FOX SPORTS, PURSUING ESPN, GETS SUPER BUMP

HOUSTON Sitting at a table in the Super Bowl media center, Fox Sports executive Jamie Horowitz was approached by a reporter with a list of questions about ESPN, his former employer and current rival.

This is not his favorite line of interrogation:

uWill your current network, Fox Sports 1, eventually catch up in the ratings to ESPN?

uAnd did you see that article ESPN published last week? It said ESPN trounced FS1 on an average full- day basis in 2016: 811,000 viewers to 176,000, according to Nielsen data.

“What causes a company to put something like that out?” Horowitz asked the reporter Tuesday.

It was a rhetorical question, implying that ESPN wouldn’t publish a story mocking FS1 unless it was worried about FS1.

And it should be worried about FS1, at least according to recent progress by FS1 and future market factors.

Yes, ESPN has dominated the ratings, just as one might expect a 37- year- old powerhouse to dominate a newbie network that launched in 2013.

Last year, ESPN also commanded an average of $ 7.21 per subscriber per month from cable and satellite companies, compared with $ 1.15 for FS1, according to the market intelligence firm S& P Global.

But it has been quite a year for the larger Fox Sports enterprise, including big ratings for the World Series and culminating in Sunday’s Super Bowl telecast on Fox — the network big brother of FS1, both owned by 21st Century Fox. Fox will give a big platform that day to FS1’ s Undisputed, which will air at noon ET on Fox in the lead- up to the big game.

This is part of the strategy for FS1 — keep closing the gap with ESPN and sometimes draw from its talent and experience. Undisputed, a sports opinion show, launched in September and features ex- NFL player Shannon Sharpe and national commentator Skip Bayless, who was hired away from ESPN last year reportedly for about $ 5 million a year.

The year before, Fox Sports had hired Horowitz, who later hired national talk show host Colin Cowherd, his former colleague at ESPN. Former ESPN NFL analyst Cris Carter also recently was hired at FS1.

“No network — FS1 or otherwise — can remotely match ESPN’s reach, breadth and depth or coverage in a few years,” said Andrew Billings, a sports media scholar and professor at the University of Alabama. “Rather, there are different stages to the process, and acquiring talent and building a brand would seem to have been FS1’ s focus in the opening years. What could come next would be battles over rights fees for major men’s team sports, and those often are not even available to bid for many years.”

ESPN, for example, is paying an average of $ 1.9 billion a year to broadcast NFL games through 2021 and is combining with TNT to pay about $ 2.6 billion a year to broadcast NBA games through 2024- 25. FS1 has had agreements to televise college football, college basketball, baseball and mixed martial arts, among others.

Even if Fox Sports doesn’t secure such lucrative programming for FS1, Billings suggests it could bid up the price so high that it makes it harder for ESPN to secure other broadcasting rights. And that could leave openings for other sports for FS1.

“FS1 has definitely sought greater space in youth- oriented sports, such as mixed martial arts,” he said. “The question remains as to where FS1 would logically expand in the coming years.”

FS1 is trying to win battles right now, even if ESPN dismisses some as one- off skirmishes.

Fox Sports issued a news release last month noting that Undisputed for the first time beat SportsCenter on ESPN2 during the morning of Jan. 5 — 122,000 to 121,000, according to Nielsen figures. The release noted one year earlier ESPN2’ s audience size was 23 times the size of FS1’ s during that same morning slot.

Horowitz cited similar individual victories against ESPN in the last year. “I always tell the team, ‘ Little by little, better and better,’ ” he said. “And it would seem that, based on some of the press releases at our competitor, we’ve got their full attention now.”

Other variables promise to complicate the future for both networks. Consumers have been cutting down on cable TV sub- scriptions in favor of cheaper, mobile forms of entertainment, such as digital streaming on other devices. ESPN has lost about 9 million cable subscribers since 2013, according to regulatory filings and Nielsen data. Success might depend on figuring out the best way to monetize that trend with the most attractive offerings.

“It’s something we spend a lot of time thinking about and discussing: how we make sure we stay a few steps ahead,” John Entz, Fox Sports president of production and executive producer, told USA TODAY Sports.

With FS1, he said, “Everybody feels incredibly positive about the direction we’re going.”

So the battles continue, day by day and hour by hour.

“Skeptics continue to point at each individual success at FS1 as a one- off,” Horowitz said. “But how many one- offs do there have to be before people have to start admitting it’s a pattern? People have said Undisputed’s success is a one- off and Colin Cowherd’s success is a one- off and the baseball postgame success is one- off.

“OK, how many of these before we start to say, ‘ They’re really building something?’ I think we’re at that point.”

KIRBY LEE, USA TODAY SPORTS Fox Sports, which has chipped away at ESPN’s dominance, is going full tilt with Super Bowl coverage. “We’ve got their full attention now,” Fox Sports executive Jamie Horowitz says.