Fox Sports 2 (FS2) is an American sports-oriented

pay television Pay television, also known as subscription television, premium television or, when referring to an individual service, a premium channel, refers to subscription-based television services, usually provided by multichannel television providers, b ...

channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of

Fox Corporation Fox Corporation (stylized in all-caps as FOX Corporation) is a publicly traded American mass media company operated and controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New York City. Incorporated ...

. The channel is based at the Fox Sports division's headquarters on the Fox Studio Lot in the

Century City Century City is a 176-acre (71.2 ha) neighborhood and business district in Los Angeles, California. Located on the Westside to the south of Santa Monica Boulevard around 10 miles (16 km) west of Downtown Los Angeles, Century City is one of ...

section of

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

. The network was founded as Fuel TV on July 1, 2003, focusing on the culture of

extreme sports Action sports, adventure sports or extreme sports are activities perceived as involving a high degree of risk. These activities often involve speed, height, a high level of physical exertion and highly specialized gear. Extreme tourism overl ...

, including

skateboarding Skateboarding is an action sport originating in the United States that involves riding and performing tricks using a skateboard, as well as a recreational activity, an art form, an entertainment industry job, and a method of transportation ...

snowboarding Snowboarding is a recreational and competitive activity that involves descending a snow-covered surface while standing on a snowboard that is almost always attached to a rider's feet. It features in the Winter Olympic Games and Winter Paralympic ...

wakeboarding Wakeboarding is a water sport in which the rider, standing on a wakeboard (a board with foot bindings), is towed behind a motorboat across its wake and especially up off the crest in order to perform aerial maneuvers. A hallmark of wakeboardin ...

motocross Motocross is a form of off-road motorcycle racing held on enclosed off-road circuits. The sport evolved from motorcycle trials competitions held in the United Kingdom. History Motocross first evolved in Britain from motorcycle trials competiti ...

surfing Surfing is a surface water sport in which an individual, a surfer (or two in tandem surfing), uses a board to ride on the forward section, or face, of a moving wave of water, which usually carries the surfer towards the shore. Waves suitable ...

BMX BMX, an abbreviation for bicycle motocross or bike motocross, is a cycle sport performed on BMX bikes, either in competitive BMX racing or freestyle BMX, or else in general street or off-road recreation. History BMX began during the earl ...

and FMX. The network's prominence expanded further with the introduction of UFC

mixed martial arts Mixed martial arts (MMA), sometimes referred to as cage fighting, no holds barred (NHB), and ultimate fighting, and originally referred to as Vale Tudo is a full-contact combat sport based on striking, grappling and ground fighting, incor ...

programming to its lineup in 2012 as part of a wider deal with Fox Sports. On August 17, 2013, Fuel TV was rebranded as Fox Sports 2, refocusing primarily as an overflow channel for the newly launched mainstream sports network

Fox Sports 1 Fox Sports 1 (FS1) is an American pay television channel owned by the Fox Sports Media Group, a unit of Fox Corporation. FS1 replaced the motorsports network Speed on August 17, 2013, at the same time that its companion channel Fox Sports 2 ...

. The relaunch of Fuel TV as FS1's sister network received little advanced promotion. As of September 2018, approximately 57.5 million households (62.3 percent of households with cable TV) receive Fox Sports 2.

History

As Fuel TV

The network's concept originated in several

programming concepts. One of them originated from Alistair Gosling, founder of the Extreme Sports Channel and Extreme Sports TV distribution and production compan
Extreme
The concept, taken by Gosling to David Sternberg of

Fox Sports Net Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Mar ...

, focused on expanding the coverage of extreme sports. This was translated into growing the existing programming block on the

regional sports networks In the United States and Canada, a regional sports network (RSN) is a cable television channel (many of which are also distributed on direct broadcast satellite services) that presents sports programming to a local market or geographical region. ...

Fox Sports Net airing in the early evenings during the early 2000s on the network's affiliates, which included ''Blue Torch TV'' and ''EX TV'', and combining it with brokered arrangements for individual shows which included among others ''New Waves Surf Television'' and ''16MM'', along with ideas from the Europe-based Extreme Sports Chanternberg, CJ Olivares and Lloyd Bryan Adams. Another spoke was the network's name, from a concept conceived and launched by independent producer Chris Braly as a weekly regional music and extreme sports broadcast that debuted on September 8, 2001, on WB affiliate

WFLI-TV WFLI-TV (channel 53) is a television station licensed to Cleveland, Tennessee, United States, serving the Chattanooga area as an affiliate of The CW and MyNetworkTV. It is owned by MPS Media, which maintains a local marketing agreement (LMA) wit ...

(channel 53, now a CW affiliate) in

Chattanooga, Tennessee Chattanooga ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Hamilton County, Tennessee, United States. Located along the Tennessee River bordering Georgia, it also extends into Marion County on its western end. With a population of 181,099 in 2020 ...

, using

paid programming Paid or PAID may refer to: * ''Paid'' (1930 film), an American film starring Joan Crawford * ''Paid'' (2006 film), a Dutch film *''Personality and Individual Differences'', a journal See also * Paide Paide is a town in Estonia and the ...

time on that station on Saturday evenings.

News Corporation News Corporation (abbreviated News Corp.), also variously known as News Corporation Limited, was an American multinational mass media corporation controlled by media mogul Rupert Murdoch and headquartered at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in New ...

eventually negotiated a buyout of the concept and trademark in late 2003. The regional weekly version of Fuel TV aired its final episode on WFLI in September of that year. The Fuel TV cable and satellite channel featured programs ranging from original series, exclusive events, licensed films and creative interstitials. Extreme sports programming was formerly the bulk of the network, with a diverse combination of sports, music, reality programming, extreme sports news and other content, including comedic programs. Beginning in late 2011, Fuel became the official cable home of the

Ultimate Fighting Championship The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is an American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company based in Las Vegas, Nevada. It is owned and operated by Zuffa, a wholly owned subsidiary of Endeavor Group Holdings. It is the largest MMA ...

as part of a broader agreement between Fox and the mixed martial arts promotion, featuring pre-match and analysis programming involving the circuit such as the weekly ''UFC Tonight'', along with

undercard In sports, a card lists the matches taking place in a title match combat-sport event. Cards include a main event match and the undercard listing the rest of the matches. The undercard may be divided into a midcard and a lower card, according to ...

fights for UFC

pay-per-view Pay-per-view (PPV) is a type of pay television or webcast service that enables a viewer to pay to watch individual events via private telecast. Events can be purchased through a multichannel television platform using their electronic program g ...

events. By the second half of 2012, Fuel TV's lineup consisted solely of

combat sport A combat sport, or fighting sport, is a competitive contact sport that usually involves one-on-one combat. In many combat sports, a contestant wins by scoring more points than the opponent, submitting the opponent with a hold, disabling the oppo ...

s (such as MMA and boxing) and reruns of reality programs from sister channel

Speed In everyday use and in kinematics, the speed (commonly referred to as ''v'') of an object is the magnitude of the change of its position over time or the magnitude of the change of its position per unit of time; it is thus a scalar quant ...

. With the

2012–13 Premier League The 2012–13 Premier League (known as the Barclays Premier League for sponsorship reasons) was the 21st season of the Premier League, the English professional league for association football clubs, since its establishment in 1992, and the 114 ...

season, extra live and recorded

Premier League The Premier League (legal name: The Football Association Premier League Limited) is the highest level of the men's English football league system. Contested by 20 clubs, it operates on a system of promotion and relegation with the English Fo ...

matches were carried on Fuel TV, giving

Fox Soccer Fox Soccer (formerly Fox Soccer Channel & Fox Sports World before that) was an American television specialty channel specializing in soccer, owned by Fox Corporation, which operated from 1997 to 2013. It formerly broadcast rugby and Australia ...

three venues to carry live matches on Premier League match days; this began in May 2012 with Fuel carrying one of nine games on the final day of the Premier League season as part of Fox Sports's " Survival Sunday" effort to air all that day's Premier League matches across the division's cable properties. In March 2013, Fuel TV began airing coverage of the

Rugby Football League The Rugby Football League is the governing body for professional rugby league in England, and until 1995 for the whole British Isles. The name Rugby Football League previously also referred to the main league competition run by the organisat ...

(RFL)

Super League The Super League (officially known as the Betfred Super League due to sponsorship from Betfred and legally known as Super League Europe), is the top-level of the British rugby league system. At present the league consists of twelve teams, of w ...

and

Championship In sport, a championship is a competition in which the aim is to decide which individual or team is the champion. Championship systems Various forms of competition can be referred to by the term championship. Title match system In this system ...

Relaunch as Fox Sports 2

In January 2013, alongside reports that

was to be replaced by a national sports network known as

(which was officially announced by Fox on March 5, 2013, for an August 17 launch), it was reported that Fox was planning to rebrand Fuel TV as a companion network – Fox Sports 2 – a name which Fox had filed a

trademark A trademark (also written trade mark or trade-mark) is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognizable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from ot ...

application for on November 27, 2012. As opposed to the widely publicized launch of Fox Sports 1, the impending replacement of Fuel TV with Fox Sports 2 was met with relatively little fanfare, and was only announced roughly a week prior. The relaunch of the channel as Fox Sports 2 took place on August 17, 2013, at the same time that Speed was replaced by Fox Sports 1. Upon the relaunch, the channel was expanded into a mainstream sports service with a wider variety of content, although

s (such as UFC programs) remained an integral part of the lineup. Fuel's signature UFC program, '' UFC Tonight'', moved over to Fox Sports 1 with the launch. The network's two highest-rated telecasts came from UFC events temporarily airing on FS2 due to overruns on FS1. The first bout of the UFC 200 preliminary card (moved due to

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding t ...

overruns on FS1) drew an average of 582,000 viewers, a network high. The first main card bout of UFC Fight Night: Swanson vs. Lobov also aired on FS2 in April 2017, drawing an average of 430,000 viewers. After the move of the rights for the UFC to

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

and

ESPN+ ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The c ...

in 2019, its schedule has become more varied, and is less tied to a certain sport than in the past.

Programming

Fox Sports 2 features reruns of some of the news and analysis programs broadcast by Fox Sports 1. Sports programming post-UFC includes overflow coverage of events aired by Fox Sports 1, such as

Big East The Big East Conference is a collegiate athletic conference that competes in NCAA Division I in ten men's sports and twelve women's sports. Headquartered in New York City, the eleven full-member schools are primarily located in Northeast and ...

basketball,

Mountain West The Mountain West Conference (MW) is one of the collegiate athletic conferences affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS) (formerly I-A). The MW officially began operations ...

football and basketball, and

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

, along with second-tier programming that formerly would have aired as part of the

Fox Sports Networks Fox Sports Networks (FSN), formerly known as Fox Sports Net, was the collective name for a group of regional sports channels in the United States. Formed in 1996 by News Corporation, the networks were acquired by The Walt Disney Company on Ma ...

schedule. Fox Sports 2 also shows select

ARCA Menards Series The ARCA Menards Series is an American stock car series, the premier division of the Automobile Racing Club of America (ARCA). It is considered a minor, semi-professional league of stock car racing, used as a feeder series into the three nation ...

races live. Limited coverage of the

Australian Football League The Australian Football League (AFL) is the only fully professional sports, professional competition of Australian rules football. Through the AFL Commission, the AFL also serves as the sport's governing body and is responsible for controlling ...

moved to Fox Sports 2 from

Fox Soccer Plus Fox Soccer Plus (formerly Setanta Sports) is an American sports channel dedicated to soccer and rugby league. Launched in 2005 by the Irish sports broadcaster Setanta Sports to offer live and tape-delayed mainstream sports events in the United ...

(simulcast from Australia via the Seven Network along with full coverage of the

State of Origin series The State of Origin series is an annual best-of-three rugby league series between two Australian state representative sides, the New South Wales Blues and the Queensland Maroons. Referred to as “Australian sport's greatest rivalry”, the ...

live from Australia's

Nine Network The Nine Network (stylised 9Network, commonly known as Channel Nine or simply Nine) is an Australian commercial free-to-air television network. It is owned by parent company Nine Entertainment and is one of five main free-to-air television netw ...

. This move has proven popular with fans in the United States due to the growing fanbase for

Australian rules football Australian football, also called Australian rules football or Aussie rules, or more simply football or footy, is a contact sport played between two teams of 18 players on an oval field, often a modified cricket ground. Points are scored by k ...

in the country. According to the websites of the Australian Football Association of North America and Fox Soccer Plus, Fox Sports has extended its current deal until 2016. Fox Sports 2 televised some regular season games and finals matches, while most of the 2015 season was aired on Fox Soccer Plus. As of 2019, UFC-related programming no longer airs on the channel due to UFC's new deal with ESPN which started that same year. In May 2018, it was reported that due to viewer backlash surrounding a preemption of part of a

Washington Washington commonly refers to: * Washington (state), United States * Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States ** A metonym for the federal government of the United States ** Washington metropolitan area, the metropolitan area centered o ...

Stanford Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. S ...

football game from FS1 to FS2 due to a

NASCAR Camping World Truck Series The NASCAR Craftsman Truck Series is a pickup truck racing series owned and operated by the National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, and is the only series in NASCAR to race production pickup truck based stock cars. The series is one of ...

race, that Fox would now prefer using

Fox Business Network Fox Business (officially known as Fox Business Network, or FBN) is an American business news channel and website publication owned by the Fox News Media division of Fox Corporation. The channel broadcasts primarily from studios at 1211 Avenu ...

(which has distribution more in line with FS1, and only carries non-critical

on weekends) for

Pac-12 The Pac-12 Conference is a collegiate athletic conference, that operates in the Western United States, participating in 24 sports at the NCAA Division I level. Its football teams compete in the Football Bowl Subdivision (FBS; formerly Divisi ...

overflow in the future. In 2020, Fox Sports 2 started broadcasting weekly

Major League Rugby Major League Rugby (MLR or USMLR) is a professional rugby union competition and the top-level championship for clubs in North America. In the 2022 season it was contested by thirteen teams: twelve from the United States and one from Canada. Off ...

matches as well as reruns of the 1989

roller derby Roller derby is a roller skating contact sport played by two teams of fifteen members. Roller derby is played by approximately 1,250 amateur leagues worldwide, mostly in the United States. Game play consists of a series of short scrimmages (jam ...

program ''

RollerGames ''RollerGames'' is a U.S. television series that presented a theatrical version of the sport of roller derby, and featured a number of skaters who had been in the Roller Games league (1961–1975), as well as younger participants. It was broadca ...

''.

References

External links

Fox Sports
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fox Sports 2 2003 establishments in the United States 2 Television channels and stations established in 2013 Fox Sports Sports television networks in the United States Television networks in the United States