Then there is this.... John Ourand @Ourand_SBJ 10m10 minutes ago Source: EPL told bidders that it would not accept joint bids. ESPN did not submit a formal bid because of college football conflicts. So perhaps the joint bid really never had a chance to start with and NBC simply went with a 6-year bid for business purposes. Listen, if you can tie franchise to 6 years and avoid the whole bidding process in 3 years, why not? Especially on a product that is showing tremendous year-to-year growth. The rewarding thing is that its NBC itself that has made the product better. They deserve the longer term deal and I hope its a money maker for them in the long run. SA www.soccertvblog.com
John Ourand @Ourand_SBJ 9 minutes ago Source: Fox put in a bid by itself. Bein Sport put in a bid, too. NBC won the rights in the first round. There was no second round.
Perhaps this was what was tying up resolution of la liga and serie a rights. Now all the dominoes can fall into place.
I think the Fox thing this afternoon was world soccer talk being lied to. That site has gone down hill quick. They said right away that there would be no joint bids.
World soccer talk also screwed up with the bundesliga. Instead of admitting they were wrong they twisted the story saying that fox "changed" the schedule because fans pressured them. In reality wst got false reports and immediatly shoved an article out when they should have waited a couple days. But I dont think they said anything about no joint bids, they only said that fox and espn wouldnt put together a joint bid.
.@NBCSports agrees to six-year extension as exclusive home of @PremierLeague in the US! http://t.co/IYOK1Kehkn pic.twitter.com/dZVoFhUIC5— NBC Sports Soccer (@NBCSportsSoccer) August 10, 2015 here’s NBC Sports’ release on the Premier League extension: http://t.co/O38tNrGP0J— Sports TV Ratings (@SportsTVRatings) August 10, 2015
I wasn't clear the articles I read at the beginning of the process said that the epl was looking for an exclusive partner and would not accept joint bids and a four way bid was just absurd. Fox is trying to replace espn. They will fail but why would they prop up their competition and Discovery what do they want with one piece of a property that doesn't fit at all with the rest of their business
To play devil's advocate... A "joint bid" does not necessarily have to be presented as a "joint bid". Fox can be the single bidder and have ESPN/Univision/Discovery already set up as sub-licensees if their bid is excepted. How the EPL would feel about that is a completely different matter (and would they have to be told ahead of time a big question). In regard to Discovery, they own EuroSport. If its true that they have shown interest in the EPL (and there is no sign they did except a very questionable tweet from WST), that would mean that they are looking into bringing a US version EuroSport to the market at some point. Interesting concept but I've had access to EuroSport for forever (as we all do in stream form) and its a rare occasion that I stop and watch that channel. I did a little last week for the FINA championships but that is indeed rare. On an unrelated note, I would love to know how much beIN bid for the EPL. One could not rule out that the EPL would reject even a huge offer from them due to lack of distribution in the US. Still, would love to know what would be considered a "huge offer" from beIN and at what price would even the EPL have to say..."OK". SA www.soccertvblog.com
Here is SBD's write-up of NBC's six-year deal to keep the English Premier League: http://t.co/WiIWNayhuF— John Ourand (@Ourand_Puck) August 10, 2015
Now that they have secured PL for six years, which was their priority, I am sure they would like to have something else to complement it. The problem is that there is nothing out there that they could get their hands on. They lost MLS. Having something else would further improve their brand.
I read about it on BBC, well, I am glad it didn't go to Fox, Can't compare to NBC, I feel sorry for Bundesliga going to Fox.
NBC would probably love having La Liga (primarily for Telemundo and Universo). And/or the Champions League which offers a nice weekday afternoon bump. Other leagues really wouldn't help overall ratings from their standpoint - and they'd just get in the way of their main Prem focus. FOX probably only went after Bundesliga to help prop up their soccer side operations, not something NBC has to worry about or be interested in.
While that would be lovely... not exactly going to move the meter for NBCSN. And they don't seem to be too interested in streaming only properties for Live Extra (which isn't all that much of a bad thing considering the problems they seem to have with app/site stream reliability).
IF they are looking for complimentary opportunities the two they would be looking at would be the Champions League and La Liga for their spanish partners and maybe an outside chance that they go after the FA cup and that might be tempting to the FA so they could increase their broadcasting visibility. The Championship is second division. Yes its the best second division in world football or whatever but that doesn't sell in mainstream America. The only game from the English lower leagues that would get on American TV is the playoff final richest game in the world and all that.
Although it would be nice to see La Liga on NBCSN and I am sure they would have commentators on site (not like BeIn and the always annoying Ray Hudson) they would need way more channels to be able to show games live and that is not that simple or that they will add channels to show Liga ONLY! No way! Leagues want to reach as many homes as possible, not only selling their product.
I doubt Nbc would win la liga if they bid because Bein is in bed with the rights holder. Sadly Cl and El are locked up with Fox. FA cup would be a perfect compliment for the prem, but those dingos in La have that too. I doubt Nbc will get a compliment until the bidding re opens for cl and fa cup, and Nbc is one of those networks that only has a couple sports and uses them to the fullest. Not like the people in Bristol that buy a million properties.
If Nbc got la liga networks wouldn't be a problem. Since La liga kicks off later they can put games on nbcsn and if something interferes they can put matches on cnbc or usa. They could also use csn regional networks (I wish they did this with the prem). And the jewl of el classico would be on nbc.
I don't know when FA Cup rights come up again. You'd think that would be of interest to NBC given that they could keep the same production team for that. As far as The Football League, I'd think it would only be of interest because the League Cup is part of the same rights package. I can't see NBC putting championship games on actual TV given that the time slots are taken up by the PL, so it would be online only. I think BeIN has one more year on its football league deal. Champions league would definitely be of interest to NBC but I think fox recently renewed the rights. You'd think La Liga would be mighty tempting for Telemundo but in English it could conflict with EPL. It's true that MediaPro is partnered with BeIN in Spain, but you'd have to think that simple cronyism won't win the day with Loretta Lynch looking at TV contracts, and Florentino Perez threatening to sue MediaPro over rights deals. I don't see how Univision doesn't make a huge push for La Liga. The ratings for a clásico on Univision would be epic. As far as English, they could either go it alone or partner with ESPN (who would only show the big games on TV).
You are saying they would bump the Barca or RM match to a regional or CNBC? LOL you are funny, or perhaps ManU or Chelsea when they play at the same time? What about midweek games? Who gets bump Will Nascar and F1 get bump as well?
La liga doesnt interfere with epl as much as some other leagues. If you look at saturday the 22nd only one liga game interferes with the epl. The chances that Barca and Real interfere with that timeslot are slim. The late Saturday match is usually on nbc so liga can go on nbcsn. I'm saying that lesser, but still decent teams like Valencia and Villarreal can go to cnbc if something interferes.
The kick-off times of the first 2 rounds of La Liga are not typical of what we'll see throughout the season. The kick-offs are later in the first 2 rounds because of the weather. Starting in September you can expect Barca or Madrid to have a 10:00a ET Saturday kickoff probably 2-3 times a month.
This is what has dogged me ever since NBC took over. They usually leave it to the last minute to decide which matches go on which channels. That would be OK except that Tribune Media then drags its heels in checking for NBC schedule updates, and as a result my Tivo's guide, which relies on Tribune, is out of date. And I end up either not recording something I wanted to, or I record something that's totally wrong. Back when FOX had the EPL, they settled on their match/channel schedule well in advance (2+ weeks) and so these recording snafu's rarely happened. FOX had plenty of shortcomings, but one thing that I appreciated about them was their advanced schedule publication. If NBC would make their decisions earlier, things would go much better for me, Art Deco, and others. That assumes Tribune Media is not likely to reform their ways and check/update NBC's schedule more often. But obviously if they did that, it would mitigate the problem. < not holding breath > p.s. Generally happy however with NBC's retaining the EPL rights. There have been a lot of pluses with their coverage.