Fox Sports 1 Launch: LeBron James Interview, UFC Fight Night 26 Results, Highlights, Results
The highly anticipated debut of Fox Sports' TV channel has finally launched this past weekend. The question is, did Fox Sports 1's launch live up to the billing and will it be able to compete with ESPN? Starting on Saturday, two round the clock sports channels, Fox Sports 1 and Fox Sports 2 began airing. The launch of the new sports network and ESPN's newest rivals comes with some big names, including legendary TV personality Regis Philbin. Fox Sports 1 also conducted an interview with Miami Heat star LeBron James on its first day during its daily Fox Sports Live program. UFC Fight Night 26 also aired Saturday night.
Fox Sports 1's NFL team is impressive on paper. The Hollywood Reporter notes that the NFL team includes former NFL stars such as Terry Bradshaw, Troy Aikman, Howie Long, Jimmy Johnson, Michael Strahan. Philbin's show, Crowd Goes Wild, will debut Monday as the 81-year-old hosts the daily afternoon show. Crowd Goes Wild will air at 5pm ET every weekday with a set group of co-hosts and a rotating member. The first week is said to feature Oscar De La Hoya, Metta World Peace, and Rickie Fowler in the guest hosting chair.
Among the sports Fox Sports will have the rights to includes amateur golf, auto racing, horse racing, UFC, boxing, soccer, high school and college football. However, these are nothing compared to ESPN's NBA regular season games, regular season MLB games, some college football bowl games, the Masters, British Open, Wimbledon, U.S. Open and others.
In addition to LeBron James' interview the other big event for Fox Sports 1 on its launch day was the airing of UFC Fight Night 26 from the TD Garden in Boston. According to MMAMania.com, the network "hit a grand slam." This is only one event, but it's a very good sign. Sports fans will respect solid coverage of sports events and if they can give fans good coverage, they will watch.
It will be interesting to see how the rest of Fox Sports 1's launch week continues.