Fox to Offer Bowl Game Downloads

Fox Sports will begin offering full video downloads of their Bowl Championship Series coverage on Thursday, December 28, 2006, the company announced today. Starting at $1.99 for individual preview shows and highlight videos to $19.99 for a full package of all game coverage, Fox promises to have all the media available within 24 hours of the game’s finish.

The footage will be available through most of the big media download players, including Fox’s own Direct2Drive, iTunes, Unbox, CinemaNow and AOL. Fox is the second major sports network to offer sports-related downloads.

ESPN was the first sports network to embrace the download business and has been quite successful in building up a sizeable following via the iTunes store. Fox, on the other hand is being more inclusive and signing distribution deals with most, if not all download services. This big question is how the response to downloading games after the fact will compare to Fox’s live web simulcast of the Fiesta Bowl on Monday — common wisdom holds that people strongly prefer their sports coverage to be live.