ESPN Soccer Thread

ESPN trying to acquire LaLiga rights for U.S. market, sources say

https://worldsoccertalk.com/2021/01...uire-laliga-rights-for-u-s-market-sources-say

 

I wonder if there are distribution targets that BEIN is not hitting.

I don't see Bein willingly giving this contract up

 

Didn't they have La Liga on Sundays not too long ago, but the "real" rights were with ESPN Deportes? I could have sworn ESPN2 on Sunday afternoons had an occasional game.

But I also thought ESPN+ had some of these games.

It really is at the point where you have to pick one or two leagues and follow them. The days of casually tuning in to Fox Sports World and stumbling upon some random game seem to be over. The content owners know they can overbid, sneak an occasional game into a TV channel and then paywall everything else with other programming.

 

beINSports have had La Liga rights since the 2012/13 season. Their current contract runs until end of 2023/24 season. Your memory is likely going back prior to that when GOL-TV had La Liga rights and then sub-licensed some matches to ESPN during the 2009-2012 period (GOL-TV had the rights cycle before that as well - so that goes back to 2006 but they didn't sub-license matches to ESPN until their last cycle 2009-2012).

SA
www.soccertvblog.com

 

I remember Bein pushing to get out of the sports pack on Directv and getting onto one of the straight channel package tiers as the sticking point in their negotiations a few years ago. I dont know why they stalled and both parties couldn't agree on something. Kind of shitty that Directv just completely dropped them.

My worry is that the long term ESPN + plan doesn't revolve around a $5-8 a month subscription model for everything as they continue to add new content. Fox was paying 7 million a year for Bundesliga, ESPN is paying 30 million a year. Cant imagine them adding Bundesliga pushed up the monthly subscriber numbers too much. Not sure these companies continually over inflating US soccer tv rights is really good for anyone. Take me back to the Foxsportsworld/GolTV days of the early 21st century!!

 

I'm all for ESPN getting La Liga. All these years and BeIN never created an on-demand service for replays, plus a DVR wasn't enough since they always put the early weekend starts on Connect or Xtra. Not to mention using their "talent" on more and more of the matches.

If this comes to pass, here's hoping ESPN doesn't hire Ray Hudson like they did Bonetti for Serie A to call the game of the week.

(Another side benefit: this would free up beIN to carry more Ligue 1)

 

bein without La Liga is nothing. Their viewership for Ligue 1 and Turkish football has to be so miniscule as to barely register a rating. If La Liga jumps ship for ESPN, I'll be over the moon as an ESPN+ subscriber, but that would have to be the death knell for bein.

 

On a side note, I have no problem paying for services that I know I'll use and appreciate. I pay nearly $130 for MLB.tv. I get over 2,000 games at my disposal for that price. For ESPN+, I consider it an amazing deal to get the number of games and sports that are available to me. Yeah, not everyone likes streaming, and most people don't understand how to make it work. As someone who works in technology, I have a deep appreciation for users who don't understand these things because that means I'll always have a job, and I get where people are coming from with regards to just turning on a channel, and a random game is on, and you watch it. I really do understand that, but you can do the same thing with programs like ESPN+ and even Peacock. I don't pay attention to results from leagues unless it's a league I'm really interested in. Every Sunday night, while I'm doing the dishes, I watch the last Bundesliga match from that day on my iPad. I couldn't imagine such a thing 10 years ago. Once people let go of their fears of not understanding the technology (and there are people here who have that phobia), you begin to have an appreciation of the incredible wealth of stuff that is available to you. Turning on a channel and watching what's on, and selecting a game from an available list aren't that different from each other. You just have more choice now.

 

I don't understand how ESPN was about to announce this in December when BeIN has the rights until 2024. There is a huge missing piece to this article.

 

I kind of read it to imply that La Liga was looking to back out of the Bein deal, but who knows.

 

I love that my family cut the chord. I get more soccer than I ever did paying for Directv. Also all the on demand games. Pretty much I can watch a match anytime I feel like it. Also love I get all my Inter Milan league and cup matches live.

 

Unfortunately, many of the ESPN FC guys are worse as announcers IMO. I'd be somewhat hopeful that they would use the int'l broadcast for some La Liga matches, but you can probably bet that ESPN "talent" will cover the bigger matches (probably every Madrid and Barca match).

Just like how they ruined the Old Firm derby earlier this season replacing the great Ian Crocker with their guys.

 

ESPN making the move with the FA Cup that every single US-based company makes: they run the tournament with UK English commentary and then decide for no clear reason to have their own guys call a single game. Are their guys sitting around Bristol demanding to call Man Utd-West Ham? My feeling is ESPN has MLS, save your guys for that. ESPN has always had good announcers, but we don't need two guys on a call that have probably watched 0 FA Cup games up to this point. Go with the BBC feed.

Fox and TNT both did this with the CL as well--no US based commentary and then all of a sudden during the semi-finals we were treated to US announcers.

 

So you’re saying that Craig Burley is/was not doing co-com??

 

I always wondered why American networks do that. The only reason I can think of is for advertising. But is there much gained by having Burley say "join us this weekend for blah blah against yada yada streaming on espn+"? They could flash the same info on the screen while giving us the BBC feed, and also mention that information at halftime. And how useful is this info in the first place? All the people watching are paying for espn+ already. Maybe I understand why NBC does it because they really bombard you with their own advertising ("this part of the game is brought to you by...."). But there isn't much of that on espn+ that I've noticed.

I just don't get it.

 

They call these games because that's what they're paid to do, and it's an enormous waste of money for ESPN to have these guys and not have them work. Now, you're probably saying, "Well, that's not my problem. Why should I care?" and I'm not going to disagree with you one bit, but you asked why, so that's why.

 

I'm sure that's why but the thing (again) that makes no sense is why all of a sudden. Taylor Twellman wasn't getting scheduled on games a few weeks back but wasn't used and now all of a sudden he's going to be on the Man City game? I guess I should just be happy that ESPN+ uses BBC/BT for the first few rounds and now the ESPN US folks appear, but I'd rather not have them at all. Also, it's a stream so they could provide options for audio. I know that will never happen. We've talked about it for decades on this forum (using SAP for a second English option).

 

It's not that crazy (or unlikely?) an idea. And I would love it.

When I watch NBC's EPL games, I often change from SAP-English to SAP-Spanish, because the latter is still English but the audio mix is decidely different and the fake crowd noise is less pronounced to my ear. In any case, it's an English feed in the Spanish slot... so there's precedence.

That said this idea is a bit English-centric. Wouldn't it be nicer and more equitable if the SAP-Spanish was actually En Espanol? But that would take some extra work/cost by the world-feed dudes, or the provider over here like NBC, ESPN, etc. And to expect any of them to spend on Spanish announcers seems perhaps naive.

 

I have no idea what I'm watching, but the Barnsley v Chelsea match has ended and now they're showing one of those "ESPN Films" type shows about some (German?) game with up-close looks at the ref, the TV production studio and I think even a commentator or two. They even showed a pre-match meeting with event security, as they got directions about what to do in cases things being thrown.

This type of stuff is always fun.

 

I'm surprised they seemed to have stopped broadcasting somewhere without crowd noise...but that was on the NBC Sports app, which seems to be fading into obscurity.

 

That was Das Spiel (The Game). That was produced in Switzerland by the national broadcaster, and it made its way over here after winning a couple of awards at some film festivals. As a fan of Swiss football, I loved it. The thing I found most interesting was the level of communication that goes on between officials during the match. It was really well done.

 

Nowadays, ESPN does that MegaCast thing with college football playoff games...and really, why not put all channels on the same broadcast? I'm sure anything else would be time-filler.

Well, the first one they showed under that format wasn't a game, but a live SportsCenter. The hour or two before the 11pm SportsCenter, they showed a thing about how the show gets to air with the production meetings, how stuff gets added and deleted from the rundown as the night goes on, etc. Even during the show, if some big breaking news happens, the rundown could change.

At 11pm, SportsCenter went live on the one channel and the other had a split-screen with the live SportsCenter and one of the hosts live from the production studio talking to directors, etc.

You'd hear things like "Cue camera two in four...three...go to jib, roll Kings video, fade in four" and whatever else. I think they actually ended a few minutes after SportsCenter wrapped.

I'd love to see that again.

This video reminded me of that SportsCenter show.

I'd LOVE to see NBC copy the format with Saturday Night Live...but it'd never happen. Use Bravo or USA as the secondary channel with a couple cameras in the audience to see stuff "from an audience perspective," maybe do a camera backstage, and then definitely one in the control room.

 

Just saw Belgian league now on ESPN+

 

Anyone else having any ESPN PS4 app streaming issues lately? Maybe in the last week or two it seems to stream fine for 10 minutes, then the video gets stuttery until I restart app and it's fine again for 10 minutes.
Could be my internet i suppose, but streaming from laptop to Chromecast works perfectly.