FS1 cable carriage estimates surpass ESPN for the first time

For the first time, the most-carried cable sports network in the United States is FS1.

Per the Sports Business Journal, Nielsen’s latest estimates indicate that FS1 is now in 71.375 million households, down from 73.906 million in January. Despite the drop, FS1 has edged ahead of ESPN, which is now in 71.321 million households. In January, ESPN had 74.153 million subscribers.

ESPN2’s carriage is nearly similar to ESPN’s. ESPN2 is in 71.318 million households, down from 74.135 million in January.

Interestingly, FS1 also surpassed the subscriber count of one of its corporate siblings. Fox News fell to 71.224 million households.

Overall, cable, satellite, and streaming households fell to 75.783 million. That’s down from 78.889 million in January, a drop of more than three million subscribers.

Every sports cable network has taken hits this year. Warner Bros. Discovery’s cable networks, which air more non-sports programming than live sports, all took huge hits. TBS and TNT each lost more than three million subscribers, falling to 70.432 million and 70.295 million, respectively. truTV lost more than 4.5 million subscribers, dropping under 70 million to 67.302 million.

USA also lost subscribers but comes out just ahead of FS1 and ESPN. The network’s subscriber loss clocked in at over 2.5 million, but it’s still in 71.395 million households.

League-operated networks also took hits, though not as severe as other sports networks due to the lower overall carriage for these networks. MLB Network lost just under a million households and now has 41.149 million subscribers. NBA TV lost under half a million and checks in at 37.925 million. NFL Network saw a bit over 1.5 million subscribers depart and is in 51.072 million households.

The drop in cable, satellite, and streaming providers has been continuous and stunning in recent years. Six years ago, in the summer of 2017, ESPN and ESPN2 were in more than 87 million households and both FS1 and the dearly departed NBCSN were in over 84 million. The ESPN networks have shed roughly 20% of their subscribers since, while FS1 has lost around 15% and NBCSN has ceased to exist.

In a different era, ESPN (along with other cable networks) was in over 100 million households. After that peak, cord-cutting began to grow in popularity and the boulder continued rolling downhill to the point we’re at right now.

Overall, FS1 being in an estimated 50,000 or so more households than ESPN and ESPN2 doesn’t change much of anything. It does give Fox another stick to poke the bear with and another talking point to market, but the slight edge in carriage won’t suddenly cause the average viewership of FS1’s studio programming to race past ESPN’s daily lineup.

[Sports Business Journal]