Oliver et al, FSW/PPV question among others

FOX Sports International (FSI), the corporate parent of FOX Sports World, controls US TV distribution rights to the English Premier League (EPL), and starting with the 2004-2005 season, the English FA Cup.

FSI has contracts with iNDemand, TVN, DISH Network, and DirecTV to supply EPL games via pay-per-view. Currently, FSI has to supply 2 games each week: Saturday at 10am ET and Sunday at 11am ET. In addition, DirecTV handles the exclusive distribution of these pay-per-view telecasts to bars and pubs.

FSI certainly has the option to expand the number of EPL games to be aired on pay-per-view starting with the 2004-2005 season, when FSI will have access to international TV feeds of ALL 10 EPL games each week (instead of 5 each week now).

I would not be surprised if FSI decides to offer up to 4 EPL games on PPV each week starting next season: Saturday 7:30am ET, Saturday 10am ET, Sunday 9am ET, and Sunday 11am ET.

FOX Sports World will definitely have the live games on weekdays, delayed telecasts on weekends, and re-airs of the pay-per-view telecasts 72 hours after kickoff.

FOX Sports World is now a mature business, with 20 million subscribers and carriage contracts with every major pay TV company (including Comcast, the last big one to sign a contract at the corporate level).

When a company matures, it will offer just enough product to maintain its franchise value.

There is no need for FOX Sports World to air any more marginal products (German, Dutch, and French are certainly gone after this season, with Brazilian possibly gone at the end of the year as well.)

Also, there is no need to give away too many good EPL games on FOX Sports World when FSI can make more money with PPV. Most people aren't going to unsubscribe from FOX Sports World because FOX Sports World carries just enough games for subscribers to want to keep it.

 

In asia, EPL is the #1 TV sports product, outdrawing most other products by as much as 10 to 1 in many markets (Singapore, Hong Kong, Thailand in particular). As a result, ESPN Star Sports will all 10 games starting next season and ESPN Star can justify paying $100 million in right fees. ESPN Star needs EPL in Asia to justify its existence on Asian cable and satellite TV systems.

In the US, EPL is a niche TV sports product, with viewership on the order of 0.1% of total audience (that's correct: only about 1 out of 1000 households watch English Premier League soccer in the US). NewsCorp needs enough EPL games to maintain the franchise value of FOX Sports World, but does not need to air that many games. The revenue for EPL in the US mainly comes from pay-per-view and subscriptions by bars and pubs.

 

Because EPL is the bread and butter for regular (basic cable) TV there. Just think of EPL in Asia is the same as NFL in the USA.

People in Asia (especially Americans living/staying in Asia) would ask the same thing: how come you Americans are so lucky? why can you get the NFL on OTA TV while we have to watch it on streaming video on a PC?

ESPN Asia only carries the two games broadcasted by Disney: Sunday Nite football and MNF. All other games on Sunday (Fox and CBS) are only available on streaming in Singapore and Hong Kong, and available on a satellite channel: SuperSports Gold, in Thailand.

No chance unless you can dig a hole through the earth to have a line of site from North America to Asia. In sort, the satellite service that carries ESPN Asia, including Thai, Phillipines, Taiwan, etc. are below the horizon from North America.

But if you can wait for some hours, you can get it thru' peer-to-peer network. You usually have to wait several hours (up to a day) to see someone make it available, and then another 2 hours to download the game.

The best way to get EPL in the U.S. is always a Canadian DBS, which I got for Euro 2000 but enjoyed 4 years of EPL on their basic channels (FSW Canada and Rogers SportsNet) at much cheaper rate, considering the value of a Canadian $.

 

How do you get into peer-to-peer networks and how do you get and pay for a Canadian DBS? Surely the provider would know you don't have a "real" Canadian address or aren't living there, and if they don't, the credit card company or bank certainly would.

Not that I plan to do either, I'm just curious.

 

I think he means file sharing networks like Kazaa and Bit Torrent - I haven't tried downloading matches from BT (I mostly use it as a poor man's Tivo for shows I miss) but you'd be amazed how fast stuff gets uploaded.

 

Oh, now I understand. I don't have anything like those on my computer.

 

Where are people getting the news that FSW is getting rid of the German, Dutch and French games? Is this general knowledge or was this seen or heard somewhere? Also, are there any chances that FSW will show any live EPL games outside the 6:30AM time slot? Does this mean at some point or another every EPL game will be on FSW during the week? I find this very interesting as I have been debating the Pay-per-view package through Dish Network.

 

FSI just paid over $30 million for 3 years for exclusive US and Canadian "all you can eat" TV rights to the English Premier League: access to international TV feeds to ALL 10 games each week.

FSI will also have exclusive US and Canadian TV rights to the English FA Cup for the next 2 season.

The FOX Sports International (FSI) TV contracts for German, Dutch, and French football all expire at the end of May.

Neither of the 3 contracts are expected to be renewed. FSI bought the 3 products in the past so that FSI can sublicense enough games to Canadian broadcaster Global TV, the owner/operator of FOX Sports World Canada. The 3 products have sold ZERO targeted ads during the time they have appeared on the FSI networks in the past 10 years. The 3 products are no longer necessary for FSI.

 

I am quite excited now about the 2004-2005 EPL season. This is going to be great. I do enjoy the occasional Dutch or German games, but not like the EPL. I hope we can have some weekends packed with EPL soccer. That would be outstanding!

 

I'm not stupid (well, maybe a little) but this is confusing.

I get Fox Sports World through Time Warner and was wondering if there's any chance that any other networks/channels will ever show Italian or Spanish football. As it is, I get to see one Italian match weekly and whatever net feed Yahoo is hosting.

By the way, how does Yahoo have the rights to rebroadcast Serie A, MLS and Argentinian football?

 

It's a guess. Ollie gives you the reasons why he guesses that, but it's a prediction. Not news.

 

If there is any chance of you getting DishNetwork, you will love GolTV. Dish has exclusive rights to this channel. They show 3-5 live La Liga games a weekend and they also show 2-4 Serie A games live as well. You should check it out.

 

I've never understood why FSW always had a German game on saturday morning when most of the EPL games were going on, when the EPL has got to be much more popular than German soccer. Similarly, it seems that Canadian FSW subscribers have a much nicer selection of live matches to watch that those of us in the States, which is puzzling.

I'd consider doing ppv more often if the prices weren't so high. $25 a match is just too much. I enjoy the FSW product, but you'd think long term they'd attract a wider audience if they had more live, non-ppv matches.

 

How much money would you want to put up to take the other side of the bet, i.e. German, Dutch, and/or French will be on FOX Sports World come August?

If you aren't willing to put your money where your mouth is, then shut the f--- up.

 

Presumably because FSI believes they can make more money by putting the match on PPV rather than airing it live on FSW. They must not think this is the case in Canada, unfortunately for us.

Now if everyone boycotted the EPL on PPV...

 

I just wish the PPV was notso expensive. $269 for the year for two matches a week is ridiculous. If you could pick from a selection of matches, that would be cool. Anybody heard anything different on prices for the Pay-per-view for the next year. Is it going to remain the same?

 

Actually, FSI gets PAID to put EPL games on Sportsnet (Saturdays) and FSW Canada (all other days). Interestingly, Sportsnet is part owned by NewsCorp, but also has agreements with Gol TV and Setanta Sport for La Liga and UEFA Cup.

As long as Sportsnet and FSW Canada will pay for EPL, FSI doesn't need to put EPL on PPV in Canada. Sportsnet and FSW Canada CAN pay for EPL because the Asian and British/Irish expatriate VIEWING audience is sufficient (I think EPL sells ads but I don't live in Canada so I don't know). Unlike in the US, where most people don't watch FSW (if they have it) even though they may belong to the same demographic.

EPL revenue comes from bars primarily, not residential PPV.

 

I'd imagine the price will depend on how many PPV games are offered per week, and how much revenue from FSW and bars FSI can generate. Residential PPV doesn't generate as much revenue as FSI.

 

That's great, Oliver, but he isn't wrong. None of this has been announced, nor has it been decided. While your prediction is most likely accurate, it still remains just that...a prediction.

 

And none of this stuff will be announced by FSI until August at the earliest. FSI prefers to keep a low profile.

That doesn't mean that I don't know what is going on.

If I had to rely only on FSI press releases, I would have been out of this business long ago.

 

Oliver, as much as I appreciate the info that you provide on these forums, I didn't think that what superdave said was wrong either, and your response was over the line. While I think you have articulated the case very clearly such that I won't be surprised if those leagues are dropped, the decision still has not been made official.

At the beginning of this season, you were emphatic that FSI would not add any other "panic buy" leagues (right before FSW started showing Dutch football). You also were emphatic that ESPN2 would not be showing any Champions League once ESPN Deportes launched. And finally, in all those posts about ESPN Deportes, you never bothered to mention that DirecTV's carriage of that channel was only for the "free" period that ESPN was sending it out for Sunday Night Football and Baseball, and that DirecTV had no fulltime carriage agreement in place. I went out and got DirecTV ParaTodos last summer based on your "predictions" and if I hadn't enjoyed the Copa Libertadores so much on Fox Sports en Espanol, I would have been supremely pissed when ESPN Deportes suddenly disappeared from DirecTV in the fall.

So while I respect your opinion, I am not prepared to rename it as fact. And I don't think superdave was saying anything differently.

 

And you incorrectly claimed that GolTV only had La Liga rights for this season until a GOL employee came on here and proved you wrong. Don't get me wrong, Oliver. I appreciate the unique insight you bring to this forum. If it weren't for you, I would have no idea why FSW does some of thing they do. And if you are correct and they do end up pulling all non-EPL coverage next season, I will at least understand why the decision was made. I also use soccertv.com quite frequently, as both GOL and FSW have problems getting their on-line schedules updated and DISH is unable to update their programming guide as well. But you will understand, based on history, why we simply don't take your words as fact.

 

By the way, you do have a good point about FSI and the timing of any official statement. Much like any corporation, they probably won't make what is certainly to be considered bad news public until the very last minute.

On a related topic, do you think there is PPV potential for any of these leagues that FSI will be dropping: French, German, Dutch? I can't see GOL adding these leagues, as I don't think they are attractive to their core viewer, American Latinos. If thats the case, the only way the rights are purchased in the US is if a PPV provider goes after them. If that isn't viable then will the rights simply go unpurchased?