ABC and non USA WWC final?

[seanT]

Any one hearing any reports of a mass exodus of
ABC affiliates from airing the WWC final?

I would imagine some last minute informercials are looking pretty good about now.

[Brownswan]

It's AEG and MLS that's 'bringing' us the WWC. How much will we lose? Will WUSA/WNT get spoiler's revenge when the final numbers come in?

On the other hand we stand to make money on the 2006 WC from Germany, and as long as more is made than lost, who cares?

[da_cfo]

Originally posted by seanT
Any one hearing any reports of a mass exodus of
ABC affiliates from airing the WWC final?

I would imagine some last minute informercials are looking pretty good about now.

Probably too late for the non ABC-owned affiliates to sell the time at this point.

SUM/MLS should be paying ABC around $250000-$300000 in cash for the air time (the barter deal between SUM/MLS and ESPN does not include bartered TV time on ABC so SUM/MLS has to pay for those slots in cash) so ABC isn't complaining.

[Rickster]

Does SUM get any money for European rights? I would think that the afternoon timeslot will make it a prime time event for German and Swedish tv.

[da_cfo]

Originally posted by Rickster
Does SUM get any money for European rights? I would think that the afternoon timeslot will make it a prime time event for German and Swedish tv.

I would be surprised if any network in Europe paid $1 million to get the rights for one country.

Note that Sweden is a relatively small market of only around 2-3 million households.

Women's soccer isn't that big in Germany and a state-run network has the rights.

[Roehl Sybing]

To say nothing of which this WWC was organized on the fly under emergency conditions, and that no other nation hypes (in the good sense) their women's team like we do. It's good odds that the organizers didn't make too much money from overseas television rights.

[kwik1980]

Originally posted by Rickster
Does SUM get any money for European rights? I would think that the afternoon timeslot will make it a prime time event for German and Swedish tv.

In Sweden the rights are owned by commercial network TV4. Not sure what they paid for them, but there was an article in today's Aftonbladet, one of the national newspapers, talking about viewership figures for the matches. They are hoping they can beat the previous record for a women's match, which was 1,750,000, during the '95 World Cup, with some experts hoping for 2,000,000 viewers. TV4 will start it's coverage at 6pm, local time, with the match kicking off at 7pm, local. It also noted that 730,000 viewers saw the semifinal against Canada, which started at 4:30 am, local time.

[DennisM]

3.9 million people watched the final in Sweden.

[Sachin]

Originally posted by DennisM
3.9 million people watched the final in Sweden.

That's half the country right there.

Sachin

[Bleacherbutt]

Well almost. The populations figs I 've seen are about 9 million. Without splitting hairs, that's phenomenonal. About 40% of the country was tuned in.

[DennisM]

8.8 million is what I've seen lately.

[Justin O]

The '99 WWC was televised by Eurosport. I think this one was, too. I was overseas in '99 and had a variety of European channels. I was surprised at the level of coverage the tournament got. The coverage wasn't huge, but it was fairly substantial nonetheless.

And wasn't it said before that MLS/SUM was getting some kind of cut from international broadcasts?

[Pyro]

Originally posted by Justin O
The '99 WWC was televised by Eurosport. I think this one was, too. I was overseas in '99 and had a variety of European channels. I was surprised at the level of coverage the tournament got. The coverage wasn't huge, but it was fairly substantial nonetheless.

And wasn't it said before that MLS/SUM was getting some kind of cut from international broadcasts?

13 Million in Germany too.

The SARS epidemic was a boon to MLS/SUM because the games moved from middle of the night into prime time. MLS/SUM also became the host broadcaster, which mad them the broadcaster who the rest of the world had to pick up the video feed from (at a modest fee I'm sure.)

Between this and the men's success last year, it seems that MLS/SUM might be able to turn a profit on the TV deal that was put in place to get MLS on TV.
(Quick note: MLS/SUM bought the rights to 2002 and 2006 men's WC and the 2003 WWC and packaged that with MLS games through 2006 to strike their deal with The Mouse Networks)

[da_cfo]

Originally posted by Justin O


And wasn't it said before that MLS/SUM was getting some kind of cut from international broadcasts?

SUM's cut from the international broadcast sums up to less than US$1 million.

No country (or a pan-regional TV network) other than the US paid more than US$1 million for TV rights to Women's World Cup.