Around these parts, we’ve been carefully following ESPN’s not-so-quiet moves to expand into the English Premier League (suck it, Barclays!). We certainly haven’t been the only ones to notice that Sportscenter has been covering more and more European football in its highlight package and on its score tickers. Then there is the prominent placement of “soccer” on the ESPN homepage, which directs you to soccernet (of course, we can debate the quality of soccernet’s news coverage, but that’s for another post). We’ve even heard rumors that ESPN planned to convert ESPN Classic into an all-football channel. Well, yesterday Sky Sports took a major step to curtail ESPN's moves into football.
After the jump, it's time for me to go into full-on sports business wonk-mode....
As far as I could tell, ESPN’s expansion strategy looked (note the past tense) like this: snag one or more of the British broadcasting packages that were coming up for bidding in order to expand into the British market, and then start incorporating more English football into the U.S. market. You see, the model that works quite well for Sky/FSC (both owned by Rupert Murdoch) and Setanta is simply to broadcast the same games in both markets using the same broadcasting team – it’s a cost-effective move, and is only possible because the U.S. and England are separated by a common language (as opposed to, say, broadcasting NBA games in China – you still need a separate broadcast team). Plus, it’s a win-win because it allows ESPN to start expanding more into Europe, where the network is newer and has a relatively poor reputation, by drawing in viewers with football.
The other piece of background you need to know is that the English Premier League divides the broadcasting rights into six packages. Essentially, by dividing up the broadcasting rights into separate packages, the Premier League increases the overall value by forcing broadcasters to bid against each other on multiple fronts. As things currently stand in the United Kingdom, Sky paid £1.3 billion for the rights to four packages through 2010. Each Sky package includes 23 games, and consists of the two Sunday games, the first-choice Saturday afternoon game and another "floating" game. Setanta owns the other two packages, which are slightly less valuable overall and include the Saturday evening game and the Monday night game. Bids for the 2010-13 British package were due last week, and the bidding on the U.S. rights (along with the rest of the world) is expected to start once the British rights are settled.
Okay, so far so good. And this brings us to yesterday, when Sky decided they’d like to keep things the way they are, thank you very much, and were indeed re-awarded their four existing packages by the Premier League. As the Financial Times reports, for the league to shut down the bidding so soon after the bids were submitted indicates that Sky must have made a “really good knockout offer.” And, the Daily Mail reports that the bid was for an amazing £1.7 billion, which is a huge chunk of money considering the global recession.
If you take nothing else away from this story, it’s that the Premier League is in great shape financially and you can expect clubs to continue to splash out lots more cash on transfers and salaries given the large guaranteed income from T.V. rights.
As for the remaining two packages that are currently owned by Setanta, the Premier League has opened up another round of bidding. The Independent surmises this can mean one of three scenarios: (1) the bids were below what the league was expecting; (2) Setanta has a major rival and the league wants to encourage a bidding war; or (3) Setanta and ESPN were bidding together in anticipation of a possible merger. In my mind, this is where things get very interesting, because no one really knows for sure what’s going on behind the scenes. But, if I’m ESPN, I’m looking at two things: First, that Saturday evening package probably makes the most the sense for U.S. broadcasting because the games air at 12:30 p.m. on the East Coast. Second, although Setanta and ESPN have denied they are in talks, a merger makes a lot of sense if ESPN is still serious about expanding in both Europe and the U.S.
At the same time, Sky has demonstrated that they aren’t afraid to spend a large sum of money to retain their British broadcasting rights because their entire network essentially revolves around football. Sky might be willing to spend even more money and essentially stranglehold its competitors out of the market.
So, this is a still-unfolding story. To me, it is one of the more fascinating things to happen on the business-side of football because it gives a window into all the machinations that occur but are rarely seen. There’s simply way too much money involved for any of these decisions to happen at anything less than a fever pitch.
Update: Just saw on, appropriately enough, Sky Sports News that the European Union prohibits one broadcaster from having a monopoly on all games. So, that changes things a bit -- Sky likely can't bid on those last two packages, meaning it's Setanta v. ESPN for the remaining games. This also helps explain why the EPL divides up the broadcasting rights in the first place. More info here. Again, stay tuned.... we'll try to stay on top of this story.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Sky Sports to ESPN: Nice Try, Sucker! Or, Everything You Wanted to Know About Football Broadcasting Rights but Were Afraid to Ask.
Tuesday, July 8, 2008
DC United pwnz the Nationals
In the capital of this great nation, a new saying is taking hold. No longer does one say, "As American as baseball and apple pie." Nope. Now one has to replace "baseball" with "soccer". The TV ratings bear it out.
Nielsen Media Research reports that, in the 2.3 million households designated to be in the DC area, DC United matches are watched by more people that Washington Nationals games. DC United draws an average 0.5 rating, while the National have averaged 0.39. Before we get all uppity that the tide has changed, United's ratings equal out to 11,500 households and the Nationals get 9000. No world changing numbers there.
Unlike the WaPo columnist who had to add an update to placate frothing Nats fans, we will just let the numbers speak for themselves. On TV, in DC, United are better watched than the local baseball team. And that's change we can believe in.
I'm ü75, and I approved this message.
Saturday, June 28, 2008
Counterpoint: ESPN? No thanks!
For our counterpoint, we turn to one of our commenters. He was super worried about the length of his diatribe, so if you just put tl;dr in the comments, he may not be able to handle it. He does start off with a nice double entendre, so at least he is in tune with the general maturity level of this site's writers.
Won't you please welcome Mike Georger to the fight. He did a heck of a lot more research than I did.
1. Penetration: Hiding the tip
One of the biggest arguments for putting the EPL on ESPN is that it will reach more households. Let us assume that ESPN Classic would be getting it, as the talk was of turning that into ESPN 3 or whatever. Classic is not a mainstay of cable packages like its ESPN brethren; it currently reaches 65 million households. Fox Soccer Channel currently reaches 35 million households, and it has added ten million in the last year and a half alone. So while it would almost be a doubling of the households, over one in ten of American households still gets FSC. Add maybe the six or seven people who get Setanta and you’re looking at even more. It’s a jump to be sure, but not one that justifies the negatives ... now as for said negatives.
2. The Broadcasters
Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth are the mainstays of ESPN and would surely get the big games, I can deal with that, I like Rae but despise Smyth, but I can deal with it because they have good chemistry. However ESPN feels the need to stock their studio teams with former USA players such as Julie Foudy and Eric Wynalda, who are both insufferable. Foudy has been rightfully blasted around these parts, she tries too hard and cannot keep up with the wit of Smyth and Gray. Wynalda cannot be faulted; everyone knew he was a bastard, so why anyone expected him to not come across as a smug douchebag is beyond me. What worries me is decisions like that of giving primary World Cup coverage to Dave O'Brien and Marcelo Balboa. Really we are going to give the world’s biggest sporting event to a baseball announcer and someone with two years of sideline reporter experience? It was a disaster, and ESPN defending it by saying they were trying to appeal to a larger audience by using people who would call the game in simplistic terms. It was a move that was insulting to people who cared about the sport and to me showed how little ESPN understands it. JP Dellacamra, Adrian Healey, and Janusz Michallik are all very good at their jobs, but continually get overshadowed by the 'personalities' that ESPN brings out to try and pump up their coverage. I am not watching to be entertained by the zany Wynalda, I am watching to see the game I love and hear thoughtful insight and the occasional brilliant goal call (attn: Andy Gray).
Sure FSC doesn't have the best announcers for the games, often it's just one guy. However I rarely have beef with whoever is doing the games, they usually show a wide range of emotion and seem to have a good understanding of the history of the game. Truth be told I could not name one of the announcers on FSC or Setanta, and that’s having watched games there for several years, but I guarantee if I couldn’t stand them I would know their names. I have enjoyed the Liverpool league and cup games I have seen on FSC, I cannot always say the same about the Champions League games on ESPN; for Tommy Smyth to suggest Peter Crouch was benched in Athens because he was ineffectual in the tournament when in fact he was their leading scorer, that kind of mistake should not happen and just shows they really aren't putting much into it. Also, what the hell is with the distance covered statistic whenever someone is substituted? Maybe it would be more useful to show how many shots someone had, how many fouls they committed, how many corners they won, their passing percentage, or any relevant statistic. To me this just says ‘hey we are trying to show these guys run really far and therefore are top notch athletes’, this smacks of simplicity and I think just goes to show how little they understand their audience.
3. ESPN Doesn’t care about football or black people.
ESPN sees the game as an investment in my opinion, which at the base of it all I cannot fault them for as they are a business. However to me it comes across that the people at FSC generally care about the game. I cannot imagine anyone working at ESPN putting forth the clear passion for the EPL that you see on Fox Football Fone In. While admittedly the show has suffered slightly since Nick Geber left and broke the dynamic of Chelsea/Liverpool, it still fun to watch and listen to the hosts get pissed off at whatever manager or player is currently hiding his head up his own ass. When England were bounced from qualifying, they went apeshit, and rightfully so because they are English. How many English people does ESPN have, Healey and thats it? You cannot convince me that Skip Bayless or any of the talking head gas bags on PTI or Around the Horn could talk about the game the way the FSC guys do. FSC currently shows SkySports News at night, and their coverage of the EPL is magnificent. They have interviews from almost every manager from every game, and the broadcasters know the sport. On ESPN we get maybe an ESPN Deportes update buried in ESPNews showing one highlight per week. Sportscenter anchors aren't versed in the sport, they don't talk about it, and I don't want to have to goto them to get my EPL news during the week. I'll take a stacked British broad who knows the difference between Man City and Man United over Stuart Scott's booyahs any day of the week.
The Euro coverage is another example. While sure they brought in Andy Gray, look at what the BBC is doing with their coverage. Their coverage team consists of Martin O'Neill, Alan Shearer, Alan Hansen, Gordon Strachan, Marcel Desailly, and others. Thats one of the best holding midfielders ever, one of the best defenders ever, and four men who became Officers of the British Empire for their service to the game. Now that is a group of guys I would want to hear talk about this game. Face facts, a British network is going to put together a better package than an American one.
My last point here is a bit of the screenshot evidence of ESPN not giving a shit and just airing the tournament for mid afternoon ratings. These were taken Saturday and Sunday after the Holland and Spain games. The first was taken at 5:52 p.m. Roughly a half hour after Russia bounced the ember hot Dutch. Third story on the side banner, not too shabby, but really the NBA Draft gets the lead item? I gave them the benefit of the doubt thinking maybe they would update it and bump it. Four minutes later at 5:56 I was proven incredibly naive. Holy shit really an NFL piece gets the main headline? Some games had gotten the main story earlier in the tournament, so why when the NBA and NFL are both done does it get fifth billing? Ridiculous. Immediately after the Italy game I went to the gym but when I got back at eight I logged on and saw this. NOWHERE two and a half hours after a game between two of the best teams in the world. They paid millions upon millions of dollars to air this tournament and they don't even put up a story about it in their sidebar of news stories? You cannot say ESPN gives a shit about this. If you look at FSC.com after most games in the tournament they have had between one and four articles about each game. Not just AP stories either, they actually have people writing things, such a novel idea. ESPN would rather put up three stories about the NFL and two about NASCAR than one about the second biggest sporting tournament in the world.
One last cheap shot here, Soccernet.com is garbage. If you want to get information on any league outside of the big six you are out of luck. If you want to know who scored in a World Cup qualifier from the Oceanic region, you are going to have to go elsewhere. And the worst thing is that their most interesting articles on the Bundesliga and La Liga are in German and Spanish respectively. Hey thats great appeal to other countries, but realize there are English speakers that want to read those articles too.
4. Beating up government officials over the slow progress of High Definition TV
As I understand the situation, the reason there is no HD here is that the HD technology in England is vastly inferior to ours, and the cost of bringing over an HD feed is four times that of a regular one. Also, as I understand it again, Sky controls the feeds, and this is something that isn’t going to change. As much as ESPN would like to make statements that they are looking to expand, they don’t have much of a presence in England and the FA isn’t going to give them the rights to the English feeds no matter what. The NFL wouldn’t give MNF to Star Sports Asia to show in America. Sky had a monopoly until recently, and even if they are outbid by ESPN I don’t see them losing the primary rights. So ESPN would be stuck with dealing with Sky, so essentially having to pay out the ass for HD. Paying for it for one tournament every two years is one thing, paying for it for three or four games a weekend for 36 weeks is a different story altogether. The money thing is a whole separate issue. Is ESPN willing to pay close to a billion dollars to get Setanta’s share? This isn’t going to be a ratings bonanza, and they may not see it as that great of an investment. Sky paid 2 billion for their share, and actually managed to increase the number of games they show from before the split; their stranglehold isn’t going to be loosened. Add to the fact that FSC is in bed with Sky, which is own by Uncle Rupert’s son, ESPN could face a tough task even getting in the game. FSC and Setanta have both made press statements that they are looking into HD feeds, but I sadly would not expect it any time soon regardless of who is in control.
5. Can I get a ruling on this: The Boston Red Sox factor.
Lets face it, if ESPN gets the rights to the EPL we will be seeing predominantly United and Chelsea games, maybe with some Liverpool and Arsenal games thrown in. Sure I will get to see Fulham and their Americans play when they play a big four team, or see City peak early in the season if they have to travel to London or a bit west, or Spurs get shellacked, but only by the big four. What I would like to see is the occasional game between teams outside of the top four I seriously doubt that will happen on ESPN. Even if Setanta is hard to get, with the current two network setup having games on at the same time is less of an issue. If ESPN got control of all the games, I can’t image they would show more than one at a time As they will be aiming for popularity, they will only show games involving the big teams.
This will inevitably lead to more and more United and Chelsea fans. There is not an American fan of United under the age of 35 that is not a bandwagon jumping dickhead. As for Chelsea maybe knock the age group down a few years and it’s the same thing. I myself am in my mid twenties and have been following Liverpool since I was 15, when I witnessed Michael Owen at the 1998 World Cup. So naturally I interact with support bases of my age group, and for United and Chelsea fans here, that consists mainly of trophy hunters. Now to be fair there are some bandwagon Liverpool supporters since 2005, and the same for Arsenal, but I think most would agree it is nowhere even near the magnitude of the former two.
What will happen is your average fratboy recovering from a crazy night of date rape, Busch Ice, and Halo, will stumble across a United game and a week later be rocking a Rooney shirt. I don't want to deal with this bullshit, as the bandwagoners are usually the most irritating and least educated fans in the game. Back home in Charlotte I goto a British restaurant for games and there is always a strong contingent of Liverpool supporters there, who I can have a good conversation about the past and the future with. Usually there are a few supporters of the opposing team, Newcastle ones are the best to make fun of, and I have no problems with them. However if theres a United fan there I always remind them they weren't any more relevant than Nottingham Forest until they started buying trophies, and I get blank stares if they are my age. The words 'Nottingham Forrest' or 'Sir Bobby' fall on deaf ears of most United fans here, and the last thing I want is more fans of a team that consistently beats the piss out of mine but have no idea why I am so upset about it. I may not like Arsenal or Everton, in fact I loathe them, but rarely do I meet a supporter that I cannot talk to intelligently about the game. Maybe the key difference here is that United and Chelsea have fans in America, the rest have supporters, and we don't need more fans. I am fine with a small yet fiercely loyal fan base. I think I just like the coziness of getting shitfaced at nine in the morning down at the bar watching Setanta with a group of strangers that I relate to, that will disappear if ESPN takes over. Call it snobbish if you will, but its not like the game has gone underexposed in this country, people of my age group have had many chances to catch onto this game, and if they can't appreciate it, fuck them, let them have their Monday Night Football, I'll take my Saturday Morning Football with a cold Carlsberg.
Point: ESPN? Yes, please!
Last week, in the comments of the wonderful, tag-teamed, fuck-you-Mannix piece, I engaged in a short debate with Mike Georger about the good versus bad of ESPN getting into the business of showing lots of soccer stateside. Such an argument is precipitated on the rumors that ESPN is shuttering its Classic channel and looking to replace it with, possibly, an ESPN3. This new channel would have soccer, and the EPL, as its cornerstone. While I think that such a move would be positive for American soccer viewers, Mike is vociferously against it. This Point/Counterpoint will allow us to make our arguments and allow you to weigh in as well in the comments.
Since I framed the question (and I am right), my point will go up first. I have had the benefit of a couple of extra days to ponder the points, including the Germany-Turkey televised debacle, so please take that into account when reading.
1. ESPN is the pulse of American sports
This goes almost without saying. ESPN has done such a great job of highjacking the American sports psyche that it is almost impossible to follow a sport on TV if ESPN does not show it. Hell, to be honest, you have to try really hard to follow a sport, on TV or not, that ESPN does not show. Some of you would probably be surprised to know that the NHL, ostensibly America's fourth sports league, crowned a champion last month. Of those that do know that the Stanley Cup wrapped up, I would venture that half of you do not know who won. If it's not on ESPN, it just doesn't penetrate into middle America.
It's a point that Cardillo at That's on Point has been making for years. If ESPN would just put their muscle behind soccer, it's coverage in all media would grow exponentially. And that is one great thing that we stand to gain here. If ESPN were to launch a soccer-heavy channel, then more highlights would show on SportsCenter. If the highlights show, then thick-headed sports editors at the nation's newspapers, whom I believe are generally older than the average American soccer fan (citation needed, I know), would see the increased TV presence and expand soccer coverage within their pages. More coverage in the papers and magazines means more interest in general. It's a slippery slope argument, yes, and I concede that it's never going to be a 1:1 ratio as the media fans out, but increased ESPN attention to the sport will definitely see an uptick in American attention in general.
2. What good is more interest if people don't get to watch?
So, the European Championships wrap up tomorrow, and ESPN will be mostly out of the soccer business until the Champions League starts back up in the fall. Undoubtedly, and I have experienced it personally, there is more interest from the average American in soccer than there was before the Champions League final and this fine past three weeks of European play. So, where do the fans go now? There is MLS to watch on ESPN2, but that level of play is not the same.
I watch television is two places: home and work. At home, I have cable (Charter), and at work we have DirecTV. Both systems have GolTV and FSC available, and DirecTV has Setanta available as well. Both systems require extra fees to access these channels. It is safe to say that a good portion of America which is newly interested in soccer do not have these channels already available, and, if they did, do not know where they are amongst the 300 other channels on air. The point being, that if ESPN, or an ESPN3, were the channel where they could sate their newly acquired soccer hunger, then they will continue to do so. But if, say, my father-in-law wanted to watch soccer, he's not paying for an extra tier of service to do so.
3. ESPN already has an international presence
This is by far the most speculative point that I will make. The theory is that ESPN is already set up worldwide. According to this (.pdf alert), ESPN reaches over 175 countries with programming broken up into over 20 different regionalized and specialized channels. These channels all have local talent which are contracted with ESPN. If, say, ESPN were to get the EPL rights for America in 2010, then ESPN would already have people in England who could do the job of announcing the game. This would get rid of two things, possibly. First, it would get rid of the dreaded broom closet which ESPN's American-based soccer announcers are said to commentate out of. They watch the feed the same as we do, and talk about the game. As anyone who has ever paid close attention to Tommy Smyth can attest, it is not the best situation. When something happens, Tommy will speculate endlessly on it without being able to pull up a replay directly. If there is a card, the team has to wait for a feed replay to show them what it is. Quite simply, it's not the best way to call a game.
Secondly, if ESPN were to actually have on-site announcers for the EPL, then we could avoid a situation like we had on Wednesday, where the announcing team saw just as little of the action on the pitch as the viewers. Other nations, which had their announcers on site, were able to set up mobile audio feeds to continue to call the game when the screen blacked out. ESPN could have done the same with on-site commentators.
Of course, this depends on the amount of money ESPN is willing to spend after outbidding any of its USA rights rivals. If they cheap it up, then we will hear more of the broom closet, unfortunately.
4. HDTV, plain and simple
As anyone who has been so lucky as to watch the Euro games on HDTV can attest, it is lovely. ESPN is apparently willing to upgrade its channels, if there is HD programming to go on there. Currently, of course, the space occupied by ESPN Classic is not HD. But there would be very little, if any, HD programming to put on there. Sadly, American Gladiators was not ahead of its time in that way. But, dammit, if ESPN News is going to be in HD now, then why wouldn't an upgraded ESPN3?
5. $$$$ for American soccer
In two ways
First, there is the money that ESPN is paying to US Soccer for the rather newly-acquired rights to all USMNT games. No longer will we see the games split between ESPN and FSC, it's all ESPN's bag now.
Secondly, these games on ESPN will bring a greater audience, an audience willing to spend money on whatever junk they see. It's all about commercialization here. A wider audience means more ad revenue. More as revenue means a greater push by the channel. A greater push by the channel means more people willing to watch and buy those replica jerseys the American sports fan likes so much. Throw is a scarf or a hat as well, and that's jingle that is music to Guus Hiddink's ears. And anything that can be used to get that man's attention works for me.
Posts
