Bundesliga on FOX 2015-16 - News and Notes

FOX will be the new TV broadcaster for Bundesliga games in the US, beginning this season. There are still a lot of unanswered questions, though, and I thought opening this thread now to exchange information, rumors, kudos and complaints might be of interest.

Some of my questions:

On what channels will the games be broadcast? While I would doubt that FOX itself will be used with any frequency, will FOX Sports 1 be the primary host of Bundesliga broadcasts, or will it end up being FOX Sports 2. After enduring GolTV and its SD broadcasts only on on my cable network, I hope it is not FS2, as FS2 is not in HD either. Will other FOX channels be used to broadcast games, such as FXX? Will regional FOX networks show games? Or will most (or all) games be broadcast on Fox Soccer Plus (at additional cost).

Will they have in-studio or on-site announcers? And who will be the announcers (what a great opportunity to develop American soccer broadcast talent)?

How many games will they show per week? Live or taped?

Will it be Bayern, Bayern and more Bayern, or will FOX actually recognize that there are other teams in the BL. GolTV's swan song a couple Saturdays ago was to show the truly meaningless Bayern-Mainz game live, despite the fact that there were a half-dozen games that had implications of varying degrees with respect to relegation and/or UEFA qualification Why not show Paderborn/Stuttgart or Hannover/Freiburg, both of which were essentially relegation playoffs. I understand Bayern draws more eyeballs than Stuttgart, and I fully expect a healthy does of Bayern, but will FOX acknowledge that Leverkusen/Wolfsburg would be a better game to broadcast than Bayern/Ingolstadt?

Will there be a weekly BL highlights show? Or a weekly preview show?

I've heard (but haven't seen anything confirming) that FOX also has the rights to BL2 games. Will any BL2 games be broadcast? Can we watch TSV 1860 play Bochum on FS2, maybe, on Monday afternoon?

 

Best case scenario, or [Realistic] best case scenario? I think you are a bit negative, and here's my rationale:

1. I think the BL wants to get a better foothold in the US and wouldn't have done a deal unless FOX promised reasonable exposure.

2. FOX wanted a decent soccer property, and while the BL isn't the Premiership, and might not be La Liga, in terms of potential viewers, it still has a good bit of cache, so why would FOX bury it entirely.

3. FOX wants to demonstrate that it takes soccer seriously--hence its efforts with respect to the WWC--and will be loathe to forfeit to much of that good will by pissing off soccer fans who want to watch top flight European play.

4. FOX uses FS1 to broadcast CL games.

5. Live soccer from a top league beats much of the dreck on FS1 in the a.m. on weekends. The big conflicts are, as you point out, NASCAR, college football, pro football and college basketball (and maybe UFC). None of those play/race Saturday or Sunday morning (ET) when BL is playing. Pregame for college football on Saturdays could create a conflict, but I would think Sunday morning would be OK, since NFL pregames generally don't start before 11:30 a.m. ET (which is when the broadcast of the BL would be over).

So, a best case scenario is that FOX shows games live on FS1 on Friday afternoon, and the 9:30 a.m. (ET) slots on Saturday and Sunday; and games live on FS2 in the 11:30 a.m. (ET) slots on Saturday and Sunday; and a BL2 game on Monday afternoon. Oh, and a highlights/preview show at midnight during the week. And other games on FOX Sports+.

Now, that scenario is truly a best case. What I don't think is unreasonable and what I think represents a realistic best case scenario is: Friday game and one of the 9:30 games (whether Saturday or Sunday, depending on other programming) live on FS1; and to the extent that Bayern is not shown in either of those slots, the Bayern game on FS2. Plus other games on Fox Sports+.

When all is said and done, because I am at the local soccer fields all day Saturday and a good chunk of Sunday during Fall and Spring, I would be satisfied with a single game each week (because it is all I have time to watch), but the game has to be on FS1 and should preferably be live (although I am OK with a taped game, esp. Friday, so long as it is same day and not too long after the game was played). I am not going to pay extra for FOX Sports+ because I can watch other games in other leagues for "free" on my schedule and I will rarely watch on FS2 unless it is in HD (and my provider currently does not broadcast FS2 in HD--and the other provider where I live doesn't even have FS2).

 

I disagree about college football. While I am not a regular consumer of college football, I don't recall televised games ever starting before Noon ET. Most of the BL games on Saturday start at 9:30 a.m. ET, and are over at 11:30 a.m. ET. Yes, the 11:30 a.m. ET BL game conflicts, so I would never expect to see an 11:30 a.m. game televised live during football season, but as I said, most of the BL games on Saturday are over before CFB games would start.

That being said, my concern is the CFB pregame shows. I NEVER watch pregame shows (even for soccer), so I don't know if FS1 even has pregame shows, but I suspect they do (didn't they hire that Erin Andrews for that reason), and the question is, when do they start? If they start at, say 11:00 a.m. ET, I could very well envision Fox not wanting to cut into that, which would eliminate the live telecast of any BL games on FS1.

To my mind, that makes Sunday a better bet, because I think the NFL pregame is on big FOX. Broadcasting the 9:30 a.m. ET Sunday game shouldn't preempt any priority programming.

And let's keep in mind that by mid-November CFB is winding down and Fox doesn't have a similar property that would prevent FS1 from broadcasting games live Saturday morning through the end of the BL season.

Of course, I would have expected FOX to promote its partnership with the BL during its WWC broadcasts, and it did not (or at least not when I was watching), and that's a bit discouraging.

Another thought: might Fox sublicense (if that's the right word) BL broadcasts to another network. GolTV continues to show old BL games and the other day even replayed their end-of-the-season BL wrap-up, which I wouldn't expect if GolTV didn't think it still might get a piece of the BL pie. On a personal level, that would be disappointing because, while I get GolTV, I don't have it in HD and the picture quality on SD is really inferior (so much so that I find myself flipping for long periods of time to EPL games on NBCSN and Serie A games on beinSport).

 

To your point, I agree that FOX is going to have to work to fit the BL telecasts in. I think there's a way; the question is whether there's a will.