The recent report by Sports Business Daily that the Premier League has asked US broadcasters to bid on separate 3-year and 6-year options to try to acquire the rights to the Premier League is bad news for soccer fans.
The Premier League has always sold its US rights packages in 3-year deals, but has added the opportunity for broadcasters — for the first-time ever — to enter 6-year bids.
The current Premier League rights deal with NBC Sports expires at the end of the 2015/16 season, so interested media companies — NBC, ESPN, FOX, beIN SPORTS and others — are bidding on the 2016/17 to 2019/20 rights, and have the option to try to secure the 2016/17 to 2022/23 rights if the Premier League decides to accept a deal that “blows them out of the water.”
So why is the 6-year option bad news for soccer fans, and why is the Premier League even considering that option?
The Premier League knows the market conditions in the United States. They know that the Premier League is the most popular English-language soccer league in the United States. And, more importantly, they know that FOX Sports, ESPN and NBC desperately want the rights.
ESPN desperately wants it because, after the Euro 2016, the Bristol, CT-based company is practically out of the soccer rights business other than select MLS, USMNT and World Cup qualifiers.
FOX Sports wants it because they know it would be the crown jewel of their club soccer rights. They’re still rueing the day when they lost the Premier League TV rights to NBC, which resulted in FOX Sports shutting down FOX Soccer and changing their strategies. Plus, FOX Sports is on an aggressive strategy to gobble up as many rights as possible to try to bolster the TV viewing audiences for the laggard FOX Sports 2 and to try to make FOX Sports 1 a force in a competitive space.
On top of that, sports rights are at a premium because (1) fewer people are watching television, but sports remains one of the few major attractions that people tune in to watch live, and (2) there aren’t a lot of rights available for sports properties as leagues have secured long-term deals with broadcasters, so there’s a lot more competition. The supply is little. The demand is great.
So the juggernauts that are ESPN and FOX Sports want the Premier League, but for differing reasons.
At the same time, NBC Sports desperately wants to hold on to the Premier League. Without the league, NBC Sports Group would have no rights to major soccer competitions. Also, the ratings and viewing numbers for NBCSN would take a massive hit across the network after the Premier League really put NBCSN, the network, on the map.
God help us if Fox gets the rights for 6 years.
Count me as someone who does not want FOX to get it. Fox Soccer 2 Go is terrible. They charge a lot of money and the games are archived for just 1 week. Best deal in soccer when it comes to online content is MLS.
Worse is that foxsoccer2go is outsourced to a company abroad. Fox doesn’t have a clue on how to do streaming properly.
The thought of it sends shivers through my spine I tell you what.
The issue everyone should have with Fox is they failed to do what NBC did for coverage. NBC allows EVERY match to be watched live. That live coverage was provided to anyone with the NBC channels at no additional cost. Fox still has a $15 a month channel that they would push matches over to like they are doing with the Bundesliga this year. Fox is bad for any individual that wants to keep up with the entire league.
Fox’s old design was play 2 – 3 matches live when 5-7 were being played. Then, after spoiling the scorelines on all the matches, they would tape delay other matches that were deemed not as important by their Program Director. NBC is the best thing that has ever happened to the EPL.
I hate hearing the canard of “no extra cost”. I could subscribe to the awful FoxSoccer2Go app and get FSC and pay less than I have to pay to get NBCSN. Or I could wait for the taped version of a game and watch it then. FSC alone was a less expensive option and you’d get the ability to have most of the games available.
Also Fox never spoiled the results of taped games. That is something NBCSN started.
Fox’s problem is that they rebranded without Sat/Cable approval and now their sports channels are a bit hard to find for some. I can’t imagine how Fox would be able to handle covering the German and English leagues at the same time, in HD on one channel. Sure, they have FS2, but who gets it, and of those, who has it in HD?
As I’ve said before, money is probably the biggest factor in this deal. But the PL executives need to ask FOX and ESPN, how do you plan to balance our games against your NFL and college football games? Forget about Sunday morning soccer matches, those will be sidelined to ESPN3 and whatever Fox streaming service while Fox and ESPN devote their entire Sunday to football coverage.
And while Saturday is not a big NFL day, it’s huge in college. Will both networks be OK showing late in the day EPL matches that might run into the college gameday shows?
NBCSN is the perfect home, they aren’t competing with the football schedules and can devote time and energy to the season.
You hope (and I mean really hope) if you are going to throw $1b towards the broadcast rights for 6 years, you’ll go fully in and make the games as available as they are now. Anything less is a slap in the face to the US soccer fans and an embarrassment to the PL executives who were more focused on the dollars and not what’s best for the league.
All valid points. Unfortunately the FA is thinking only about the money it will receive and not what is best for the EPL soccer fan. Nor what is in the best interest of the EPL for the long term. Will Fox/ESPN improve on the EPL’s popularity or will it hinder it? Will all the EPL games be available as presented b NBC or will there be an extra cost to the viewer?
The FA needs to take a long term view rather than just concentrate on the money.
Well said Martin but please note: the FA has nothing to do with selling Premier League rights.
brn442,thanks for the clarification.
The “6-year option” actually does the following:
1. It ENCOURAGES Discovery to bid. If Discovery were to rebrand one of its U.S. networks (i.e. Velocity) into “Eurosport USA”, Discovery needs to be certain that the rebranded network has enough core programming to last. Having EPL for 6 years instead of 3 would make the rebranding investment more viable.
2. It virtually eliminates beIN (USA) from the bidding process, with or without a partner with better English-language distribution. Qatar doesn’t have a reason to be involved with beIN past 2022 and beIN already has La Liga locked down in order to keep the Spanish-language side viable.
I am not convinced that ESPN (USA) will put in a serious bid due to clearance issues on ESPN2. If anything, ESPN is cutting back on the number of niche sports shown in the U.S. in favor of NFL, College Football, NBA, and MLB.
NBCUniversal reportedly was prepared to bid at least $500 million for 3 seasons. One would have to believe that NBCU would bid around $1.5 billion for 6 seasons.
Would FOX Sports (USA) be prepared to blow NBCU away by going as high as $1.8 billion (or possibly $2 billion)? We shall see.
anyone but fox
I mean, who wouldn’t want more Eric Wynalda and Alexi Lalas.
All Wynalda all the time.
He can go right from covering the Bundesliga right to covering the EPL (since it’s FOX, it’ll probably be the same exact set).
Save it for Judge Judy.
Listening to Alexi Lalas makes me want to poke myself in the eye.
They’d probably resurrect gus.
I think that any intelligent soccer fan in the US would agree that if awarding the rights to a broadcasting company were down to quality, NBC would win hands down. Since NBC took over the broadcasting of the Premier League, the quality in not only commentary/analysis has greatly improved, but the accessibility and attitude towards the premier league as a whole has improved. I believe that this is in large part due to the commitment NBC has made to focus on presenting a smart product to the soccer fans of the US. Treating us like intelligent soccer viewers and not someone who needs stats and graphics crammed down our throats and blasted in our faces. Unfortunately for the world that we live in, money is everything. If FOX bids 10 million dollars more than NBC, the rights will be awarded to FOX. The product they will put out will be as crappy as it used to be and the knowledgeable soccer fan will be once again forced to mute the TV any time they want to watch a game. I pray for the sake of the game that NBC retains the rights to the Premier League for as long as they continue to provide such a great product. And I pray that the Premier League realizes that.
One thing I worry about is how much longer will it be until providers start charging to view Premier League games? As the popularity of the Premier League soars in the states and the huge cost to acquire the TV rights, I don’t see every game being free continuing on forever. I imagine one day we are going to see a NFL Sunday Ticket type package for Premier League games.
But they are the ones escalating the price for offering it to consumers. They are the ones to blame, not the ratings. And we did have a package for EPL over a decade ago. One or two games a week, for something like $230.
Personally, I’d prefer having a cheaper option to watch fewer games, with an option to upgrade and get them all. I’m paying way too much for Sat in order to watch the EPL.
I remember that package on Directv. The price was insane for 2 games a week. Satellite is expensive, but if you are a big football fan, Directv is the way to go. Every Champions League game, Europa League game, all for free. No other provider has that.
Agreed! Directv is the best provider in U.S. Period
‘best’ is a relative term. I have directv and it is ridiculously expensive. Now that a t and t bought it who knows what’s next?
Directv is the best sports provider, but for the frugal sat/cable customer, Dish can be notably cheaper.
NBC has done such a great job. I will be really depressed if Fox wins. It was so bad watching Fox’s coverage this weekend of the community shield. Had bad memories of when they had the EPL.
I think people are confusing Fox EPL with post-EPL Fox. FSC offered a boatload of games, in game commentary was perfectly fine. Half-time, not as good, but you could watch the games, not get any spoilers so you could catch the other taped matches.
However, you had to pay extra to watch games not on Fox Soccer by subscribing to foxsoccer2go which had all kinds of problems and viewers were left frustrated when your stream froze or certain games just would not load. I remember those “good old days” with foxsoccer2go. At least NBC shows live games on TV on overload channels and their streaming service is free and top notch.
Pay extra to watch them live. If you could wait, you’d have a good shot at watching the game you wanted. FSC showed what 6 to 7 or so games a week?
I really only harp on this because I had Dish and had a really low package and could watch the EPL. Then I had to pay $30 more to get NBCSN. Sure, I received more, but it was nearly $400 a year in additional expense. Not so free.
One thing to consider is the comment that the deal is not being split into separate packages, as is done with the networks in England. In other words, 1) no joint bids, and 2) the winning network gets all the matches, not just the ones on a given day or in a specific timeslot. At Awful Announcing, they seem to think that “This is a very big positive to NBC and NBCSN to retain their EPL TV rights for at least another three years,” since neither Fox nor ESPN will be able to offer the late Saturday games due to college football commitments, and that Fox would have the added conflict of working in the Bundesliga.
They also seem to think it is unlikely that a six-year deal will be accepted; the Premier League may well figure that in three years, they’ll be able to go for an even higher amount.
As always, time will tell.
I like Awful Announcing a lot, but I completely disagree with them that the new deal favors NBC.
That’s good to know, as I value your opinion and analysis on here. Nothing personal, but I hope they’re right! 🙂
Last week when I said the US EPL rights would reach 1 billion. Some guy who knows nothing about media said that EPL wouldn’t get anywhere near that figure because he believed soccer was not popular enough in the USA. If they are offering a 6 year option the EPL US rights will be well above the 1 Billion mark.
Mark Lazerus head of NBC Sports went to England last April and gave a presentation to all the heads of the Premier League clubs to sway them in bidding process. He told them NBC Sports would bid a minimum of £500 Million which is $779 Million just to win back the rights just to show them how much they wanted to keep the Premier League. This was reported in the Daily Mail. If that is the minimum the NBC were prepared bid course their final bid will be well above that with FOX and ESPN sniffing around.
The EPL is the rugby union of the US sports TV. In the UK Rugby Union has nowhere near the popularity of soccer, but it’s rights are worth a lot to TV networks because the people in England who follow that sport tend to wealthier than other sports fans. This means networks want to have the rights to Rugby Union because that sport can attract many advertisers easily who know fans of that sport have plenty of disposable cash and buy a subscription and will have no problem paying it.
Soccer fills that role on US networks. A report showed the average soccer fan earns almost 4 times the amount of the average fan of the traditional sports do. They are more likely to have a college education and this is extremely attractive to advertisers and the networks love that because that is a key part of their revenue. Soccer doesn’t have to be as popular as NFL or the NBA to have great value because the demographics are so much better than these sports that networks know they can get their money back quicker in adverstising.
When the NFL is on TV you see ads for dodge pick up trucks. When soccer is on TV you see ad for luxury mercedes cars.
So we really are Eurosnobs, then? The thought never occurred.
Said with tongue firmly planted in my excessively educated cheek.
US Soccer fans earn 4x as much? So what, the average college aged soccer fan is earning $200k a year?
Let’s go Fox Let’s go Fox Let’s go Fox!! I hope they win the coverage and hire Joe Buck as the lead commentator along with Curt Menefee as color. Also Gus would be great to bring some excitment.
Great. Curt could do some more remote references to the ’82 giants while hosting a Champions League semi final.
Lets be honest, the EPL won’t go with a six-year winning bid from anyone unless the amount would be somewhat more than what they estimate they could get sticking with the three-year cycle. For example, Sky from next season will be paying approx £11,000,000 for EVERY MATCH they broadcast for the next three seasons. The three year cycle means if Sky wanted to remain the ‘dominant’ EPL broadcaster in the UK, that number would probably go up even more substantially from the 2019/2020 season when the next broadcast cycle begin. I know the situation in the UK v US is significantly different but the advantages of having a three-year cycle remains the same.
If such a bid became the winning bid, the amount that network would be paying would probably be quite extraordinary. However I wouldn’t put it past either NBC or FOX aiming to have serious crack at it for reasons outlined by many in previous articles.
NBC will lock this thing up, hopefully for 6 years. It’s a good thing.
It is all about the Pound/Benjamin’s! 🙂
Please NBC! 🙂
Chris,
Why is the option of a six year deal a disadvantage for NBC?
The only other bidders appear to be ESPN and Fox. I don’t see ESPN spending $1 bn for Premier League games it has no where to televise. Fox Sports likes soccer now and needs a differentiated product, but I don’t see where they out the product either.
Out of FOX, NBC and ESPN, NBC would be the only one who would want to keep all of the rights on their networks. If FOX wins it, they’ll sub-license some of the games to ESPN (that don’t fit into FOX’s windows). If ESPN wins it, ESPN would similarly sub-license games to FOX. FOX and ESPN have a pretty cozy relationship and have done deals together. While they’re not going to partner on this one, I’m sure they would work together if either one of them won the rights.
Can NBC win a 3-year deal? They have a great chance. Can they win a 6-year deal? I doubt it. FOX and ESPN are bigger than NBCSN.
About your 2nd point Christopher, I don’t think it’s as cut-and-dry regarding NBC not being able to win a 6 year auction. In the past year, they spent very significant money renewing their Olympics rights. Yes the Olympics & EPL are on completely different level but due to the relationship with Comcast – NBC has the funds to compete if they feel such a long-term deal with the EPL will be beneficial (which it currently is)
Just to fair, how do you figure that FOX and ESPN are “bigger” than NBCSN? Comcast owns NBC…they’re pretty “big”, right?
To be fair, Fox wouldn’t be bad if they committed to showing Saturday early morning games on Fox Sports 1, the Saturday 12:30 games on Fox Broadcast Channel, and Sunday morning games on Fox Sports 1. I don’t know if Fox Sports 1 does a college football pregame show on Saturday, but that would have to be cancelled for this to work. The goal should be to keep EPL matches off of Fox Sports 2 or Fox Soccer Plus as those are no longer readily available.
Fox is always bad.
Always.
Fox is the far more serious threat than ESPN is of swooping in and grabbing the EPL from NBC. ESPN has been in a belt tightening mode of late amid overpaying for the rights to NFL MNF for the next few years, so I don’t see them breaking the bank for the EPL. And they have the NBA which is growing more in popularity. Forget BeIn and Discovery, that’s just not realistic at this time and juncture. Just a gut feeling, but I’m confident NBC will step up and retain the rights.
Fox sublicenses games to ESPN. So if one or the other wins the rights to EPL games they could continue this arrangement and there’s nothing stopping them from making a joint bid. If Fox and ESPN join forces that could be bad news for NBC and us viewers.
Fox does not need to sublicense games to ESPN because they now have the channels bandwith with FOX1, Fox2, Fox Soccer Channel and the mothership,Fox Channel. Fox can go it alone now and have the best chance along with NBC of getting the rights. ESPN will kick up some dust, but they’re not going to overbid for the EPL.
I’m so worried every time I see “Premier League Rights” on WST that it’ll say FOX. Please Gaffer, don’t scare us!!!
There is no question that any serious EPL fan would want NBC retaining the rights. As simple as that. Period.
My guess is that cable channel will become irrelevant in the next year or so as OTT takes traction. Whoever wins the bid will offer all games live, sporting conflicts will be a thing of the past and advertising will be tailored to the specific viewer. Who knows, maybe Charlie will put in a bid just to bolster his Sling TV lineup similar to what BT Sports is doing to promote IPTV in the UK.
BTW – I think NBC have done a to notch job with the EPL so far. Just a pity they done offer an OTT subscription service, but I guess that’s because they are owned by Comcast.
Another disadvantage to Fox is for cord cutters (like me), I am able to stream a number of leagues all from my roku: MLS, La Liga, Serie A, Premier League, Ligue Un, Liga MX. But Fox is the only major soccer carrier that does not have their foxsoccer2go app on roku. Very frustrating. I will have to HDMI my computer to the bigscreen to watch bundesliga coverage this year with lower quality streaming than any other leagues I can watch.
Chris, how are you able to watch Premier League as a “cord cutter”?
Are you referring to lay Saturday kick off on NBC?
GO FOX. GO FOX. GO FOX. YYEEAAAAAHHHHH!
Troll
If Fox wins, I think Comcast would finally be forced to carry Fox Sports 2 and maybe even Fox Soccer Plus. I think with Fox now having three cable sports channels as well as the main broadcast channel, its less likely Fox would sublicense games to ESPN as they did before.
Two reasons why Scudamore dangled the “6-year option”:
1. NBCUniversal and/or FOX asked for the option.
2. Scudamore needs a serious bid from a 3rd party, i.e. Discovery.
beIN is out of the running due to the minimum clearance requirements (i.e. 80 million English-language TV households cleared.)
(I don’t believe ESPN will put in a serious bid.)
The big question: does Discovery want to launch “EuroSport USA” by converting one of its networks (i.e. Velocity)?
If so, Discovery has a small window to do so. That window will close for the next 6 years after EPL rights auction closes.
I expect the winning bid to come in at $1.8-2.0 billion for 6 seasons. (NBCU should be willing to bid at least $1.5 billion.)
“They’re still rueing the day when they lost the Premier League TV rights to NBC, which resulted in FOX Sports shutting down FOX Soccer and changing their strategies.”
This was one of the best things to have happened to soccer TV in the US. Rather that having most soccer leagues on 1 channel that few people had, they are now spread across several mainstream channels. The worst thing that could happen for soccer TV is for one network to horde all of the leagues again.
True but i would not mind Fox or someone else getting rights to the Championship though. Bein sucks when it comes to the Championship only showing one game a week. Itsone of the most competitive and most exciting leagues in the world.
I think everyone right now is pretty much on pins and needles right now waiting for this monumental decision. I mean we have been pretty spoiled by the awesome coverage by NBCSN and it would absolutely kill me if the rights went back to FOX. I been able to watch every Spurs game the last 3 years as well as all the big games, Villas and Sunderland’s great escapes, you can’t beat that!! I know one thing,if you are not religious or have never prayed in your life, you are pretty much PRAYING to God right now for NBCSN to come through on this. Heck we might even go as far as to start a GoFund me to help NBC out if we have to.. lolol I think soccer on US TV would take a huge step back if Fox (or anyone else) gets those rights..
I encourage everyone to write an email to the Premier League begging them to select NBC for the rights.
(http://www.premierleague.com/content/premierleague/en-gb/contact-us.html)
I have sent 2 such messages in the last month. I will be sending another one this week. Probably won’t do anything but at least I feel better.
Do we know when the results of the bid and the winner is announced? I read somewhere that it is today (8/6/15)
Bids are due today, but we may not know the winner until later this month or even as late as October.
NBC could create a soccer channel with more commentaries and interviews. They air every game live (if the guy on the “Extra” channels is not asleep), but if we want to see more than 2 games on the Saturday, we can’t. The coverage is better than Fox but it’s not as good as it is in Europe.
Whoever surely cannot be worse than this re-designed site… what is going on? I am seeing old articles promoted to the front and many other major issues. The site is basically un-accessible at the moment.
Opti, the thread is at http://worldsoccertalk.com/2015/08/06/world-soccer-talk-announces-major-changes-for-premier-league-season-coverage/
We’ve been working on the changes all weekend, so it’s not completely finalized.
The far left column on the homepage (What’s new) is the latest articles. What’s Hot (far right) takes into account the most-read stories from the site, but we’re trying to see how we can eliminate the older articles that aren’t as relevant anymore.
Hang in there. Thanks.
Loving the new design. Best change ever!
Hate to say that the site was better in previous format, BUT over the years have never been let down by the Gaffer and EPLT/WST so I will gladly give it plenty of time to iron out the kinks. Small price to pay for free access to a top notch site like this.
Would like to see NBC branch out to host a tactical highlights show and/or in depth UK based studio audience magazine/show with guests/opinion. Two wacky lads in a closet just isnt doing it for me…is James Richardson looking for a job? 😉 Loved his work with Rebecca back in the day on Setanta Football Matters. To be fair its hard to complain about anything NBC does with football, but I have been loving the Keys and Gray Show on Bein Sports every friday and they get around not being uk based as they use skype to interview their guests…something similar with the 2 Robbies perhaps?
Longtime reader, big fan, but this was the first of two completely wrong opinion pieces on the rights deal.
To make matters worse, the new site redesign keeps this and the other one at the forefront of the home page.
You don’t have enough articles to warrant the site redesign. It’s too much of a work in progress.