Schedule of World Cup qualifiers, friendlies and Africa Cup of Nations 2019 qualifiers on US TV

7 Comments

1. Rick June 5, 2017

   USA vs Mexico should be on FOX network not on FS1. The ratings would justify the change.

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   • CTBlues June 7, 2017

     The Super Bowl and the World Series are the only programs that preempt FOX’s Animation Domination and other Sunday programming. Also they want viewers on their cable network.

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     • Oliver Tse June 9, 2017

       Bingo.

       There is no way FOX would pre-empt its Sunday night animation block for any soccer with the exception of the World Cup Final, men or women.

       Also, FOX has figured out that it isn’t losing as many viewers to Univision by putting the match on FS1 the way ESPN had lost viewers to Univision in the past. FOX’s presentation of international soccer has improved to the point that it no longer has to fear massive defection of English-speaking viewers to Univision.

       FOX has finally figured out the key ingredient to the “secret sauce” that Univision has been using for the past 30 years to produce fun and informative soccer television to target young male viewers ages 12-34: passion.

       If you are being dropped off a parachute from another world into the U.S. for the first time and you are asked “Which company’s product should you study first before you start your new assignment as a soccer television producer for a product other than English Premier League or English FA Cup?” and if you were to answer, “I will produce authentic British football television by imitating the BBC,” you will not survive very long in your job.

       Reply
2. eddie June 9, 2017

   fa cup will be NBC sports and is there Fox/NBC/CBS/ESPN/Turner/Bein sports of biding other rights upcoming like golf and Motorsports and soccer and other live sports events. can you tell more about it. can tell more information of upcoming media rights on TV Soon.(to Oliver tse)

   Reply
   • Oliver Tse June 9, 2017

     Eddit: How many times do I have to repost this before you understand this?

     1. U.S. media rights to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) will be up for bid within the next 12 months. The current rights package in all languages is owned by FOX Sports and will expire in January 2019. Most trade publications are reporting that at least 4 companies will bid on the next cycle of UFC rights. We know 3 out of 4 companies: FOX Sports, NBC Sports and Viacom (Spike TV and HBO). Is Turner Sports the 4th company?

     2. U.S. media rights to World Series of Poker (WSOP) will be up for bid within the next 12 months. The current rights package in all languages covering most markets in the Americas, including the U.S., is owned by ESPN, Inc. in a contract extension that was struck in 2008 (for approximately $10-12 million/year.)

     ESPN, Inc. has lost money in the U.S. market on the WSOP every year since 2011, when the U.S. Department of Justice shut down U.S-facing operations of “unlicensed” online poker websites, notably PokerStars and FullTiltPoker.

     No one expects ESPN to bid on the WSOP again now that ESPN has also cut back its international presence, notably in Europe where it has shut down all of its own channels (ESPN America and ESPN Classic Sport) and has only a co-branded channel, BT Sport ESPN in the U.K., plus a programming licensing deal to supply Sport 1 U.S. (a spin-off of Sport 1, which was formerly known as Deutsche Sport Fernsehen, or DSF) in Germany.

     FOX Sports is expected to bid on the rights to the World Series of Poker (WSOP) worldwide with the exception of the Arabic-speaking countries in the Middle East and Northern Africa, and much of Asia, where gambling content is prohibited on sports TV channels.

     In the U.S. market, former ESPN Coordinating Producer of Poker and the inventor of the NBC Sports National Heads-Up Poker Championship, Jamie Horowitz, is now the General Manager of FS1 and FS2.

     Will Turner Sports also bid on the WSOP? Quite possibly, because the WSOP and ELEAGUE (Turner Sports’ video gaming TV product in partnership with talent agency IMG) have very similar demographics and significant overlap in participants (many professional video game players are also professional online poker players), and because both truTV and HLN have television time available after 10pm Eastern Time on most days. HLN in particular is a complete wasteland daily 3pm-8pm Eastern Time and 10pm-6am Eastern Time and the WSOP Main Event (2nd week in July) is in session daily at 3pm-5pm Eastern Time, 5:30pm-7:30pm Eastern Time, 9:30pm-11:30pm Eastern Time, and 12:01am-2am Eastern Time.

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     • Stranger Things June 9, 2017

       HAHAHAHHA love how you get upset because people don’t read your post! Sorry all the readers and people who make posts know you’re full of BS. You seriously don’t have anything better to do than write long posts on WST? How pathetic is that? Call some of your old exec buddies from the 90s and go hang out or something, nobody here cares about your rants.

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       • Oliver Tse June 9, 2017

         The fact that you continue to post lame insults every time after I post tells me that 1) your life is so miserable that the only thing you look forward to when you wake up each day is to look for me in the comments section so that you can post a lame insult, and 2) you actually care enough about what I write in the comments section to make lame attempts to fire back at me.

         The only person who decides whether I will be welcome to write for World Soccer Talk is Christopher Harris. Your opinion of whether I should have the privilege to write for World Soccer Talk doesn’t matter to Mr. Harris one iota.

         If you truly don’t care, you would not be responding. You would have ignored my articles and my comments.

         (The above goes to all you idiots with pathetic lives who continue to fire lame insults at me with zero effect. You know who you are.)

         —

         Tommy Smyth “with a y” had to deal with idiots for 24 years during his run as a studio pundit and co-comm at ESPN International. At one point in his run, he allegedly received over 100 death threats in a single calendar year and he had to travel with private security guards whenever he made celebrity appearances for ESPN networks around the world (notably Australia, where most of those death threats originated), all because some people took him way too seriously. Those death threats didn’t stop him, did they?

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