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On the hunt for Fox Family

The cable channel, not known for sports, features postseason games.

By SHARON GINN

© St. Petersburg Times,
published October 9, 2001

Not even Barry Bonds' 70th home run could knock Fox Family Channel out of its baseball ratings slump. That might not bode well for this week's division series playoff games on the network.

Fox Family will carry as many as 11 playoff games, beginning today with the Atlanta-Houston at 1 p.m. and St. Louis-Arizona at 8. The question is whether fans accustomed to turning to ESPN for division series games will find them.

Fox Family has been airing regular-season games every Thursday night since the beginning of the season, but on average, the cable network has drawn a little more than 300,000 households. That number only doubled Thursday, when San Francisco played Houston and Bonds smacked the homer that tied Mark McGwire's season record.

The low numbers have little to do with Fox Family's availability. An estimated 83.8-million of the nation's 105.5-million households with television get the network. That's slightly fewer than ESPN (85.2-million) but more than ESPN2 (80.9-million).

Fox Family has a playoff games package similar to what ESPN had from 1996-2000. Two division series also might be carried on FX, another Fox holding, but the rest will air on Fox Sports.

Though Fox is in the first year of an exclusive contract with Major League Baseball, the Fox Family package is not set in stone for next year or beyond. Disney recently announced plans to purchase Fox Family, and while the deal isn't final, it is expected to go through.

The baseball package would be included as part of the deal, so technically any of Disney's holdings -- ABC, ESPN or the soon-to-be-renamed ABC Family -- could end up with the games. But even if ratings on Fox Family remain low through the playoffs, Disney executives could decide to keep the games on the revamped network to give it an identity to build around.

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