MLS & NBC Sports Coming across Twitter now: richarddeitsch Richard Deitsch RT by alexilalas22 BREAKING: MLS & NBC Sports have agreed on a 3-year deal, starting in 2012. NBC will have 45 MLS games & four US national team games.
Re: MLS & NBC Sports Wow. Is this in addition to the current deals or is this replacing one of the ESPN or FSC deals? Regardless, great news for MLS. PS - but NBC hates soccer! (first!!!!)
Wow, 6 games on network??! That's practically like the same number of times MLS has been on ABC in all past years combined.
This article from last Dec. has Vs. as the 5th most available sports network. FSC not even on list. http://www.jsonline.com/blogs/sports/111275439.html
Could be. Richard Deitsch says 45 MLS games & 4 USNT games Goff says 6 games on network and 43 on NBC Sports (formerly known as Versus). Games on network: 2 MLS games and 4 USNT games?
I think looming behind all this is the World Cup, which NBC really wants and which they almost had before Chuck Blazer intervened on ESPN's behalf. If you read These Guys Have All The Fun, the book about ESPN, there's a section that talks about how ESPN got its current World Cup deal. John Skipper had recently taken over being in charge of programming and he REALLY wanted the World Cup but FIFA already had a verbal with NBC and so he and Blazer got together and Blazer convinced Skipper to include showing MLS games as part of the propsoal to FIFA and that he'd really push for them if they did it. They also used their multi-platforms as a big push - ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, all the other channels and ESPN.com and radio and The Magazine. Well, with COMCAST (which owned Versus) acquiring NBC, they now have multiple platforms, too, to promote the game. But till now, they didn't have MLS. Just sayin'.
The Network games is the big win in this deal. There are currently 0. In 2012, there will be six. Any details on the financials here?
Looks like a bump up in number of games shown also (31 reg season, 3 playoffs on FSC vs 43 on NBC/VS and 6 on NBC). Additionally, Vs. has a little more weight behind it, especially now that NBC owns it. Besides the NHL, it also has IndyCar, and now MLS. They also have some college football in the fall. This helps in availability at lower sat/cable tier packages than FSC (though others have already mentioned this). It's more than simply a lateral move. More diagonal.
I wonder if there is any way I could pay for Versus to watch online. I cut the cable and am not going back.
This is a big increase in exposure. This almost has to lead to bigger viewership which should result in better sponsorship. I think Vs. packages their programming better than FSC, anyway. 75 million households > 32 million households (FSC numbers from here: http://brandedcontent.adage.com/cableguide08/vendor.php?id=14)