soccer Network, news channels, and "Local Megachurch Programming".

Hopefully our loyalty counts for something...they've had a piece of the F1 market in the US market since 1998 (save a two-year gap around 2000-01, but then they bought Speedvision/Speed Channel), which was originally held by ESPN.
 
That's a shame. SPEED is really the only means I have of watching any form of motorsports, and I am sure that other people are the same.
 
Hopefully we don't lose some of the events over the year but have a feeling baseball/football will take over. Speed has always been a go to place for information or watch races normally we can't.

The one good thing is NBC does seem to be getting more motorsports with Indycar and stadium trucks. It might be a push to try to get ahead of them.
 
If SPEED Channel does eventually dissolve, someone better pick up the rights for the little non-NASCAR programming that is shown or else there'll be quite a few angry motorsports fans.
 
It would be a shame if Speed were to realign its core market in that way. As Grand Prix highlights it's possible that Nascar actually has a plan to undertake its own broadcasting (and take control of its own ad revenues).

US legislation governing provision of terrestrial broadcast services by 'external' providers (basically foreign TV companies) works very well in terms of keeping revenue within the dollar-stream but it kills diversity and choice... and I'm against anything that restricts the propogation of televised motorsport in any part of the world :)
 
If no one chooses to televise the lesser known motorsports, it would just be a sign of the times. There's no real reason for sports networks to broadcast the more obscure stuff if there isn't much money in it. If there was, they would be broadcasting those already.

Maybe having two American GP races will change things in the next few years, creating more fans that might look into other types of road racing, and possibly rallying, but the recent Indycar and Sports Car Racing civil wars may have helped NASCAR's surging popularity. Which in turn makes it less likely for new fans to watch road racing instead of oval racing, since the major sports networks will only be televising what most people watch. Then again, maybe once things settle down, it will get better for us road racing fans. We can only hope someone comes along to create a motorsports channel like Speedvision.
 
Last edited:
Unbelievable. SPEED's the only thing I watch nowadays, even if it is just NASCAR 3/4ths the time. Why waste a perfectly good motorsports channel for another of the hundreds of generic ball and stick channels? Money, I'm guessing. Damn shame.
 
Well I know I'm not looking deep enough, but even with the gameshows and endless NASCAR, it's the only motorsport/automotive channel I can find here in the US. If another channel comes along and does a better job (I know it can be done, show more motorsports instead of those drag racing gameshows) then I'm all for it to dissolve. At the moment, it seems like it'll turn to another sports channel, and I'd rather have SPEED currently than no automotive channel.
 
This must be getting close to happening.

I'm watching F1 debrief right now and there's a FOX Sports logo above the SPEED logo. Looks like the SPEED logo is covering up the bottom half of whatever the FOX Sports logo is.
 
I remember back in 2000-02 or so, I could turn on Speedvision and there would always be something interesting to watch. Everything from rallying, to touring cars, to boat racing, and even lawnmower racing. :lol: When there wasn't racing being shown, they would show old school car-oriented movies on "Lost Drive-In." Or they would show auto mechanics shows that actually taught useful stuff, instead of "Pimp My Ride" and such. Last but not least, "Victory by Design" and "Legends of Motorsports."

Speedvision was never going to be a big network, and this was a time before reality television took over everything. For example, History Channel would mostly show programs that involved... History. :lol: The people that watch television today are mostly interested in reality TV, and most networks tried to capitalize on that. Before, these specialized channels tried to fill in a specific niche. When reality TV came along, it no longer made as much sense to fill in a niche, it was better to cash in on the reality TV trend. I personally think the internet has had a big impact on which people watch TV (due to the, eh-hem, more intellectual minded people spending most of their time on the internet instead of TV. ;) Take from that what you will. :lol:), but that's for another thread.

Then FOX took over, called it SPEED, replaced most road racing coverage with NASCAR coverage and reality TV, moved stuff like the WRC coverage to ridiculous time slots before axing it, and you know the rest. Of course it's about money.
 
Wait why is Fox talking about starting an "all sports" network. They already have Fox Sports Net. What's wrong with FSN?
 
Part of me would almost like to see motorsports go online, and wouldn't mind this. Since ALMS went to ESPN3 I get more coverage, better coverage, and I can watch it when it best fits my schedule. Instead of DVRing F1 or whatever I could watch it the next day. Endurance races can be watched chunks at a time and not have any interruptions.

One of the issues motorsports has it their shortest popular events are three hours long. Other sports will rarely go over three hours. Airing any live event over three hours long on a regular basis can be problematic for current broadcasting models. So, I see why Fox is considering this.

If most non-NASCAR racing coverage were to go online in a way that most people can view (not restricted to only certain cable or Internet providers) it would ultimately be better for most fans.

But until broadcast companies figure out a great online model, Speed is a necessity for race coverage. Without Speed I imagine some less popular race series would have gone under in the current economy.
 
Apparently druggies with meaningless tribal tattoos, giant disgusting holes in their ears who wear Affliction tshirts and Tapout hats cocked way up and to the side and think they're a fighter because they took a couple of Karate classes mean more than us simple folk.

Shame. The Fox Sports logo above the Speed logo is pretty much a dead giveaway.
 
Terrible news actually. Means the best broadcasting team in racing will be broken up.
 
Blitz24
Terrible news actually. Means the best broadcasting team in racing will be broken up.
Click to expand...

I'm not too happy about it either. I thought the Speed F1 crew were respectable and did a solid job. I'm also skeptical if NBCSN will give us the same coverage (live races+streaming sessions) that Speed gave us. I doubt it. :(
 
DwightSchrute12
I'm not too happy about it either. I thought the Speed F1 crew were respectable and did a solid job. I'm also skeptical if NBCSN will give us the same coverage (live races+streaming sessions) that Speed gave us. I doubt it. :(
Click to expand...
They will do it for at least 2 or 3 races. I assume both US races will get that attention.
 
Grand Prix
I remember back in 2000-02 or so, I could turn on Speedvision and there would always be something interesting to watch. Everything from rallying, to touring cars, to boat racing, and even lawnmower racing. :lol: When there wasn't racing being shown, they would show old school car-oriented movies on "Lost Drive-In." Or they would show auto mechanics shows that actually taught useful stuff, instead of "Pimp My Ride" and such. Last but not least, "Victory by Design" and "Legends of Motorsports."

Speedvision was never going to be a big network, and this was a time before reality television took over everything. For example, History Channel would mostly show programs that involved... History. :lol: The people that watch television today are mostly interested in reality TV, and most networks tried to capitalize on that. Before, these specialized channels tried to fill in a specific niche. When reality TV came along, it no longer made as much sense to fill in a niche, it was better to cash in on the reality TV trend. I personally think the internet has had a big impact on which people watch TV (due to the, eh-hem, more intellectual minded people spending most of their time on the internet instead of TV. ;) Take from that what you will. :lol:), but that's for another thread.

Then FOX took over, called it SPEED, replaced most road racing coverage with NASCAR coverage and reality TV, moved stuff like the WRC coverage to ridiculous time slots before axing it, and you know the rest. Of course it's about money.
Click to expand...
I'm glad to see someone else is nostalgic about "Victory by Design" and "Legends of Motorsport", they were excellent. I couldn't agree more with your comments about SpeedVision; in the days long before YouTube and on a 56k dial-up modem, it introduced me to so many international forms of motorsport. It's sad to see what remains of the channel slowly snuffed out.

ZDTV/TechTV, and now Speed. Why do all my favorite TV networks have to die?
 
Jordan
I'm glad to see someone else is nostalgic about "Victory by Design" and "Legends of Motorsport", they were excellent. I couldn't agree more with your comments about SpeedVision; in the days long before YouTube and on a 56k dial-up modem, it introduced me to so many international forms of motorsport. It's sad to see what remains of the channel slowly snuffed out.

ZDTV/TechTV, and now Speed. Why do all my favorite TV networks have to die?
Click to expand...

The channel looked like they needed to instill life into it and failed. I really think it was more successful when they had all races on the channel, even obscure series (for the US, BTCC and Super GT are obscure sadly).
 
I'm really hoping that NBC give F1 it's deserved airtime. I'm scared that they'll do nothing but tape delayed races and highlight's only, and not the full coverage. If they do however give it justice, then the move will be very positive for F1 popularity in the US. I assume they'll be showing it on NBC Sports Network, so right there, F1 will reach more people (For me NBCSN is a basic cable channel, while SPEED required a package upgrade). But the success will only happen if NBC doesn't shaft the coverage.

As far as what will become of the current SPEED hosts. I'm willing to bet that NBC will hire the current trio of Bob Varsha, David Hobbs, and Steve Matchett. Varsha has been commentating for F1 coverage in America for one network or another since the mid eighties. And Hobbs has been along side him since the mid nineties.
 
astrosdude91
As far as what will become of the current SPEED hosts. I'm willing to bet that NBC will hire the current trio of Bob Varsha, David Hobbs, and Steve Matchett. Varsha has been commentating for F1 coverage in America for one network or another since the mid eighties. And Hobbs has been along side him since the mid nineties.
Click to expand...

Varsha is currently contracted and tied to Speed/Fox so don't plan on seeing him transition. Hobbs has been around awhile but may retire now, no idea what he'll do. I'm hoping they at least retain Matchett and Buxton, but we'll see.
 

Latest Posts

Back