Just finished listening to the FSI/EPL/FA press conference: Key points: 1. FSI signed a 3-year contract extension with FA Premier League limited for exclusive US and Canadian TV rights to English Premier League (EPL). 200 games each season on FOX Sports World and pay-per-view. 12-16 games live in the Saturday 12:15pm ET time slot. Games on Saturdays at 7:30am ET will continue to air on FOX Sports World. Pay-per-view distribution agreements are to be finalized according to David Sternberg. 2. FSI signed a 4-year contract with the English FA for ALL English FA matches, including Community Shield, FA Cup, and England home games through the pre-Euro 2008 friendlies, on FOX Sports World and pay-per-view. Agreement to start with 2004 Community Shield: Arsenal vs Man U. 3. "FOX Football Friday" show. Fridays starting August 6 on FOX Sports World (US) at 9pm ET and repeat at 9pm PT. Focus on English Football. Preview, interviews, and viewer phone calls. (I assume the length of the show will be 1 hour.) 4. German, Argentine, and Brazilian leagues will continue to air on FOX Sports World to provide variety, as will UEFA Cup, UEFA Super Cup, and Intercontinental Cup. No mention of Dutch or French leagues by David Sternberg. 5. Free preview of FOX Sports World will be offered to cable and satellite operators on July 24-26 (opening weekend of ChampionsWorld Tour friendlies). Max Bretos and John Harkes were at the press conference, with Bretos being the moderator. (Sternberg dodged my question regarding the "talent" on the FOX Football Friday show.) Richard Scudamore of the FA Premier League Limited mentioned that the FAPL wants its product portrayed the way it wants the product to be portrayed, with NewsCorp as its partner providing quality presentation and production, specifically in Asia via Singapore-based ESPN Star Sports (managed by NewsCorp with NewsCorp owning 50.0000001%) and in the US and Canada via FOX Sports Int'l. Nic Cowell of the English FA mentioned the desire by the English FA for Team England to be "America's second team". (Best of luck to the English FA. Team England has a long way to go to try to catch up with Team Mexico, which gets 40+% TV ratings in US markets such as Los Angeles during the World Cup.) As expected, the press conference was heavily scripted, with Bretos asking most of the questions to pre-empt the media listening on the phone. Press conference was sparsely-attended by the media. Only big media outlet present was Jack Bell of the NY Times, who listened via the phone.
You mention only 200 EPL matches. I thought the contract was for all 380 matches. What gives? That only amounts to 15-20 more matches than before. And, from the way it sounds, all of the other trophy type matches will be going to PPV. You might as well give all that back to Setanta. This is totally less than what we were made to believe.
Thanks for posting the info. Alleged ego and bias aside, I know a lot of us apprecaite your knowledge of what's going on with soccer on TV in the US... even if you don't admit when you're wrong!
Contrast this with: (May 12) Contrast this with: (May 18) Contrast this with: (May 11) Huh. That's odd.
The FSI EPL TV contract is for all 380 matches, but FSI is choosing to import only around 200 matches each season and FSI is choosing to spend additional money to buy rights to German, Brazilian, and Argentine leagues. I still don't agree with FSI's decision to bring back the Bundesliga, which has been a consistent LOSER for the past 10 years. Of course, FSI can now afford to blow $500000 on any loser product it wants, given that FOX Sports World should be getting over $100 million in annual residental subscription fees (50 cents per subscriber per month x 12 months x 20 million subscribers = $120 million.)
I guess what I don't understand is playing $10m per season for the EPL for all 380 games and only airing 200. Then you spend another 1/2 million on the Bundesliga when you've got an additional unused matches in inventory. Okay, we will get 15-20 more EPL matches per season but it doesn't replace the loss of the two per week matches from the French and Dutch leagues. So now there will be fewer soccer matches overall each week. That just sucks. I'm just disappointed because I thought that maybe I'd be able to see all of Charlton's matches next season. Guess not now.
MORE LIVE FOOTBALL FOR NYC In a press conference earlier today at Nevada Smith's, Fox Sports World announced that they have secured the rights to the English Premiership for the next 3 years, along with full rights to the FA Cup and the England team international home games. FSW will also increase the number of live Premiership games shown every weekend. This will give ALL commercial establishments the ability to show these games without having to charge a cover at the door. There will be more information in our printed magazine available tomorrow at all good establishments.
How does he expect anyone to begin following the England team when all their matches air in the U.S. on PPV? Seems to me the way to gain viewers is to put the games on free (non-PPV) television, like FSW. Unless he thinks 4 day delay is the way to get viewership. Seems to be you can boil this down to: 1. Fox Football Friday (a good thing I suppose) 2. Basically the status quo, which is a huge letdown really
I'm guessing Fox Football Friday takes the Friday Night MISL games out of the mix. I believe that contract had expired. What about the A-League games that usually air on Friday nights?
Kenn, If Fox Football Friday is to air at 9:00 EST, then they could show an A League match at 7:00 EST and have room for both. Just a thought.
OK, maybe this is a dumb question...but is this a change in the EPL schedule? Cuz I thought that all matches were either at 12:30 or 3:00 local time. 12:15 ET would be 5:15 local time, right?
Yeah, but that would mean playing Central time games at 6, which isn't optimum. Right now 8pm ET is where most of their games are, and the west coast games they usually do at 10pm ET (which I guess they could still do). Remember, A-League games still have overtime, which MLS games do not have. The MISL games were all tape-delayed anyway, so they could easily be cut down to fit.
I thought it was a 5 hour difference between England and New York, so 12:15 would be 7:15 EST and 6:15 CST.
It was just announced on Big Soccer Wednesday that the Friday night show will be hosted Nick and Steven of World Soccer Weekly.
texgator, read what I clipped more carefully. He didn't write GMT, he wrote ET. If ET doesn't mean "Eastern Time" I don't know what it could mean.
A few EPL games were played at 12:15 ET this season. There will be more next season as that time slot was one of the domestic TV packages up for bid. FSW will now be showing those games live as opposed to short delay (either 2:00 ET or 8:00 ET).
let's cut to the chase: how many non-PPV(live or SDD) games will FSW show per week? it was usually one on Saturday at 7:30am EST live, one at 12n EST SDD and one on Sunday at 2pm EST SDD and also the Monday game at 3pm EST.
Saturday 7:30am ET live on FOX Sports World (US) and Rogers Sportsnet (Canada) Saturday 10am ET live on pay-per-view (US) and Rogers Sportsnet (Canada) Saturday 12noon ET either live or 2-hour delay on FOX Sports World (US) and Rogers Sportsnet (Canada) Sunday 9am ET live on FOX Sports World Canada. Time slot for this match on FOX Sports World (US) is to be determined. Sunday 11am ET live on pay-per-view (US) and FOX Sports World Canada. If no 11am ET game is available, then the 9am ET game will air on pay-per-view (US) at 11am ET. Weekday games live on FOX Sports World (US) and FOX Sports World Canada. The only big change is the Saturday 12noon ET slot, which will now be a live game if one is available.
Nice to see some more live games, but I wish FSI imported more games period. Granted, I have very little interest in watching a ton of delayed 10:00 games on delay, especially since the Highlights Show will recap the good ones.
This is disappointing. As mentioned by many others, I thought we were going to be able to see all of the EPL games played at some point during the week. While I know it said the pay-per-view packages had not been completed, was there any mention at all about the prices and/or the number of games on pay-per-view each weekend? I would hope there are more matches on pay-per-view, but I doubt it. So, why did they have a huge press conference to announce this? Kind of lame to me.
The number of PPV games should be basically unchanged, excluding more England matches that may be shown that were previously pubs-only. Price probably will stay about the same because an increase would likely mean $24.95, and I don't think it can go much higher and still attract an acceptable number of buys. But PPV doesn't matter, pub sales (much more expensive license fee) do.
Thanx Oliver for patiently taking abuse and answering the questions. So it boils down to the status quo, with an extra match or two every so often. Still having the Bundesliga (yay! Live soccer is good soccer, no matter the league) and picking up either Dutch or French closer to the opening of the season. My $$$ is on the Dutch, with the history and the fact that the French league just bored the hell out of me this year. And you have 2 of the best strikers in Europe playing in The Netherlands, and perhaps the goal of the year scored by Zlatan last year... Thx, Jay!