Murdoch, The Split and The Fox Sports Factor

By Josh Albarran

News Corp Chairman & CEO Rupert Murdoch at the New York Stock Exchange in 1998, the creator of Fox Sports, which will soon to become a part of the new 21st Century Fox company.

On Friday, News Corporation, the parent company of Fox Sports led by Chairman and CEO Rupert Murdoch will split into two separated companies. One will keep the News Corp. name and will own its publishing assets including the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal; while the other will become 21st Century Fox, owning its film and television assets including the Fox broadcast network, 20th Century Fox, the Fox News Channel and Fox Sports.

Murdoch's relationship in the sports world goes back to the days when he own Sky Broadcasting in the United Kingdom, in which they aired soccer, rugby league, motor-sports and wrestling. Several years later Murdoch launched the Fox Broadcasting Company and he wanted to put sports programming on its network for bigger ratings. For a short time, Fox aired two sporting events from the World Wrestling Federation on Saturday nights during the year of 1992, but that was just the beginning of the Fox Sports franchise. 

Two years later, Murdoch shocked the world of sports television forever as he signed a billion dollar deal with the National Football League for Fox to broadcast the N.F.C. games from CBS starting in 1994, this allows their viewers and most stations to switched affiliates from the older three broadcast networks to Fox (much like the 1994 New World-Fox deal) to see their NFL package.

Since then, Rupert Murdoch and his Fox Sports division had become the No. 1 sports network in America for sixteen years and counting. Fox now owns the broadcast rights to air the NFL, Major League Baseball, NASCAR, the Ultimate Fighting Championship, NCAA college football and basketball and soccer. Once Murdoch launches 21st Century Fox on July 1st, the company will launched the new Fox Sports 1 cable network on August 17th at 8:00am ET in conjunction with Fox Sports's 20th year anniversary.

Fox had changed the game with its on-air graphics and sound effects along with their personalities including Terry Bradshaw, Darrell Waltrip and Erin Andrews, I can't call them as their version of Fair & Balanced, that's Rupert Murdoch's vision and his sports assets would become the centerpiece of 21st Century Fox as split completes later this week.

U.S. Open To Leave CBS, going to ESPN In 2015

By Joshua Albarran - May 15, 2013

After 46 years starting with the 2015 tournament, CBS will no longer broadcast the U.S. Open tennis tournament after the club signed an 11-year $285 million agreement with The Walt Disney Company, which is the parent company of ABC and ESPN. CBS's U.S. Open coverage which will continue after the 2014 tournament wasn't able to get a new deal made with ESPN, so instead was outbid by the Disney-owned sports company and will air all of them exclusivity starting in 2015. 

ESPN has carry the U.S. Open since 2009 on sister channel ESPN2 after acquiring the cable rights from USA Network following the 2008 tournament, with the new deal on Thursday, all of the matches from New York City will be seen on ESPN2, WatchESPN and their parent network ESPN.

2014 will the end of the 46-year relationship between CBS and the U.S. Open dating back to 1968, CBS will continue to broadcast the Sony Ericsson Open.

FOX Sports 1 Takes The Field

From left to right: Mike Pereria, Terry Bradshaw, Jimmy Johnson, Troy Aikman, Regis Philbin, Charles Davis, Eddie George, Curt Menefee, Howie Long, David Hill, Eric Shanks, Michael Wartrip, Joey Harrington, Michael Strahan, Jay Glazer, Erin Andrews, Darrell Wartrip, Tim McCarver and Chris Myers at the FOX Sports Upfront Presentation in New York City.

By Josh Albarran

The FOX Sports Media Group announced Tuesday morning during their first upfront presentation in New York that they introduced their all-new 24/7 national sports network, FOX Sports 1 will launch (and replace SPEED) on Saturday, August 17th in 90 million homes in conduction of FOX Sports' 20th anniversary. The new network will broadcast College football, College basketball, soccer, UFC, NASCAR and Major League Baseball as well as original and live studio programming.

On Day 1, FOX Sports 1 will air the NASCAR Camping Truck Series race at Michigan and in prime-time they will broadcast the first UFC on FS1 telecast as FOX Sports 1 will air live UFC fight cards primarily on Wednesday night throughout 2014.

FOX Sports 1 will also featured live studio programming including an nightly highlight show schedule to debut on August 17th at 11:00pm ET/PT and will launch an weekday morning show in January in conjunction with FOX Sports' expansive coverage of Super Bowl XLVII. They will also air FOX Football Daily at 6:00pm ET, an spin-off football program from FOX Broadcasting's successful NFL pregame show with host Erin Andrews and Gus Johnson, analyst Terry Bradshaw, Howie Long, insider Jay Glazer and ruling anylast Mike Pereria; and yes Regis Philbin returns to television, as an Notre Dame and Yankees fan he will host Rush Hour live from New York weekdays at 5:00pm ET; FOX Sports 1 will take behind-the-scenes at former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson (who first appeared on FOX back in 1995 when he defeated Buster Mathis, Jr.) in Being: Mike Tyson, the first of several Being documentary series on FS1 airing later this year.

With the launch of the new 24/7 sports network, FOX Sports will provide more sports content across FOX Broadcasting, FOX Sports 1, FOXSports.com and its 22-owned regional sports networks (including their new co-ownership of the YES Network with the New York Yankees baseball team)

ABC Locally Televised Hoops In New York

By Josh Albarran – February 24, 2013

On Saturday at Noon ET, WABC-TV (Channel 7), the ABC Television Network’s owned-and-operated and flagship station in New York City aired a NCAA College basketball game between Seton Hall and No. 4 Louisville. It was the first time that a regular season hoops game would aired on that station since they last aired as part of the network’s regular-season coverage (those games would moved to sister channel ESPN following the end of the 2008-09 season). That game was produced by ESPN, but was not nationally televised by ABC (it was streaming broadcast instead on ESPN3.com via WatchESPN) while they continued to air the final hour of its Litton’s Weekend Adventure children’s programming block on the rest of its stations. ABC currently holds the rights to air the semi-finals and the championship of the SEC Men’s College Basketball Tournament, which will take place in March, in fact ESPN had took over ABC’s sports operations since the 2006 merger by their parent company Disney.

SportsCenter's Linda Cohn to Speak at OSU

By Josh Albarran

ESPN's SportsCenter anchor Linda Cohn will probably be speaking at Oklahoma State University on March 4th for the Women's Sports Media Club.

Cohn was originally to scheduled to speak for next week, but it was postponed because of her recent short absents at the Worldwide Leader and speaking of that, she hasn't appeared on ESPN since she co-anchored the 11 p.m. ET edition of SportsCenter on the night after the Baltimore Ravens' Super Bowl XLVII victory. This might be the third time since late August of 2012 that Cohn would be homesick from her TV and radio work.

An OSU spokeswoman said in their press release (http://www.ocolly.com/news/osu/article_93103362-7c9d-11e2-b794-001a4bcf6878.html) that “I contacted her agent, Bob Phillip, and he and I have been corresponding,” Thomas said. “She originally planned on coming Feb. 28 and something came up so we had to kind of re-hash everything to make it work.”

It will be known that the homesick Cohn would return to host SportsCenter when she's 100% ready to break the ice, now entering her 21st year at Bristol, Connecticut and she's an 53-year old sportscaster who is an die-hard fan of the New York Rangers, Giants and Mets. Now I know I'll followed Linda at Twitter (http://twitter.com/lindacohn) and I read her book Cohn-Head: A No-Holds Barred Account of Breaking Into the Boy's Club (order it at LindaCohn.net), but as Cohn always said when she started SportsCenter, why wait?!!

UPDATE (03/05/13): Cohn returned to ESPN last Friday morning after 25 days filling-in for Colin Cowherd on ESPN Radio's The Herd as well as anchoring SportsCenter during the weekend and she will be at Oklahoma State this Thursday afternoon to speak to their students scheduled for 2:30pm local time (3:30pm ET).

Josh Albarran reporting for TV SportsNews

Impact Of Blizzard Nemo Cause Program Changes On SportsCenter

By Josh Albarran

In the impact of a blizzard effecting the state of Connecticut (including ESPN’s world headquarters in Bristol). Only three editions of SportsCenter were scheduled for Saturday instead seven editions including the 11pm ET show (which was cancelled due to a blizzard). Michael Kim and Todd Grisham first anchored the broadcast from 1pm till 5pm, when they handed it over to Don Bell and Jade McCarthy until 10pm ET when Stan Verrett anchored solo from Los Angeles to end the night. The 10am, 6pm, 8pm, 11pm and 1am shows were canceled due to both the aftermath of Winter Storm Nemo and the absents of many SportsCenter anchors. On Friday, both the 8pm and 11pm ET shows were canceled as ESPNews re-aired the 6pm SportsCenter with Lindsay Czarniak and Bram Weinstien from 8-11pm while Verrett anchored solo on the 11pm hour in addition to the regular 1am broadcast from Los Angeles. ESPN Front Row reported on the program changes for both Friday and Saturday shows on their website (http://frontrow.espn.go.com/2013/02/espns-winter-storm-nemo-preparations-underway/#more-50030). ESPN hopes to resume all live editions of SportsCenter from Bristol on a regularly-normal basis and most of their anchors returning to work at the campus starting on Sunday.

ESPN at the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship

ESPN at the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship

College GameDay to be at site of the Final Four and the National Championship

All games to be herd on ESPN Radio in New York Chicago

Monday, March 12, 2012


ESPN will feature all the complete coverage of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship from the 2012 tournament during ESPN and ESPN2 programming and across its platforms, including SportsCenter, ESPN Radio, ESPNEWS, ESPN.com, WatchESPN and ESPN International. From the First Four and Second and Third Round, to the Final Four and the National Championship game.

SportsCenter and College GameDay will have the complete coverage of the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament (which airs on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV). SportsCenter will had highlights, analysis and recap throughout the tournament with anchors Steve Levy, Scott Van Pelt, Jay Harris, John Anderson, Linda Cohn and Stuart Scott, while the College GameDay crew led by Rece Davis, Hubert Davis, Digger Phelps, Jay Blias and Dick Vitale will had reaction from the games during the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. editions and on College GameDay Scoreboard (on ESPN2). College GameDay will air on March 15-16 at 4 p.m. on ESPN with highlights, latest scores, analysis and live press conference from the second round.

As part of the NCAA’s new multi-year agreement with ESPN in late December, College GameDay and SportsCenter will be at the site of the Final Four and the National Championship for the first time as ESPN will had extensive coverage of the Final Four and the National Championship from New Orleans on SportsCenter at the Final Four on Saturday, March 31st (anchored by Linda Cohn and Bram Weinstien at 11 p.m. ET) and Monday, April 2nd (anchored by Linda Cohn and Robert Flores at 11 p.m.-12 a.m. ET) respecting with the College GameDay crew anchored the coverage from New Orleans with highlights, analysis, reaction, live press conference and exclusive interviews.

All of ESPN programming is also available streaming live on WatchESPN.com and on the WatchESPN app. ESPN International will air the entire NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship (including the Final Four and the National Championship) across Latin America (Caribbean, Mexico, Central and South America), the Middle East and Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Pacific Islands, Europe, Japan and Canada (via TSN). ESPN.com will feature news, scores and videos from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship.

ESPN Radio, available to 750 affiliated stations across the country, will have NCAA content during their programming throughout the tournament including Mike and Mike in the Morning (6 a.m.-10 a.m.), The Herd with Colin Cowherd (10 a.m.-1 p.m.), The Scott Van Pelt Show (1 p.m.-4 p.m.), The Doug Gottlieb Show (4 p.m.-7 p.m.) and Hill & Schlereth (7 p.m.-10 p.m.). ESPN Radio SportsCenter will provide updates and scores from the Men’s Basketball Championship every 30 minutes. In addition, ESPN Radio’s owned-and-operated stations in New York and Chicago will carry all games from the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship Tournament (via Dial Global Sports/Westwood One Radio Network).

ESPN Inc.
ESPN, Inc., is the world's leading multinational, multimedia sports entertainment company featuring a portfolio of more than 50 multimedia sports assets. The company comprises seven 24-hour domestic television networks (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNEWS, ESPNU, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes and ESPN 3D). ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU and ESPNEWS HD are simulcast services. Other businesses include ESPN Regional Television, ESPN International (46 networks, syndication, radio, websites), ESPN Radio, ESPN.com, ESPN3.com (broadband sports network) ESPN Mobile,ESPN The Magazine, ESPN Enterprises, ESPN PPV and other growing new businesses, including ESPN on Demand and ESPN Interactive. Based in Bristol, Conn., ESPN is 80 percent owned by ABC, Inc., which is an indirect subsidiary of The Walt Disney Company. The Hearst Corporation holds a 20 percent interest in ESPN.