Interesting. Shouldn't you be blaming ESPN and NBC Sports Network, along with Fox Soccer. If beIN hadn't picked the game up, no way any other of the aforementioned providers would have picked it up. Wait till next cycle when all the qualifiers are on beIN.
Yeah, I love being called a racist because I'm upset about the games not being available on most every system in the USA.
Because money talks and bullshit walks. Traffic has the rights for most of our away game qualifiers. You think Traffic is going to turn down an extra million in rights fees if ESPN topped BE In's bid?
Didn't they have a chance at the Guatemala game? They knew these games were coming up - didn't they? They can't afford a phone call to Traffic to say How much? Looks like beIN made the call.
BEIN Sport may be a great thing for American Soccer. No more Little League World Series or Softball getting priority over our beautiful game. USA soccer can be treated as the main attraction and not a side show. Heck, if they are smart they will have a long pregame and post game show that not only focuses on our team, players & stats but also the fans. Would be cool to see live scenes at bars and restaurants of USA fans cheering on the team like they do during World Cups.
there are dedicated soccer channels out there (or at least there have been). The fact is, BEIN sport is going to have to do a lot of marketing to a) get people to actually know the channel exists, and b) get people to fork more money to purchase the expensive cable packages that will feature the channel in its lineup. The fact is BEIN sport probably will market to some extent, but outside of the american hardcore soccer fans of the various leagues it broadcasts, i don't see the casual americans going for it, at least not nearly enough for it to really penetrate the "mainstream" audience. I'd be fairly surprised if BEIN is a success imho. Edit: And yes ESPN airing little league baseball is retarded. I don't even know any baseball fans who watch it, I actually have never met a kid who watched little league baseball on ESPN. It's one of the great mysteries in my life as to how those games ever get aired on ESPN, let alone ESPN2/ESPN3. Edit: And it is nice to have more soccer channels to help increase exposure in the sport. But i still think it will be a big flop, and not because it's Al-Jazeera Sport Media Network. It's only available in 7 million homes right now, it could expand but probably will only be in the upper tier cable packages, and I don't know how committed they are in actually capturing the US market (or helping to expand it anyways and adding viewers in the process). It's a bit of a different animal than say NBC Sports network, which operates in the US market and is investing pretty fairly into the MLS, knowing if it ever caught on nationally they could have something very marketable for their network (and also seeing that espn has a chokehold on several sports).
BEIN sport already has deals with Direct TV and Dish and are in negotiations with Comcast and Uverse. Casual american fans who want to see World Cup Qualifiers could tune in. Maybe not in September... ... but eventually. With the way things are going I would not be surprised if every major soccer event would be on BEIN in the future. It beats Pay-Per-View any day.
Best way for them to penetrate and advertise is by word of mouth. They seem to be doing a good job of that so far with social media and websites like this one we are communicating on. Also, I think it would be wise for them to deal with Xbox, Wii, PS3 for livestream apps. Maybe do a deal with FIFA /EA Sports. The sky is the limit when their owner is a sugar daddy from the middle east with a lot of cash to blow.
I have absolute faith that BeIn is looking to expand their market. It'd be a death sentence to remain at 7million viewers. Getting the licenses to broadcast these games is leverage and will work in their favor to negotiate a better contract with Comcast and Uverse. While it might be used to make people fork over a ton of money to purchase the subscription I doubt that'd be their best business model. The number of dedicated soccer fans isn't large enough to settle for just expensive packages. The amount of casual viewers can't be that large either, they definitely wont be purchasing BeIn just to randomly find a game once every month or so. If that's their intention then I don't think we'll be seeing BeIn for much longer. I watched some of the LLWS games, although, I was born and raised in San Bernardino, CA - where the Western Regionals are held so I watch it now just to say "hey! I used to break into that field and play home run derby with golf balls." Anyways, like I said, it's not in BeIn's best interest to buy these games and try to force people to buy packages. They want cable providers to pick their channel up without a package. I'm sure they've done enough market research to make sure this will happen. They aren't looking to take a loss here.
Not only that - they want to televise soccer. ESPN and NBC Sports aren't interested in televising USMNT games.
How many road World Cup qualifiers did NBC Sports and ESPN televise? Why didn't they step up and buy all the road qualifiers like beIN Sports did? Don't worry beIN Sports will have all the qualifiers next cycle. NBC Sports can televise all the US vs Canada/Scotland matches they want.
ESPN has the lockdown on the home matches. I do not think they will give that up till fox gets world cup in 2018 then stuff may change some.
ESPN didn't pick up the road qualifiers because Traffic wanted too much for the rights. beIN is looking for exposure to the market and was willing to take the loss. It's not complicated. ESPN may lose qualifiers for the next cycle, but it's not because they hate soccer.