ESPN may soon no longer be the only game in town … er … leading national sports network.
Bloomberg is reporting that Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. is planning a cable channel to take on the self-proclaimed “worldwide leader” in sports programming. The Fox offering, like ESPN, would be a U.S. cable channel.
CNBC sports business reporter Darren Rovell tweeted that the working title for the channel would be Fox Sports 1. It would be run by John Entz, Fox's senior vice president of production.
The company is in the process of assembling necessary rights from cable companies and “sports organizations” the Bloomberg report said, citing “people with knowledge of the situation.”
One of those people said the channel could begin broadcasting later this year.
Other national sports networks, not as large as ESPN, include Comcast Sports Net, NBC Sports and CBS Sports.
(Msnbc.com is a joint venture of Microsoft and NBC Universal. The latter operates NBC Sports and is owned by Comcast Corp., which operates Comcast Sports Net.)
