Get to know Fox Sports 1: It's here to stay

The cable television jokes are plentiful today. Iowa State announced its annual football game against Iowa will be staged at 5 p.m. Sept. 14 and held on Fox Sports 1.

Right now, Fox Sports 1 (soon known by the acronym FS1) is Speed Channel. Immediate thoughts have Iowa-Iowa State football following a trucks race. But on Aug. 17, Speed Channel relaunches as FS1. It will be a cable-sports game changer. Very quickly it will become to Fox what ESPN is to ABC, at least in the college football and basketball world.

FS1 is built in a similar vein as NBC Sports Network, which originally was christened "Outdoor Life" and then "Versus" until Comcast and NBC Universal merged in 2011. In early 2012, Versus became NBC Sports Network.

From day one Fox Sports 1 will carry a higher profile than NBC Sports Network or CBS Sports Network. Many of the sporting events the Fox family of networks airs on its regional affiliates (Fox Sports Midwest, Fox Sports North, etc.), will receive a national boost. FS1 already is available in 90 million homes as Speed Channel. There will be few calls to cable companies in the fall because the channel already is on the lineup.

FS1 will carry Pac-12, Big 12 and Conference USA football and men's basketball games starting this fall. It airs Texas' Thanksgiving night football game against Texas Tech (opposing ESPN's Ole Miss-Mississippi State), and it will televise Oklahoma-Baylor on Nov. 7 against ESPN's Oregon-Stanford game. The channel's opening weekend Pac-12 football games include Utah State at Utah (Aug. 29) and Boise State at Washington (Sept. 1). It plans to air at least three football games every Saturday.

FS1 also will broadcast college basketball games on Mondays, Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. In 2014, it picks up Major League Baseball every Saturday plus the playoffs. In 2015 it will air NASCAR Sprint Cup races and the women's World Cup. It owns men's World Cup coverage in 2018 and 2022.

The network hired Canada's top tandem of Dan O'Toole and Jay Onrait and also picked up Charissa Thompson, a former BTN reporter and ESPN personality. It has a lot of momentum right now.

The Big Ten will engage in the most lucrative television negotiation in college sports history for the 2016 football season. The league owns 49 percent of BTN and with Fox owning 51 percent, it's possible the Big Ten could land an exclusive deal with Fox/FS1. That means cross-platform games for all three networks. Maybe it picks up a few college basketball games, too.

So, the Iowa-Iowa State game this year might seem a little out of place on FS1. But within a few years, fans might clamor for games on that channel.