from chat with tommy smyth http://proxy.espn.go.com/chat/chatESPN?event_id=3452 Quote Lisa New Mexico: saw you on ESPN NEWS for the past couple of weeks. Two Questions. One you said Becham might come to the US, Is that True?? Second Question Is this just a one Off thing for the Champions League, you been on ESPN NEWS? Tommy Smyth: Hi Lisa! Glad to have you aboard. Obviously, you might just have a liking for Beckham and would like to see him this side of the pond. He will probably be more mature when he gets here, but I have a feeling he will get here someday. He sees American as being a frontier he would like to be involved in. As for ESPNEWS, I am delighted that it is not a one off thing. Yes, we have been on to coincide with the Champions League and there has been a good reaction to it, not just by soccer fans, but by casual fans as well. I will do some shameless promotion at this stage .. tomorrow I will be at ESPN Zone at NY and after the Inter-Milan game, we will have a report from the Zone and on Wed. at 5:10 ET, we will be looking back at Real Madrid and Juventus. It has been a great opportunity for me to have interaction with soccer fans in the US and I think the plan may be to continue every Wed. at 5:10 ET. I am sure at some point, we will be looking at some of your emails so feel free to contact us. In the meantime spread the gospel .. soccer is coming. You can go to ESPNEWS website now and tell them you are looking forward to the soccer coverage .. End of quote Since the CL will be over soon, i really do not see many other topic surfacing for a month or two after that, if not for MLS, Confederations cup, etc
Tommy is simply doing what he can to appear on US domestic English-language ESPN networks. UEFA Champions League will air in the US "solo en Espanol" on ESPN Deportes starting next season. No more JP and Tommy during UEFA Champions League telecasts for US viewers once ESPN Deportes becomes a full time channel.
Are you an ESPN executive or something. Its my understanding that ESPN does not have rights to the Champions League next year. If they do get them , why would they take them off ESPN 2 . That would be a great way to promote their new station. As for Tommy just getting on domestic TV. I doubt that Tommy Smyth has that kind of power in ESPN . I can just see it now Smyth marching into a meeting, yes today I will do 5 min on soccer. Its Tommy who is told what he will and wont do not the other way around.
Seems they will probably have the rights next year, there's some convoluted deal. Seems as if the only reason they have carried the matches on espn2 is because, somehow, their overall contract which covers most of the world outside Europe was written in a way that required them to carry a minimum # in the US, otherwise they would likely have not carried any in recent years. They can apparently make more $$ selling exercize equipment or selling time to more marginal sports than they can showing CL. For their new full time Spanish network it's a whole different story, so brush up on your Spanish.