Closed-circuit TV for USA at Guatemala?

You know there are Guatemalans that live in the U S? You realize they'll be paying the same amount right? lol.

But, this is a US forum, so who cares about them. It's their Fed, so they deserve it.

guatemala sold their rights to this game to traffic sports.

traffic sports "tried" to make a deal with espn, nbc, fox, etc. but apparently no deal could be reached.

i see this as most likely a situation where traffic sports asking price was ridiculously high, like their asking price for the honduras game was reported to be.

i am not proposing the guatemala be forced to sell the game to a us network, but what i am proposing is that guatemela and any other nation in the future ensures via contract that traffic sports has to sell the us broadcast rights to a us network that has at least 30 million subscribers (i.e. the game has to be on at least fox soccer channel) or else they run the risk of the us based game not being made available in their home country.

this type of arrangement is no different than uefa forcing fox to put at least 1 uefa champions league game on fox sports net, so the mass population will have exposure to the product.

Guatemala doesn't have the leverage to make that type of contract they sell the TV rights as a package deal because there isn't a huge line of companies willing to buy the international TV rights for Antigua vs Guatemala so they sell it to traffic sports and can't really demand that traffic reduce its profit margin by selling to Fox instead of distributing it through Integrated sports media. If Guatemala had even half as much leverage as UEFA does in selling the champions league rights they might be able to but they don't.

Okay, maybe I'm not articulating the situation well enough. The root problem is that the current situation is terrible for a lot of reasons.

U.S. Soccer can't force ESPN or FOX to buy the rights to every qualifier in order to get the World Cup rights because then the other feds would have the right to put ESPN over a barrel when they negotiate.

That's why there needs to be a fundamental reform of the rights structure. These problems with Guatemala or Honduras are just symptoms of the problem. I don't know exactly what those changes would be.

My guess would be something like giving countries some limited rights to their own away games. So let's say U.S. Soccer wants all of it's games and the World Cup to be aired on the same network like ESPN. U.S. Soccer should get the full revenue from home games for every country except the away nation. And for away games, U.S. Soccer gets a preferred broadcaster and some of the revenue after the fact goes to the host nation.

This keeps a situation like the Guatemala game being on PPV from happening, but it also keeps Guatemala being cut completely out of the loop. While it might lead to smaller revenues in some instances, the only way to let footy grow as a product throughout the region is for it to become a consistent product that everyone has reliable access to.

CONCACAF wants nothing more than for soccer to blow up in the U.S. They would love to see ESPN, FOX, NBC, etc. to bid like crazy for the rights to Gold Cups, World Cups, Champions Leagues, etc. because that ultimately means much more money for them in the long term.

Stupid policies like these are only going to change, however, if Mexico and the rest of Central America force there to be a change. The only way I think that will happen is to point out in striking clarity to Mexican and Central American fans the glaring inadequacies of the current system.

The Caribbean nations only care about getting bigger pots of cash as well, so if we can demonstrate that this will help grow the game in the U.S. and make more money for the region in the long run, they would be tickled pink with that.

Doesn't the USSF do the same with some US games, they sell them to SUM then SUM bundles the games with MLS games and sell them to a TV network?

How??? How would any type of deal guarantee that the game doesn't end up on PPV?

Unless US Soccer makes their own network and gets it onto every cable package in the US, there is no way to guarantee that these games make it on a network.

Your solution is that the federations would have to sell it to a big enough network, but what happens when no network of that size WANTS to show the game?

My guess is one of the networks wanted to show the game. They weren't lwilling to pay the price. This is where US Soccer says fine. Make the rights fee double what they wanted for the US game in Guatemala. If they cry foul, tell them look. You play ball with us - we will play ball with you. If not - their fans can find Internet streams.

You make it part of the total World Cup package. If you want the rights to X you have to broadcast Y. That's literally what MLS used to do with ESPN for the World Cup rights. Want to broadcast the World Cup? You're going to have to broadcast these crappy MLS games. They could easily do the same thing with the qualifiers.

Except at this point it isn't up to Guatemala to play ball they already sold the rights to traffic sports as have several other CONCACAF countries and I doubt traffic sports cares if the USA game is broadcast in Guatemala so that wouldn't change anything.

Well,when the Guatemala Fed wants to know why US Soccer won't sell the rights to the game in the US. They can say - go ask Traffic Sports?

Yeah, I know I'm going out on a limb, I'm just trying to understand the situation.

It just doesn't make sense that this third party that owns the rights wouldn't sell them at a fair price to the networks. What is in it for them? How do they stand to profit if they don't sell this game to a network? PPV is small peanuts here (at least it is for this game), how do they expect to break even? Unless they didn't really "buy" the rights from Guatemala in the first place.

Basically, these are all businesses trying to make a buck off of this process. And I can't accept an explanation of this process unless it involves someone trying to maximize their earnings. So what's in it for Traffic and for Guatemala?

I think there is a flaw here as far as how it ends up on PPV, but I don't have any evidence to the contrary so I won't argue.

I just can't imagine it being profitable unless they got it at a real decent price. There just aren't enough Guatemalans and US soccer fans in the US to make this a big $$ earner.

Maybe I'm wrong and that's why I don't buy and sell broadcasting rights for a living.

It won't change anything. However, if they want to see the game in the US - good luck with that.

Let's say when we host Guatemala the game is on TV other than pay-per-view in both countries. Estimate what percent of the viewers will be:

1. Watching in English in the USA
2. Watching in Spanish in the USA
3. Watching in Guatemala

Guatemala has 13,276,517 people according to Wikipedia.

perhaps that is an accurate valuation.

but US Soccer (via SUM) have a better overall approach to marketing/selling the game in the US -- relative, as you note, to the tiny Guatemala Fed "who don't particularly have the experience to deal with selling their rights individually to each country's TV markets."

SUM has packaged to Disney & Univision (and now Comcast as well) multi-year and multi-competition packages.

do we know if the Antigua at US/Tampa game is really only priced at $1? Do we have any idea how much ESPN is really paying for the US Soccer WCQ portion of their multi-year agreement with SUM (given that that package also includes US Soccer friendlies, MLS and WFC content)?

i disagree, obviously guatemala has some leverage or else traffic would not be interested in their ppv rights. what i would agree with you on is that guatemala does not have a motive to do such a thing. with the threat of a ussf blackout of the us based game, guatemala suddenly has a motive. traffic, knowing the ussf is tired of this, would be forced to play along.

you are right, at this point it is too late for the guatemala game. however, this needs to be the policy for all matches in which the rights have not been sold to traffic sports.

Traffic has bought several countries rights that doesn't mean those feds have much leverage over them. The alternative for Guatemala would be to sell for a lower price or not at all that isn't exactly what I would call leverage. If they had several companies putting in comparable bids for their games rights then you could argue they have some leverage but at this point its get as much as you can since their revenue stream doesn't allow for an alternative.

Blacking out games in Guatemala won't change that their fed would still sell to the highest bidder traditionally feds in Central America will always choose money over keeping the local fans happy so that idea just strikes me as a petty way to punish Guatemala fans that had nothing to do with this decision. I am sure most Guatemalans would prefer this game not to be on pay per view as well.

Guatemala could always withhold the US game from their deal with Traffic and then sell that directly to a US station. I bet they would make more money that way. Reading Traffic's press releases it appears that Traffic buys multiple CONCACAF nations rights super early, when they are cheaper, and then looks to recoup their investment via closed circuit and ppv games. With a policy like I have suggested by the USSF in place, it would behoove the Central American and Caribbean nations to specifically make sure not to sell any potential US game to Traffic and sell that game directly to a US TV station when the time is right.

Traffic comes in early, buys cheap, and then takes advantage of key matchups in order to profit. I would think the USSF would be tired of being used by Traffic, especially since they are not seeing a dime of the money, and would use what rights they have in order to stop it.

Also, if federations quit doing business with Traffic, Traffic will lose out too. Everyone has a dog in the fight, so it would be wise for everyone to work together to a mutually beneficial agreement

Traffic gets in early but there aren't many buyers even if feds held out there just isn't a huge international market for CONCACAF WCQ games.

I doubt traffic would pay as much if Guatemala held out the USA games again feds in Central America always go for as much money in the sort term not many long term thinkers work in feds in central america but that is a whole other story.

There is no way feds stop doing business with traffic and take less from whoever else would be interested in buying the rights to their games again their revenues are very low even with the current TV deals taking less money isn't an option for a variety of reasons. If another company came in and offered more money then traffic would get cut out but until then that is just not realistic.

Aren't US fans being punished? Maybe the Guatemalan fans would put pressure on their Fed if they don't see the US game here in the States. Until US Soccer stands up for itself and fans in the US, this thing will keep going this way. If the US stands up for their fans and doesn't allow games going back to Honduras and Guatemala, maybe things change. Then again, maybe not.

Guatemala's fans would complain but given Central American FA's history when it comes to picking money over what the fans want I can't see them taking less money there is just no way