The battle between News Corp. and the Walt Disney Company over the suitability and future of the former's fledgling Fox Sports West 2 regional sports cable network looks like it's about to get ugly.
Disney fired the first salvo at Fox two weeks ago when its Mighty Ducks hockey team filed suit against the network for taking the team off Fox Sports West and relegating its games to FSW2. Fox's lineup change has met with a significant backlash from major cable operators in Southern California, who have been refusing to pay hefty fees to carry the second channel since its launch on Jan. 27.
An Orange County Superior Court judge last week turned down Disney's claim that being moved to Fox Sports West 2 (with only about 350,000 subscribers to date, compared with the 4.2 million of FSW1) has had a negative impact on the team's sponsorship, public relations and game attendance at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.
But industry observers insist that the Mighty Ducks suit is mostly a smokescreen covering Disney's ongoing displeasure over the fact that Fox controls the rights to both Ducks hockey and Angels baseball games, despite the fact Disney owns both teams.
Now, sources report, Fox Sports is planning later this week to file a lawsuit of its own over the Disney situation. That suit may have less to do with the Mighty Ducks than Fox's suspicion of interference from the Mouse House.
Specifically, Fox is coming to believe that Disney may be exerting subtle influence over cable operators to avoid contracting with Fox Sports West 2. In such a scenario, Disney asks operators to hold off any decisions on FSW2 until the company reacquires the rights to its Mighty Ducks and Angels, and to package them on a newly created regional sports cable network sometime after the year 2000.
There are even reports that Disney will make a bid for the L.A. Clippers and add a third team to its pro sports stable on the hypothetical channel. That would give the company two of the three teams presently appearing on FSW2.
Of course, Disney has not come close to confirming that it will even be launching a new regional network. (Disney already owns, via its ABC acquisition, all of the ESPNs.) No Disney spokesman was available for comment on either that possibility or the charges being whispered from afar by Fox.
Fox too would not comment. But the company has hardly hidden its displeasure at having Fox Sports West 2 rejected by cable operators, and could simply be searching for scapegoats in the wake of its inability to sell the channel.
Disney sports net?
One cable system operator acknowledged having had Disney "casually mention" the fact that it had future plans to introduce a new regional sports network venture, but said it would be "stretching things to say they have lobbied us."
Another cable industry programmer, however, said that he had not been urged by Disney to bypass the new Fox channel, calling that possibility "a little hard to believe. It sounds to me like Fox just tossing the blame onto someone else's shoulders, when they should be looking at how poorly they have positioned and priced this channel."
A third operator said he would welcome a new sports channel option from Disney, "because dealing with Fox has been a nightmare." He refused to confirm or deny conversations with Disney, however.
Such major cable operators in the area as Century and Continental have stopped negotiating for Fox Sports West entirely, and only Marcus Cable of Glendale has contracted to pick up the channel that will launch a schedule of 40 Dodgers baseball games in April.
Local cable executives have expressed anger over Fox's asking 70 cents per subscriber (after free carriage during the first year) to pick up the second channel on top of $1 monthly sub fees for Fox Sports West
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