Fox Sports West/Net

We got this channel at home, briefly, for a little over a year IIRC. It was primarily a premium channel, although there were occasional weeks when the cable company would leave it unscrambled. The programming (which included a tennis tournament in New Jersey and at least one Red Sox game) was very similar to what’s on Fox Sports Net right now, which eventually replaced it.

My questions: Why did Fox Sports create a network with (supposedly) such a limited focus? I don’t remember there ever being a Fox Sports South or Midwest or whatever. How far west did the “West” refer to, anyway? And why “Net” instead of “Network” or “Channel” (FSN is the only channel I know of that uses that appellation)?

On my DirecTV system there are dozens of these channels. There is a Fox Sports West, South, SouthEast, New England, Midwest, New York, … 90% of the time they all show the same thing, but once in a while for things like college sports they do localize the game selection. From what I can see, the regions are very vague and general.

Cruise over to http://www.foxsports.net and you can see all the different flavors.

In Southern California, there are 2 Fox cable systems. Fox cable systems have a small amount of national programming, such as the National Sports Report, but a lot of it is local programming. I don’t know how many people outside of Southern California will want to see the CIF High School Football Game of the Week.

Oops, the site is http://www.foxsports.com

However, it’s undergoing a redesign and the info on the local systems is unavailable now.