Come on FSW lets go back to the old days when you use to show the England games. Setanta is not showing the game so why don't you just put the sky feed on for all your loyal viewers?
FOX Sports World is no longer an upstart network that needs to attract an audience. FOX Sports World is now a mature network with 20+ million paying subscribers. If anything, FOX Sports World has TOO MANY unprofitable soccer products. FOX Sports World only needs to show "just enough" soccer in order to keep its subscriber base. "Just enough" means English Premier League and perhaps MLS. That's all. Everything else is a waste of money for FOX Sports World, including German, French, and Dutch Football, UEFA Cup games that show up on short notice, and garbage friendlies. If the products can't sell ads and can't bring in significant amounts of new subscribers, then FOX Sports World should NOT buy those products. == Gol TV, not FOX Sports World, is now the new kid on the block.
I have a legitimate, honest question: If the EPL is the most profitable property that FSW owns, and is the cornerstone of their soccer programming, as you've posted many, many times, why would an England friendly in preparation for Euro 2004 not be a candidate for very big (for FSW) numbers? Are that many of the regular viewers of the EPL not interested in England internationally?
I would think FSW would jump at picking up a match that is one of Setanta's "bread and butter" matches. Isn't England internationals in Setanta's top 3 sellers? I realize that they've purchased, and agreed to show, every Rugby World Cup match, but wouldn't the England match draw more viewers?
FOX Sports Int'l will have to pay sports marketing agency Octagon CSI (the company representing the English FA) a licensing fee for each England home game. (Because Octagon CSI is NOT part of the NewsCorp empire, there is no "tax management" advantage for NewsCorp for this particular transaction.) The fee charged by Octagon CSI is NOT cheap. As yourself this: how many FOX Sports World subscribers will UNSUBSCRIBE if FOX Sports World does NOT air England vs Denmark? My answer to the question is ZERO. As yourself this: how many new subscribers would FOX Sports World be able to sign if it adds England vs Denmark on short notice? My answer to the question is NOT ENOUGH to cover rights fees and transmission costs. FOX Sports World should not spend money on England vs Denmark because the RETURN ON INVESTMENT (ROI) would be very close to ZERO.
Re: Re: England v Denmark New subscribers pre-game, highly doubtful. But maybe they could use it to sell themselves to new cable systems and/or potential subscribers after the fact, as an example of the kind of games you can see on their channel. But that could be wishful thinking on my part.
Re: Re: Re: England v Denmark Yes, it's wishful thinking on your part. If you are an English fan, it's very likely that you have already subscribed to FSW for its EPL coverage. That's the bread and butter of FSW and for an English fan. So it's very unlikely that you are an English fan, but you don't subscribe to FSW for the EPL, but would subscribe to FSW just because of a once-in-the-blue-moon England x Denmark ...
You are damn right. FSI panicked when it lost tape-delay rights to Scottish Premier League matches involving Celtic and Rangers. It spent the money on 1-year deals for French and Dutch football, both of which are proven money-losers in the US market. Those two products don't bring in enough subscribers to offset the rights fees and transmission cost, and they certainly can't sell any ads. FOX Sports Int'l (FSI) would have been better off using those time slots to re-air EPL matches. FSI has already paid FA Premier League Limited a licensing fee for "all you can eat" access to EPL. The two bread-and-butter soccer products for FOX Sports World are EPL and MLS. EPL sells TARGETED ads (British Airways, Carlsberg, Guinness, etc.), while the relationship with MLS allows FSI access to MLS investors and MLS sponsors. Everything else is a waste of money. For a textbook example of how to run a cable network with soccer as a primary attraction, look at Univision Communication's Galavision network, which carries Futbol Mexicano, Copa America, Copa de Oro CONCACAF, and FIFA products. It doesn't waste its time or money with junk products. ESPN Deportes will also have "just enough" soccer, with the UEFA Champions League being the ONLY product when ESPN Deportes launches. ESPN knows that the only other soccer product it should ever spend money on for ESPN Deportes, if the opportunity arises, is Futbol Mexicano. Everything else would be a waste of money for ESPN, including La Liga, which ESPN wisely passed up when the asking price became too expensive. ESPN's goal for ESPN Deportes is to generate "incremental revenue" and ESPN Deportes is not a high priority project at ESPN at this time.
I concur with da_cfo, at least as long as GOL TV is around. It seems that the rights fee became too expensive primarily because GOL TV was willing to put out more than it was worth to anybody else simply to establish themselves. If there were no competition, I would think it might make financial sense in the future for ESPN Deportes to pick up La Liga if they can manage it for essential just the incremental expense of gettting the signals from Spain and adding their own graphics and voices, with only a token rights fee. (If nobody else wanted it, La Liga might accept a token fee...near zero... since they wouldn't lose money). Among the Mexican fans, and based on the teams discussed on Spanish sports talk, it is clear ESPN Deportes would have a significant audience for Barca (because of Rafa Marques), for Real Madrid (because of their absurd list of celebrity stars), and probably Osasuna (because of Javier Aguirre).