My wish list for Espn+ is Russian Premier League, Portuguese Liga Nos and French Rugby Top 14. Hopefully someone from espn+ reads this
Given that its the 6th-best league in UEFA and a lot of Russians live in the U.S., its surprising that the RPL hasn't been added already. Is it because BeIN still has the rights?
Nope. I just think they are no demand for the rights. NGSN used to carry those games but after they split, nobody bothered to buy the rights. The Russian Cup on the other hand is still on ESPN3
But the Russian Cup, Swedish or Danish league has a demand? Its all in the same boat of “league rights not already snatched up”
I think a lot has to do with production costs. Is there already an English feed? LAOLA used to play a lot of games without commentary and Univision Deportes does the same on many of their Europa League feeds (as Fox Matchpass used to as well). Does B/R have commentary on all of the Europa League feeds? I’d love to see all of these leagues, even without commentary or just the domestic language feed, but that may not have been contemplated by ESPN+.
B/R does have commentary for the Europa League games. There is a few odd Russian games that are produced for international viewing and those have (not good) English commentary. Again, Russia has been lagging behind soccer-wise/global TV-wise and their league is relatively niche to a point in which no one in US are interested in it
No ones arguing that there is a clamoring for it here in the US but if Espn+ is picking up swedish and danish league rights then I cant imagine that the RPL doesnt have bigger clubs in terms of European competition (Zenit, Spartak, CSKA, etc)
Any other ESPN+ subscribers on here unable to access any video this morning? I get varying messages depending on the platform (Network connection, authentication error, can't play video at this time)
Apparently ESPN was having problems with its apps this morning, judging from a Twitter search. What's weird is now I can get it to work on some devices but not others despite re-installing apps, logging in and out, clearing caches and the like.
I had an issue with ESPN+ on the Roku yesterday, went to start a few things and it kept saying I had no internet connection, which I did because I just got done streaming other stuff on other apps, quit the app and had to restart it a couple times. Then it worked.
I like Craig Burley on ESPN FC, but I always thought they should keep him away from calling games. They should have someone available. Anyone.
Iceland-Switzerland over Spain-England on ESPN2 with same kickoff times pretty much closes the case that ESPN is trying to push as many footie fans as possible to ESPN+ subscriptions.
Not the most popular decision https://twitter.com/search?f=tweets&vertical=default&q=england spain espn&src=typd
Does this indicate that ESPN does not care at all about its soccer ratings, including serie A? I'm just saying because we like to look at that and analyze how popular leagues are.
ESPN bought the rights to Serie A to beef up their streaming package. They really don't care about the ratings. As part of the agreement, they probably had to put at least one match on TV per match day, and it didn't matter which one. Honestly, I think any sport that winds up on ESPN/2 that isn't one of the major American sports is just ESPN paying lip service and trying to drive people to the streaming app.
It's pretty funny to read through these tweets. I get the frustration, but the match is very easily accessible......for $5. It's not as if ESPN bought the rights and then chose to just stash the match so nobody in the U.S. can see it. People need to at least acknowledge - as you have - the obviously strategic placement of England-Spain behind a new paywall. When I read these tweets I just think, well, sorry guys, most things you want in life cost something. The $5 I'm paying for ESPN+ this month got me four matches played by Finland and Portugal as well as the other matches I've skimmed through or caught in bits and pieces. It seems like a steal to me.
It's $5 that people weren't paying last cycle so it makes sense that there'd be complaints. It appears as if ESPN is gaming the rights system. These european competitions seem to have mandates to get the best package that will also be broadly available. They are requiring games to be aired on their big network, but then ESPN is propping up a shitty game per the contract in order to put the real action behind their paywall. I have cordcut and sub to ESPN+ so I don't mind, but I could see the annoyance if you are locked into a contract or something and have to pay $5/month on top of what you already pay just to get the same stuff you got 2 years ago.
Anyone can get a free trial to ESPN+ for 7 days. If it meant that much to people to watch Spain/England, they could have simply subscribed to the trial for free and canceled after that.