From a press release:


SPEEDVISION CONFIRMS COMMITMENT TO AMA PRO RACING COVERAGE

PICKERINGTON, Ohio – Speedvision, the motorsports cable channel acquired last July by the Fox Cable Networks Group, has announced its continued commitment to AMA Pro Racing for 2002.

Speedvision will be the television home of the AMA Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championships and will broadcast select AMA Progressive Insurance U.S. Flat Track Championship races.

“We want to make sure our network satisfies the motorcycle enthusiast market, an audience we consider extremely important to the network,” said Speedvision President Jim Liberatore. “The fact that Speedvision received tens of thousands of e-mails from motorcycle enthusiasts shows the passion of that audience.”

Bolstering Liberatore’s assertion that motorcycle racing is an important part of Speedvision’s future is the announcement from the network that it will provide live coverage of the 61st Annual Daytona 200 by Arai in March and three hours of live coverage from the event’s Supercross race.

“Our working relationship with Speedvision remains strong,” said Scott Hollingsworth, AMA Pro Racing’s CEO. “Speedvision’s coverage has greatly assisted the development of the AMA Pro Racing properties of road racing and flat track. We’ve been working with Dan Murphy at Speedvision and expect to announce our AMA Chevy Trucks U.S. Superbike Championship schedule soon with expanded television coverage for the series in 2002.”

Murphy added, “There will be some changes to the weekly program lineup in 2002 with the additional NASCAR programming. However, Two Wheel Tuesdays and our live motorcycle racing will remain intact, due to the support of the sponsors and viewers. The viewers should really thank all the sponsors of the motorcycle programming because the sponsor support gave us another compelling reason to keep all the motorcycle programming intact.”

Speedvision, which currently reaches 45 million homes, is being rebranded as Speed Channel and will be relaunched with new programming and a new logo in February of 2002. The relaunch will come one month after the channel celebrates its sixth anniversary.