I don't know how much of this is in the public domain already, but.... AEG is buying the pre-Libertadores tournament and moving it to the Home Depot Center. MLS will be part of this tournament - and hence, Copa Libertadores - in the very near future. The Galaxy are exploring partnerships with Real Madrid, Manchester United, or an unnamed other Premiership team. The partnerships will include player development, marketing. This is part of what Doug Hamilton referred to as a "five year plan." Within 30 days at the next MLS board meeting, presumably around the time of MLS Cup, MLS will announce its expansion candidates for 2005. It will be Cleveland and wherever Chivas ends up. Chivas hasn't given up on Los Angeles, AEG still isn't amused by the idea. The Home Depot Center will host Olympic qualifiers and World Cup qualifiers. One assumes those games won't be against Mexico or Central American teams, but who knows. Real Madrid will tour the US next summer, and apparently this time AEG will be a part of it. As far as the Los Angeles stop, Real hasn't decided between the Rose Bowl and the Home Depot Center. According to Liewecke, Manchester United have told him they feel they made a mistake playing in the Coliseum this summer. Manchester United is also planning a return trip in the near future. AEG will establish a 24 hour, 7 day a week cable soccer channel. AEG negotiated to buy the WUSA TV rights, but were unable to come to an agreement. According to Leiwecke, Anschutz wants to be "part of the solution, but not the only solution." Leiwecke, in connection with why AEG isn't underwriting WUSA as well as MLS, said that MLS has so far lost $150 million. As of the players' lawsuit of a couple of years ago, that figure was $250 million. Either Leiwecke is inaccurate, or MLS has made $100 million in profit in the past couple of years. This was all at the Galaxy season ticket holder "Town Hall" meeting before the playoff game yesterday.
They BETTER make sure that the only teams we play in LA are either Canada or the smaller Carribean nations. Another Soccer channel? Sweet.
Dan: Thanks for the information. A soccer channel? Great. And, remember: to play Mexico, Honduras or Costa Rica, you need to go to the best possible stadium in Alaska in January and with 10 degrees below zero...
Carry this one step further. Hope that Canada is in the Hex, and hope they have the smarts to also ice them.
Wow.. That's a lot of big news in one post. If half of it happens it'll be great. I have a feeling my cable provider won't add the channel though as they still won't add FSW..
The only concern I have about a soccer channel is that they(FSW,GolTV,AEG's) all go under while competing for the same audience....but we have plenty of time to worry about that stuff...
This is all great news. The Man Utd game in Philly was a great night for soccer, I think we made some new fans that night. I can only hope Real does the same. IIRC the offical announcment for the United tour was in December or January, maybe a little later. I wonder who else would be on the tour, I read that either Liverpool or Aresenal were interested, don't know how much fact was behind that.
to Dan Loney: I attempted to reply to your post, by replying"post within a post" and seem to have messed it all up. Hope you understand what I meant to say!
Yeah, right. And the Brooklyn Bridge is available on eBay. This is nothing more than a negotiating ploy for AEG/SUM against the likes of ESPN, FOX Sports Int'l, Telemundo, etc. to get better time slots and improved coverage. Let's see: AEG has no broadcast TV licenses so it has no retransmission consent leverage against cable/satellite TV operators. (Notice how NBA TV and NFL Channel are struggling to get carriage on cable systems. NBA and NFL have no retransmission consent leverage against cable/satellite TV operators either.) Hence, AEG will have to pay a launch fee of around $5 per household in order to get its channel onto systems. $5 per household x 20 million households = $100 million in launch fees alone. Not to mention startup capital investment necessary for a studio. Not to mention the need to hire an army of producers, technicians, salespeople, accountants, and lawyers to run the operation. Even on the cheap, AEG will need to hire around 25 people minimum for a barebones operation (like the early days of FOX Sports World in 1997-1998). The alternative for AEG/SUM is clean and simple: barter the MLS programming to FOX Sports World (20 million households), which has a ton of time to fill, especially on Saturday nights. No fuss, no muss.
Originally posted by Dan Loney AEG is buying the pre-Libertadores tournament and moving it to the Home Depot Center. MLS will be part of this tournament - and hence, Copa Libertadores - in the very near future. Im guessing AEG will buy the pre libertadores rights from Mexican sports promoter Eduardo Aguirre who couldnt reach a new agreenment with the MFL after CONMEBOL granted them two direct spots. So im guessing if Conmebol which gave Venezuela and extra spot will allow them to continue having play-offs for their other two spots. Well good luck Yanks and lets see if yah can make it to Copa Libertadores. Cant wait to see a Galaxy vs River Plate or Santos match up and me getting in the HDC for free..
Re: Re: Big news from Tim Leiwecke I'm skeptical too, but I think there's room out there for broadcasts of historic matches, instructional videos, etc. Anyway, Ollie, how is what I clipped here different from the status quo?
do you have an official article about this? I don't trust just what bigsoccer posters say if AEG is really buying the rights what year will mls teams start playing venezuelan teams? (when do they start or are they just thinking about buying the rights)
Re: Re: Big news from Tim Leiwecke Exactly. AEG will establish a 24 hour, 7 day a week cable soccer channel. Partnering w/ FSW maybe?
Re: Re: Re: Big news from Tim Leiwecke It is the status quo, and it is the only option that makes any sense for MLS for the forseeable future. FOX Sports World already has the infrastructure, the personnel, and the subscribers in place. Not to mention that FOX Sports World has plenty of TV time available to fill, especially on Saturday nights.
Like Ollie, I'm calling "bullcrap" on this. These days, about the only channels that cable and satellite providers are adding are (a) the ones that pay to be on their system (like religious, shopping, and PPV channels) and (b) the ones that are basically forced onto them by their owners' bundling them along with something that the system wants (for example, Disney forces anyone any cable or satellite system who's buying carrying ESPN to also carry ESPNEWS and ESPN Classic). Even if AEG gives away its channel for free, most cable and satellite providers won't carry it, because they're having problems with capacity and bandwidth is at such a premium these days. Unless AEG is willing to pay cable and satellite providers to carry their channel, or unless AEG partners with News Corp or Disney or Viacom or Discovery or Time Warner and have them go to bat for their new channel, AEG can forget about getting its channel on any cable or satellite systems. Just ask the Tennis Channel how tough this is. Or Gol TV. Or hell, even the NFL Network. NBA TV is everywhere, but only because most cable and satellite providers bundle it with the $160/year NBA League Pass package. Anschutz is a smart businessman who's got more money than God, but so is Tom Hicks, who went through the same "I'm starting my own sports channel" goofiness in 2000 when he wanted to start a regional network based around the Rangers and Stars. In the end, however, the startup costs, and the difficulty getting the channel onto cable systems convinced him not to go ahead with it. But it wasn't a complete loss for Hicks. His sports channel idea was enough to get Fox Sports Net to cough up $45 million a year to carry all local Rangers and Stars telecasts on Fox Sports Net, KDFW (the local Fox owned-and-operated station), and KDFI (the local Fox-owned independent station). AEG will do enough with this "soccer channel" idea to squeeze a few more bucks out of ESPN and Fox Sports World. But they're not actually going to try to get it up and running.
Re: Re: Big news from Tim Leiwecke This is what I was driving at in my question to Ollie. He seems to think it's an ENTIRELY empty gesture. I'm not saying he's wrong, but I will say that I think AEG knows the market well enough that he's trying to get something from FSW. I'm just curious what that might be. Ollie, you don't think AEG can't get ANYTHING out of this? To everyone, what synergies might be on the table. Or do we all think it's just AEG wanting money from FSW?
Re: Re: Big news from Tim Leiwecke I think you don't understand part of how it works. First, VS reads about the news down in Mexico. On your second question, the basic explanation is: Venezuela sells their allotted CL spots to the MFL every year. There won't be MLS teams playing Venezuelan teams but maybe an extra CL spot for sale by Venezuela to the MFL or maybe to MLS. Someone correct me if I got the gist wrong.
Why does everyone assume that an AEG soccer channel will have anything to do with today's market realities? He could buy FSW or Gol TV. He could buy a frigging cable system and get distribution that way. He could buy another channel on the cheap if it fails and utilize their assets to further his end. It's not a secret I've thought this project is a good idea. But the way the cable market could change in the next few years, I find it hard to say that it's an impossibility or just a negotiating tactic. It seems they didn't put a date on it for good reason. This might be a long-term project that will fit into a broadcast industry with a very different look. Enough of the arguing. I'm about to go watch Fox NASCAR, which cruelly took the place of Fox Sports World, which won the MLS TV contract from Disney two years ago.
It's pretty hard to bargain with Fox and ESPN without leverage, so Anschutz may be being needlessly ballsy. One thing, however: DirecTV actually was previewing NFL Network on Sunday. A 24-7 soccer channel, even in a gridiron country, beats the crap out of that channel, unless you're really hip on 30-year-old "reality shows".
I'm no expert on this but it looks like there are going to be some big time changes in the sports TV world over the next few years. You've got cable companies butting horns with ESPN over the rising rates they're forced to pay, plus I'm wondering if the NFL's new channel might mean they eventually produce all their own games and walk away from ESPN? And don't think MLB isn't watching what the NFL's doing very carefully. Not sure where soccer and MLS fit into all this but I'm guessing Uncle Phil has a better idea than most of us. I'm guessing there's a lot more involved here than trying to pull a few dollars out of FSW.
Was asking around and reading about all this stuff today and I realized something very important – Tim Leiweke is not just in charge of AEG. He’s also head of SUM and president of MLS’ board. So I’m pretty sure this isn’t AEG doing all this stuff, but SUM/MLS. With Kroenke around now (he’s trying to start his own regional sports network) and Lamar (the Frisco partnership is a nice feather in his cap) and all the other people with their fingers in the pie, these things are gonna help all of MLS, not just the Galaxy and AEG. I think all of this stuff is a long-range planning list for everyone involved, not just St. Phil. Maybe with the collective weight of the new investors, the things that people think are pipe dreams might actually happen in the next few years. Not to say I doubt what Leiweke spoke about, I just figure the initials he was speaking for are SUM, not AEG.