Speaking at the Goldman Sachs Communacopia conference in New York on Thursday, 9/20:
Q: What is your interest level in may be building on a, taking a Speed and converting into more like a national kind of sports network?
Chase Carey:
"I mean, there been rumors and speculation, we obviously haven’t announced anything. We think
those channels do give us a real opportunity to do some really exciting things. And we do like the
sports business, it’s been great for us, certainly the Regionals have been a great part of our
business and our national sports networks which are really-- those are in much more a state of
infancy. We’ve added some dimensions in terms of content. We recognize sports-- certainly there’s a clock that comes with it that you got to navigate, but I think the importance of sports, the weakness of sports, the live nature of sports, the passion around sports. It doesn't get fragmented. There is only one NFL, there’s only one MLB, there’s only one Pac-12, there is only one UFC, I think it becomes more important than ever. I think in this world you’re going to have-- hits are going to just continue to get more important in every area whether it’s hits in news, hits in entertainment or hits in sports and probably there are no stronger hits than sports. And I think the value of that unique content will continue to really drive a lot of things around and there’s all these platforms evolved, like it is that unique content where I think disproportionately the value of accrual and I think, those were sort of more in distinguished, more content sitting in the middle I think are
places that are, they’re going to have more trouble and I think the world will get more competitive.
"I think this is a great industry with real growth but I think that competition is going to have winners
and losers. And I think the winners will be those that have breadth and strength and unique hit
content and I think that’s going to drive a lot of this. So we like certainly domestically, again have
our eyes open to navigating the cost but we think sports content really opens an array of
opportunities for us to have whether [indiscernible] others. That we’ve used it to widen FX and I
think there are array of things we can do. Certainly FUEL has gone from a channel that was really,
probably truly a mix channel that really didn’t have enough on identity to really with the USC kind of
taking on kind of new life. So I think that the opportunities presented by those franchises we think
will drive and I think both the individual channels and drive a larger home."
Q: On the top of the sports, I mean, I noticed that there seems to be more sports popping up on Fox broadcast, like in Prime Time, like for instance the Pac-12 game, the USC Stanford game, a great game to have last weekend. And then also in FX, I think you started to put on some big 12. So it seems like there is sort of almost like a mix message in the sense like you are taking your existing channels maybe sprinkling in some sports and then there is this big rumor of you are going to launch a full blown national sports network?
Chase Carey:
"Yeah, I mean we’re going to be prudent, I mean people say we are going to go after ESPN, I mean
we are not – I mean ESPN is in a different game. I think for us we think the real opportunity is to
build intelligent businesses. We think that sports-- Fox to me is all about events and we have event
programming on Fox, I think games like USC - Stanford fit that mantra and added to mention again I
think it widened effects, but I think these sports will give us opportunities to continue to grow these
businesses."
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