ESPN Deportes SAP?

Every time I've tried SAP on ESPN Deportes it's either silence, or during games it's usually just stadium audio with no commentary at all. I have never encountered commentary in english on SAP.

 

I'm not even sure how you've encountered that. When I put the SAP on Option 1 (english) or Option 2 (spanish) I get Spanish for either one. Very strange. Do you have FIOS? I wouldn't mind just crowd noise as my spanish is poor.

 

Yeah I have FIOS and I live in the Boston area. I haven't tried this with my FIOS branded receiver, but I have with a Tivo with a multi-stream cablecard. I'll give it a shot on the bedroom TV (the one with a FIOS branded box) next time I see some soccer on there.

 

DIRECTV offers ESPN Deportes with Spanish audio only.

ESPN Deportes does NOT have an English audio track (unlike the 6 versions of ESPN currently being offered to viewers in Spanish-speaking Latin America.)

 

if ESPN liked soccer they would provide an English SAP track

 

I have emailed some of the execs at ESPN at various points over the years and every time, I got responses (i.e., asking why Deportes kept editing 5 minutes from the CL games when ESPN had the rights, thanking them for their use of knowledgeable announcers for Euro 2008, and again for WC 2010). When I emailed to ask about SAP on Deportes and to note that every other football-focused US-based Spanish language channel had a SAP option and that Deportes could follow suit to increase audiences (even if minimally), I didn't get a reply.

 

maybe you hit a nerve?

 

Similarly, I emailed an ESPN exec regarding the possibility of putting ESPN Deportes in the "sports tiers" in addition to the Spanish-language tiers so that ESPN Deportes can double or even triple its subscriber revenue and put ESPN Deportes in a better competitive position vs FOX Deportes and GOLTV.

No word yet on whether the Disney/ESPN affiliate sales executive will attempt to push ESPN Deportes onto "sports tiers".

 

are SAP limitations (or lack of availability) perhaps tied into the specific broadcast rights contracts?

does Disney even have the English language TV rights in this market for a lot of the content they distribute on ESPN Deportes?

(note, they have dual-language rights for MLS, but I don't know if they offer the ESPN2 audio on ESPN Deportes SAP during MLS broadcasts. seems kinda pointless to do that given the HD and vast availability of ESPN2, but someone could check that out tonight for NY/SJ.)

 

Strange. I get ESPN Deportes in one of the regular FIOS line ups but I had to add a sports tier to get Fox Deportes & Gol TV.

 

I think we're mainly talking about the games that are unavailable in english anywhere else.

 

They might still not hold the rights for those games in English though, even if no one else does. I imagine buying Spanish rights to the dutch league is much cheaper than buying English and Spanish, and since ESPN Deportes is a spanish only channel, why pay extra for the English if they don't have to.

 

understood.

but that's also my question. if these games are unavailable in English, there's no assurance that Disney has the rights to broadcast an English-language SAP.

again, I don't know all the details of the contracts they've signed for all the various leagues and content they show on ESPN Deportes, but I'm not convinced they have the contractual right to broadcast in English for some/many of those matches.

or,

what he said.

 

ESPN, Inc. does have the U.S. video rights to Eredivisie in English.

(Ditto the Bundesliga and La Liga sublicenses from GOLTV, Inc.)

ESPN3.com streams the international video from IMG Sports Media straight through, either with English commentary or with stadium sound only.

 

Do they have the TELEVISION rights for english though or only internet rights?

 

I can't answer the question but I can say that if they don't have English rights for TV then they don't feed the SAP through. Gol did this in the past, FSE did this with U-20 WC 2007 if I remember correctly. So rights shouldn't be a factor for SAP as long as there are enough games to make it worth their time and effort.

 

Well, we know they have english television rights for La Liga because they show La Liga games on ESPN2. But no SAP for those games on Deportes not shown on ESPN2. I can't imagine that getting English TV rights for Deportes games coupled with selling Deportes on the Sports tier would be a net loss, but who knows. Maybe their sublicense with GolTV means they can only show 20 La Liga games and no Bundesliga games in English on ESPN2. But I suspect that a good amount of us would buy Deportes if it had English SAP