NBC Sports Network Gets English Premier League

[OrangePA]

The EPL has generated solid ratings for ESPN and the Fox Soccer Channel.

It seems that the effort to steal audience from ESPN is in full swing. Fox will soon launch its own version of the all sports network.

The need for content is becoming pronounced.

How will this impact college football?

 

[All4SU]

Buttgers will go Independent! ;-)

 

[Townie72]

There may a be a need for more content, but adding marginal games seems to me to be cutting the pie into increasingly smaller pieces.

There are 36 college games on TV here in DC this weekend. How many more games will the market bear. What's the viewership going to be? What really is the worth of the 37th or 38th game to advertisers? Networks are trying to make a profit here, afterall.

European Football--- EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga, UEFA --- are unique product aimed at a very narrow following.

It's a bigger audience than one might think and it's no doubt a better revenue and profit producer than the 37th, 38th and 39th games on a very crowded menu of college games. Even though the opportunities for TV ads are only before and after the games and halftime.

 

[PoppyHart]

FTR, the OP is misleading, as NBC Universal won the rights, not NBC Sports Network. The latter is just one platform for the former.

IMO, this is potentially disastrous across the board for European football fans in the U.S.

As much as it pains me to say it, from a production value, ESPN has done a world class job with its coverage over the past few years, both club and international competitions. And losing the face of the sport in Ian Darke is no small matter. Further, by ridding itself of Christopher Sullivan, Fox really took a step forward last year.

Most importantly, and yet to be decided I presume, is the issue of access. Unless NBC sublicenses its rights, its possible that we'll be seeing fewer games in coming years. Unlike ESPN and Fox with their rights to various American sports, NBC Universal has no leverage to alter match times abroad, so unless they decide to show games on their family of networks (with NBC network and Universal Sports most likely) we could be stuck with only 3 or 4 live matches a week, vs. the 6 or 7 that we currently get with the ESPN, FSC, Fox Soccer Plus combo. Hopefully they do indeed resell a time slot or two to BeIN Sport.

Streaming rights will also be interesting. NBC does a good job with the Olympics and SNF, so it should be competent and better than the Fox product which struggled initially. But whether its free, a la ESPN3, or paid is an important feature.

 

[Stern]

Doesn't effect college football at all. Not one bit! The BIG college football conferences have their TV deals in place for the next many years (SEC, Pac 12, ACC, Big 10, Big 12..etc). If NBC and FOX sports networks want to add garbage MAC, CUSA, BigEast games go for it. It will be wasted money as nobody will watch or care. Because nobody cares about those conferences or the schools in them on a national scale.

 

[IthacaMatt]

There may a be a need for more content, but adding marginal games seems to me to be cutting the pie into increasingly smaller pieces.

There are 36 college games on TV here in DC this weekend. How many more games will the market bear. What's the viewership going to be? What really is the worth of the 37th or 38th game to advertisers? Networks are trying to make a profit here, afterall.

European Football--- EPL, Bundesliga, La Liga, UEFA --- are unique product aimed at a very narrow following.

It's a bigger audience than one might think and it's no doubt a better revenue and profit producer than the 37th, 38th and 39th games on a very crowded menu of college games. Even though the opportunities for TV ads are only before and after the games and halftime.

As you kind of say, it's a bigger audience than you think, and it's not just on the margins in the US. The last World Cup drew more people for the US v. England game than they did for the NBA finals, which were going on at that time. Soccer is a great TV sport. Nonstop action for 45 minutes without a commercial. Then 15 minute halftime, and then 45 more minutes with no time outs, no commercials, and fatigue becomes a factor, just like in a prize fight. Great drama, and people are following the US national teams in ever greater numbers, thanks to the success of the women.

Unlike watching basketball, you can watch women's soccer and not feel like some aspect of the game is fatally compromised from the physical abilities / limitations of the contestants. Women's soccer is a good game, with the physical headers of the men's game - which are kind of the equivalent of the dunk in basketball. The popularity of women's soccer has helped grow interest in the men's game, in a sort of gender reversal.

 

[Alsacs]

The popularity of women's soccer has helped grow interest in the men's game, in a sort of gender reversal.

The women's game hasn't made the men's game more popular in the US, instead it has been ESPN promoting the hell of the US men's soccer team, World Cup, and Barclay's Premier League. MLS still has VERY little interest in the US Sports scene, ESPN has marketed the BPL and USMNT really well. With ESPN/FOX Soccer losing the rights I see this as a bad thing for the future of soccer in the USA. beIN TV which is a company owned by Al-Jazeria has been hard to get on the cable providers and thus making it harder to watch games. I am not going to order a channel to watch 2 US World Cup qualifiers. NBCU doesn't have the platforms to show the games that ESPN/FOX have been doing. I hope NBCU would consider subleasing a game or some games to ESPN to get some of their 83 million dollars they are paying a year. IMO I thought the best for US Soccer fans would have been for FOX/ESPN to keep the rights, NBCU winning was the 2nd best option, and the worst option would have been if beIN won the rights which thankfully they did not.