This does not bode well for fans of motorsports on TV. 
(Article from another source) Ending months of speculation, News Corp. disclosed plans Tuesday to convert Charlotte-based Speed into an all-sports network known as Fox Sports 1.
The move will occur in August, network executives said during an afternoon press conference in New York. News Corp. bought the network known as Speedvision in 2001 and relocated the channel to Charlotte soon after, renaming the network as simply Speed.
Since 2008, Speed has called the University City area home, occupying a 78,000-square-foot production facility owned by the network.
A network spokesman provided a statement this afternoon from Eric Shanks, co-president of Fox Sports Media Group, signaling the future of the Charlotte production center should be secure. Speed was an all-racing network, anchored by NASCAR-related programming. Fox Sports, the News Corp. division that oversees Speed and other channels, will feature NASCAR races and shows on Fox Sports 1, too.
The main difference: Other sports, including Major League Baseball and college football and basketball, will also be featured with game broadcasts and various highlights and analysis shows. And, of course, Charlotte is no longer the headquarters; instead, Fox’s main campus in Los Angeles will be the base for Fox Sports 1.
“I think because Charlotte really has been the headquarters for all of Fox for motorsports coverage and because we’re committed to NASCAR and motorsports into the next decade and beyond, that Charlotte still continues to be not only the headquarters of motorsports for both studio and road production,” Shanks said. “Because it’s such a great facility, from Day One you’ll see more graphics production. Basically it is connected to L.A., so it really is an offshoot of the L.A. office. We can offload graphics production work, editing work to Charlotte, and then as we launch new shows, Charlotte is a viable place to actually produce new shows from.”
Speed has 120 employees in Charlotte. While that figure isn’t expected to change dramatically, the makeup of the local staff could differ because of the broader focus of the new channel. The parent company received state and local incentives worth a combined $1 million to open the new studios here five years ago.
The move makes financial sense for Fox because the network already has long-term contracts with prominent sports leagues. Last year, the media company doubled the fees it pays Major League Baseball as part of a new long-term contract. And, soon after, it increased its NASCAR deal by 36 percent to keep stock-car racing rights through 2021.
Charlotte is familiar terrain for sports TV. ESPN Regional Television and the ESPNU network call Ballantyne home, while locally based Raycom Sports is a longtime partner of the Atlantic Coast Conference. NASCAR’s in-house film and media division is based uptown.
By switching to an all-sports format, Fox is wading into a category dominated by Disney’s ESPN division, which has two networks in nearly 100 million homes plus numerous online, print and TV spinoffs.
According to industry analysts, Speed generates between 25 and 31 cents per subscriber from cable systems, but it could push that to $1 or more in the near future. That, in turn, could help the parent company double the network’s ad revenue by the end of 2014.
NBC and CBS have made similar forays with all-sports cable launches of their own. Still, they all trail ESPN by a wide margin. ESPN receives more than $5 per subscriber from cable companies, the highest rate among all cable channels.
Speed reaches 81 million U.S. homes but expects to be in 90 million by the time Fox Sports 1 launches.
<---- Sarcasm
