Never swing down. That’s the rule. It’s why I don’t take shots at any other local sports blogs anymore.

Anyway, ESPN doesn’t subscribe to it, because today they curiously threw a needless, petty, feels like Donald Trump wrote this haymaker at FOX Sports 1, who obviously loses to ESPN in the ratings:

Network rating battles can be a sport in and of themselves, providing entertainment for media watchdogs, and sometimes, we have to admit, an element of fun to our industry’s competitive landscape.

Since FS1’s creation, its executives have naturally targeted ESPN, but it can be hard to keep up with their changing focus. Their target moves with the speed of a Tom Brady pass over the middle, and with the elusiveness of Julio Jones.

Their aim at first was very broad: It started with ESPN overall, then late night SportsCenter, then late afternoon, then First Take and now, very narrowly, the 10 a.m. ET SportsCenter on ESPN2.

Like the other targets, SportsCenter is alive and well. This Digiday story explores how SportsCenteris successfully evolving. And the next innovation is SC6, which premieres Feb. 6. And for the record, since we switched First Take to ESPN, ESPN2 continues to top “Undisputed” in its time slot (175K to 132K).

As the target shifts again, we thought it would be helpful to deconstruct the history, with help from the words of Fox executives.

They then went on to list all the specific shows and time slots FOX took aim at and have fallen short of. Nothing like playing into the stereotype of an out-of-touch behemoth by pounding your chest over TV ratings against an upstart rival to distract from the fact that you’re losing subscribers and their carriage fees that your business is built around. But sure, you’re beating FOX. AOL beat Prodigy for a while, too.