(I was going to to title this thread: 2020 Soccer and Beyond: Nothing escapes the ESPN+ Black Hole) So, today's news that the Bundesliga signed a six year deal with ESPN means that the TV rights market for soccer is pretty much locked down for the forseeable future Bundesliga: 6 year deal with ESPN/ESPN+ starting 2020-2021 English Premier League: With NBC Sports through at least 2021-22 Serie A: Second year of "Multi Year Deal" with ESPN/ESPN+ (couldn't find anything on length) La Liga: BeIN Sports through 2024. UEFA Club: Turner Sports through 2020-21 I would not be surprised to see Turner drop the contract, next go round and it get tied in with ESPN's black hole. I think Fox is getting out of the English Language TV soccer market.
I don’t believe ESPN will get champions league. They like to buy things methodically and on the cheap, and with the CL there is premium involved. Someone will jump in and throw money at UEFA just like Turner did this time.
Basically in 2020 the only non-domestic leagues getting any significant Television coverage in USA will be the EPL and Liga MX. Everything else is streamed or is on low-distribution networks GOLTV and Bein. ESPN will throw the odd Bundesliga game on ESPNNEWS or ESPN2 as they do w/ Serie A. I guess hardcore soccer-watchers and cord-cutters are fine with this setup; boring old cable subscribers like me will have fewer choices on Saturday mornings.
I dont see UEFA going anywhere really. I on World Soccer Talk heard UEFA isnt mad but not happy with Turner either. They talked with FOX but they were not interested. Most everything is indeed locked down for now, though I still think La Liga and Turner would've been a good fit. Have to watch what DAZN does stateside though in 5 years.
Looking at Turner, you gotta think they would want to keep it. They need sports and BR Live is pretty bare bones as is aside from CL. Of the traditional players, ESPN would obviously be interested but they arent going to be the highest bidder and willing to spend top dollar. FOX seems to be getting out of the club game. CBS was never interested. Would NBC want to take on Champions League on top of EPL? They could use more NBC Sports Gold content for sure and could mirror a format similar to what AT&T does now with Bleacher Report and TNT. But would they be willing to outbid Turner for it? With the Spanish language rights on Univision, there is a lot of lost value for an OTT streaming service as most people who have cable can get the Spanish version of they want to watch the game bad enough. Perhaps if they could get both English and Spanish rights they might be interested. BEIN and DAZN would be intersted but man that would be a big drop in availability in the world's largest economy. I gotta think if Turner wants it they keep it. If not I bet that ESPN will take the English unless NBC can get the English and Spanish
The absolute best was when Fox and ESPN shared the UEFA CL rights. FS1 on TV. FS2 on Slingbox. ESPN2 on phone app. ESPN3 on a 2x2 array on the WatchESPN website. I had 7/8 games going on. Of course, there was that one day with the triple-header which was absolutely ridiculous and amazing. Anything but Turner. Their pregame B/R live is amateur hour and terrible.
Thing is, there are only a few teams that move the needle enough to draw ratings, essentially big 6 epl teams and la liga. TNT shows those ones on tv. I think they could stand to show a couple more matches on cable but meh. I agree, Turner looks like it for UEFA. People may not like em but they are dedicated at least.