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Media and sports are actually extremely simple businesses to explain. Whomever gets big numbers–be they ratings or victories–gets to keep their job. Whomever doesn’t is out. Period. Dot. The end.
So it wasn’t the most surprising or unexpected news that THE ATHLETIC’s hyper-connected Andrew Marchand broke about a bad day on Pico Boulevard for a few underachievers in the FOX Sports universe. Among others, SPORTS ILLUSTRATED’s Patrick Andres deemed it newsworthy enough to reamplify:
Fox Sports 1 is reportedly reshuffling its programming deck—and getting rid of several network veterans’ shows with it. The network is canceling Breakfast Ball, The Facility and Speak, according to a Monday afternoon report from Andrew Marchand of The Athletic. Joy Taylor, the host of Speak, is reportedly out at the network upon the expiration of her contract.
And as THE SPUN’s Andrew Holleran added, the default reason was the usual suspect:
“The three shows struggled to find a huge audience, prompting the cancellations, according to sources briefed on the decision,” The Athletic first reported on Monday.
Quite true. They competed head-to-head-ish with the onslaught of similar ESPN programming during the usual live event-less daytime hours headed by the likes of Stephen A. Smith, Pat McAfee, Tony Kornheiser and Michael Wilbon. And when Nielsen figures were compiled–even the ones that factor in viewing from bars and other unconnected screens–it was as much of a rout in ESPN’s favor as an early season FBS-FCS college football showdown. The kind that those networks carry on their weekend off hours for practically all of September.
But since it’s FOX, there’s often some other reason besides just numbers for something to go down. And in Taylor’s case, there was a leftover stench from the administration that greenlit those cancelled shows in the first place. One has to seek out a resource as unlikely as THE HINDUSTAN TIMES for background, courtesy of the Eastern Hemisphere’s apparent answer to Marchand, Shamik Banerjee:
(A)t the center of the controversy is a sexual battery lawsuit by a former makeup artist at the show against the show’s former executive producer, Charlie Dixon. Joy Taylor’s involvement in the lawsuit as one of the co-accused has stirred up quite a controversy. The make-up artist, Noushin Faraji, had accused Dixon of sexual battery and alleged that when she told Taylor about it, the latter asked Faraji to “to get over it.” While Dixon has been out of the network since April 2025, Taylor continues to deny the allegations. Yet, the controversy has refused to leave her.
From my own personal experience, the last thing anyone wants to deal with on a day-to-day basis is a determined FOX lawyer. So unless your numbers are up there with, say, the level that Tucker Carlson or Bill O’Reilly used to deliver, consider yourself history. So ta-ta, Tay-Tay. Your big brother Jason’s just gonna have to get you another job somewhere else.
Not to be outdone, the network also sent packing several other personalities with some checkered pasts of their own. LARRY BROWN SPORTS recapped the list of other now underemployed luminaries:
The other co-hosts for “Speak” included Paul Pierce and Keyshawn Johnson. “Breakfast Ball” was hosted by Craig Carton, Danny Parkins and Mark Schlereth. “The Facility” was a newer show, and it had been co-hosted by former NFL players Emmanuel Acho, Chase Daniel, James Jones and LeSean McCoy.
Google the histories of folks like Johnson, Carton and Acho (as well as Michael Irvin, another purged talent Brown somehow missed). I’d suspect there were some deep background files in those intrepid FOX lawyers’ files on them as well.
So now seems to be a time for FS1 to wipe its slate and its sorry ass as clean as possible from the choices that Charlie Dixon made both in content and in life. Not a moment too soon it would seem. The rumor mill is already rampant with names of replacements that the network swears they will hire. Yet another SPORTS ILLUSTRATED scribe, Eva Geitheim, name-dropped a few late yesterday:
With FS1 switching up their programming, Front Office Sports reported that the network could be “in play” for several new on-air talents to the network, including former Around the Horn host Tony Reali, former ESPN personality Max Kellerman and Up & Adams host Kay Adams. All three are seasoned sports hosts and on-air talents, and would help provide a new look to FS1 programming.
Yep, they are seasoned. But when your competition is running out mega-media stars with nine-figure contracts and cross-promotion across a gamut of streaming platforms, and is aggressively planning a fall launch to make them the faces of a long-awaited direct-to-consumer offering, now may not be the best time for the playbook page “run it back” to be referenced.
At the risk of losing even more overreactive folks who aren’t open to a logical, fact-based premise, allow me to offer a potential pivot that, in actuality, would merely involve utilizing assets and individuals that won’t require recruiting or even opening up a new set of internal files for. Because they happen to already technically be part of the FOX Sports family.
Allow me to introduce some of you to a technical corporate cousin to FS1 which Wikipedia quietly defines as follows:
OutKick is an American sports and political commentary website owned by Fox Corporation. Founded by Clay Travis, the site features news, opinion pieces, and podcasts surrounding sports and popular culture, presented from a conservative perspective. Travis sold the company to Fox Corporation in 2021, with the site integrated into the Fox Sports division. The site also synergizes with Fox News.
Travis sold the company to the Fox Corporation on May 6, 2021, stating that the new ownership of the website will allow it to dramatically grow in size and reach a broader audience.[5] Variety assessed that the purchase was for Fox to have a rival to Barstool Sports, which also saw a massive increase in internet popularity from 2020 to 2021.[6][7] The website hired social media personality Tomi Lahren as a new personality to host its afternoon opinion talk-show in June 2022.[8] After its acquisition by Fox, OutKick grew from 10 employees prior to the acquisition to over 50, and opened a new larger office in Nashville in March 2023.[9]
On July 31, 2023, Fox News streaming service Fox Nation began to carry OutKick video content, including episodes of its shows OutKick The Show, Tomi Lahren Is Fearless and Gaines For Girls following their premieres on OutKick and YouTube.[10] On January 25, 2024, it was announced that wrestler Tyrus—a Fox News contributor and regular panelist on its talk show Gutfeld!—would helm a new show for the platform entitled Maintaining with Tyrus.[11] As of 2024, OutKick’s annual revenue was estimated at somewhere between $345,000 and $620,000.[12]
That’s not exactly a massive numbers story. FOX Nation doesn’t exactly brag about their content’s popularity; on the other hand, they reportedly only have 2.5 million subscribers. And at least their trajectory has a plus sign in front of it. Unlike the ones that FS1 referenced yesterday.
The OUTKICK website already has synergies with FOX Sports’ digital content. And as a reminder, the company has its own plans for a fall direct-to-consumer platform that will include content from FOX News (and, by inclusion, FOX Nation). And they are bragging like crazy about those Nielsen numbers of late.
As I’ve previously mused, I was intricately involved in a massive corporate project at the turn of the century that attempted to assess the value of the FOX brand across the myriad media businesses that were utilizing it at the time. At that point, FOX Sports Net was emerging as a national rebrand to a rollup of theretofore unaffiliated regional sports networks. The reinforcement of the words FOX SPORTS was ubiquitous and actually helped that business sector grow in importance and revenue. Flash forward to today and FSN is history–what remains of those channels is limping along as FanDuel Sports Net and now are more associated with the dangers of gambling addiction than anything else. And, of course, 20th Century FOX and FX now belong to the Disney organization.
I’m pretty damn sure if this study were replicated today by FOX Sports and FS1 the association with FOX News would be pretty significant–far more than it was a quatrter-century ago. I’d like to think the current executive team has already commissioned something to that effect, or at least are thinking about it. Especially with FOX ONE allegedly on its way. It sure couldn’t hurt to have something else to buttress their value proposition, as it’s pretty clear at this moment FS1 isn’t quite pulling its weight.
And if you are considering any such steps and perhaps need a little extra personpower, my hand is raised high and energetically. I’m pretty seasoned myself, ya know.
Courage…