The World's Game - Deal With Premier League Gives NBC 380 Games

October 29, 2012

Deal With Premier League Gives NBC 380 Games - New York Times

This is, well, really important even though it’s inside baseball to a lot of people – because we’re talking about the future of soccer coverage in the U.S., and there are three major American networks that have a stake in it (NBC, Fox, & ESPN) and a new cable upstart who’s making a splash (beIN Sport.) Now NBC has won the Premier League rights for next season by more than tripling what Fox & ESPN had been paying for their shared package.

NBC will pay the Premier League at least $80 million over the next three seasons, and plans to carry ALL the games live in some way – whether on its networks, online, or in pay-per-view format. NBC Sports Network will be the hub for most of the broadcasts, but I imagine the Peacock won’t hesitate to air a few games on good old free NBC on Saturday & Sunday mornings – as some of the games will air before or after affiliates’ weekend morning newscasts.

So let’s break down some of the implications:

NBC Sports Network, for many of us, is in the basic cable or satellite tier rather than the dedicated sports tier that both Fox Soccer channels are on. There will be quite a few of us who will be able to save a few bucks on the cable bill if so desired. Having watched MLS games on NBCSN, the HD quality is better than Fox Soccer’s, by a mile. That said, after the fiasco that was NBC’s attempt to have Olympic events live online via streaming, it needs to spend the next year refining and making sure that its online setup works well – because that could be the end of searching for pirate feeds for many of us. It would be beneficial for NBC to place its own teams in the UK for the broadcasts rather than going with the Fox model, where it piped in the Sky Sports commentating teams.
Fox is in a bad place: it has the Champions & Europa League rights, upcoming rights to the World Cup after 2014, and probably still has FA and League Cup action too. But it’s lost both Serie A and Premier League rights now and you need to have a major domestic league for a specialized soccer network. It built its name on airing Prem matches. The question is what it will fill the giant programming hole with – and it will have fewer opportunities to fine-tune its studio hosting, commentating, and analyst line-up before it gains the World Cup rights.
ESPN’s soccer broadcasts take another hit. 2014 will be its last World Cup, which is kind of a shame after the 2008 Euros and the 2010 World Cup showed that it had started taking soccer seriously rather than the hatchet job it had done during the ‘06 WC (where it assigned commentators who knew very little about soccer.) After 2014, will the largest name in American sports broadcasting even care about soccer? When ESPN abandoned the NHL after that league’s first lockout and the NHL went to what is now NBC Sports Network, ESPN largely pretended it didn’t exist. Unless it keeps some MLS games, seeing highlights on SportsCenter may be a rarity after 2016.
As for beIN Sport, it probably does not have to worry much – gaining the rights to three major European domestic leagues in the U.S. was enough of a coup for one year.
Unresolved issue: the one major European domestic league that does not have either major or growing penetration in the American market (in terms of a network partner) is the Bundesliga. It’s on GolTV, which had many of its rights, commentators, and thunder stolen by beIN. Could Fox swoop in here? The German league has a glamour team but a structure where quite a few squads have a chance.

Just some food for thought. What do you think of the NBC deal?

(NOTE: updated to fix a couple dates – of course the next World Cup is in 2014, not '16! Sorry!)

11:38am | URL: https://tmblr.co/ZoH2IyWCRTVS
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(Notes: 49)