One of the biggest blowouts of last year's college football season was the viewership battle between ESPN's College GameDay and Fox Sports 1's Fox College Saturday. The final numbers: Game Day averaged 1,830,000 viewers while FCS averaged 73,000. ESPN said GameDay's least-viewed episodes had more viewers than all but three of FS1's game telecasts. Fox College Saturday also had another bad trend: The show opened with 107,000 viewers and sank to 44,000 viewers on Nov. 23.If you ask people at competing sports networks how to attack a dominant show, they'll tell you that you have to do something totally different than the prevailing leader -- and FS1 appears to be heading in that direction. Multiple sources have told SI.com that Fox Sports management is considering moving Fox College Saturday to Friday night and changing up some of the staffing. There is also talk of starting a new college football show on Saturday that will be gambling-centric, similar to what Fox Sports Live did during the NCAA basketball tournament when it did live remotes from Las Vegas. Nothing is finalized as of yet.
"Like we do after every one of our sports properties' season concludes, we discuss and evaluate how we can make our coverage better for the viewers," said Fox Sports spokesperson Dan Bell on Sunday. "That process and those discussions are still ongoing regarding our college football production plans."
Of course no matter the format or content play, or even staying at status quo, Fox Sports 1 is going to struggle to siphon viewers from GameDay given ESPN's dominant position and standing with viewers on Saturday mornings. But there is more trouble for FS1 on the horizon -- ESPN's upcoming SEC Network. The new network's pregame show ("SEC Nation") debuts August 28 at Columbia, S.C. That show will air every Saturday from 10-noon ET and features known broadcasting talent (see below). It will also have the benefit of being onsite at some of college football's great venues. There's also NBCSN's Saturday coverage of Premier League soccer, a property that gained a healthy amount of sports viewers last year. It's a killer timeslot.
Interestingly, Fox Sports 1 is clearly considering pushing gaming as an element of its coverage and that play has potential -- as well as some downside. Smart gambling segments are interesting and it's an untapped market in sports television. But such segments can also quickly become little more than a hot takes personality screaming out picks and praising himself (it's always a dude) when a pick hits the previous week. Gambling is also something that makes the NCAA queasy. It's going to be interesting to see where Fox Sports lands here -- it'll be tough to top the existing leader.