Fox Sports will be taking its bow on the international stage for its first World Cup this week in Canada as it begins its month-long broadcast of the 2015 Women’s World Cup.  After taking the baton from ESPN, Fox has a high bar to live up to for international soccer coverage.  And fans are rightly wondering whether the network can offer the same high-quality, blanket coverage of the event as their predecessor.

One small thing that Fox is going to do to send the message that they’re serious about the Women’s World Cup is something that we’ve never seen before in sports television.  The company is rebranding their Fox Soccer Plus pay channel into the FIFA Women’s World Cup Channel for the duration of the tournament.  The “new” channel will offer replays, archival footage, and documentaries in addition to its other offerings:

FOX Soccer Plus, FOX Sports’ premium television network dedicated to delivering the world’s best soccer and international sports to hard core fans, is being temporarily re-branded on-air as FIFA Women’s World Cup™ Channel for the duration of the quadrennial tournament which runs June 6 to July 5, 2015, it was announced today by David Nathanson, FOX Sports’ Head of Business Operations.

Added to the channel’s offerings next month are replays of all FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015™ matches and programming that air live on FOX, FOX Sports 1 and FOX Sports 2, plus 17 matches from the FIFA Women’s World Cup™ archive and a FIFA Women’s World Cup™ historical documentary. Programming from the channel is also available live online via broadband video at FOXSoccer2GO.com.

“Our goal during FIFA Women’s World Cup 2015™ is to put soccer fans first by providing the best, most comprehensive multi-platform coverage this tournament has ever seen,” said Nathanson. “This channel is a tremendous complement to the approximately 200 hours of programming we have scheduled on FOX broadcast network, FOX Sports 1, FOX Sports 2 and the FOX Sports GO app.” 

Among the archive matches available are five of the six FIFA Women’s World Cup™ finals played, including all three U.S. Women’s National Team appearances: 1991, 1999 and 2011. In all, 14 of the 20 classic matches available feature the USWNT. A complete schedule of FIFA Women’s World Cup™ archive matches and nine live 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup™ matches carried on FIFA Women’s World Cup™ Channel, is provided below.

While it may just be a change of semantics, Fox needs to do everything they can to convince soccer fans that they should be taken seriously.  The presence of a Women’s World Cup channel sends that very message.  While Fox Soccer Plus won’t have live games, the replays, archival footage, and documentaries will be a nice compliment to the coverage on Fox, FS1, and FS2 for dedicated soccer fans.

[Fox Sports]