Well color me skeptical, I wonder how much would cost them, I would say that it would be better to use that money to set up a league owned Pacific time team, but what do I know.
I haven't seen an answer to this question: who is paying whom? Is the NASL paying ESPN to put the games on ESPN3? Or is ESPN paying the NASL to put the games on ESPN3? I kind of suspect it's the former.
I agree, this would be a huge win for the NASL even if they are paying. It would definitely be a good selling point to any prospective owners.
In using each teams local Broadcaster the cost for games to be placed on ESPN3 are minimum. For the NASL having all matches on ESPN3 is huge. In particular with ESPN and TSN being connected and sharing programming makes it even bigger. With 20% of TSN owned by ESPN and have there own version of webcast in TSNGO. NLL with US and Canadian cities are shared on both the TSN and ESPN platforms.
It's a selling point to tell them that they'll have to shell out an expansion fee, they're guaranteed to lose money each season, three well run opponents will likely be in MLS, they'll be stuck with the neoCosmos and not much else, and now they'll get to pay even more money to put their teams on ESPNs 6th tier for programming? I watch a ton on ESPN3, and NASL when I can, but it's still not even a blip on the ESPN radar as far as number of viewers go.
ESPN3 is a good thing, but it has absolutely no bearing on getting a new owner in. Get a game or two on the real ESPN channels, and then you've got a recruiting chip to sell potential new owners on. Hopefully that perspective is good enough for the Cosmos troll/moderator.
And they somehow managed to do so without ESPN3. Nothing will change on that front with this deal. Telling them they'll be paying even more to join and participate is also not a recruiting tool. ESPN3 will be a positive from a production standpoint and hopefully gets a few more eyes on the product. It will draw in potential owners about as well as paying to be on HDNet and CBS Sports did for the UFL.
Being on ESPN3 is a far more different finincial cost. ESPN3 uses a team of leagues local Broadcasts where CBS SN is a flat fee of I think around 150K per game to braodcast with the chance of team or league to make up the costs through advertising.
While it's certainly a step up, it's also certainly neither a "huge win," nor a selling point to prospective owners. If you're going to invest in a D2 team, this is not going to put you over the top. As a general rule, this is not a rights fee type of deal. Many of these broadcasts are already being produced (MNUFCNLFTL is already doing home and away broadcasts) and are just being fed to ESPN3 (the costs for which, I would imagine, are being borne by either the team doing the feeding or the collective). The incremental costs are probably not that large. Pretty much every team was already doing some sort of broadcast of its home matches, yes? Some on TV, some online only, but they seem to me to all have been miles ahead of where this all started.
ok, so what team will not be on ESPN3? Cosmos? @TotalMLS for USA residents it’s all but one. Canadian based home games are shown on ESPN3.— Section 904 (@Section904) March 26, 2015
Yeah, I think it's the Cosmos. If you read the press release there's a line about all NASL games will be available to stream in the U.S except in NYC. IF this is true then its a bad move by the Cosmos, one of the biggest complaints native New Yorkers have about the Cosmos's is the lack of T.V availability for games as most people don't have that channel that shows the games and now you're going to cut off access to people from NYC!? How can this be anything but a positive for the team?
$$$$$ The Cosmos may be getting money from their local deal, while the ESPN deal is probably for free (broadcast cost paid by NASL teams). We all know the Cosmos are going to do their own crazy shit, I say let them, at least the rest of the league was on board, so that is good.
Having a working relationship with ESPN is a big deal, and it most certainly is a selling point in getting potential owners to pick the NASL over USL. Everything is a selling point, some things are just more important than other things. It might not be what puts an owner over the top, but it is one more thing the NASL can put in their list of positive things about joining the NASL.
Regardless of who is paying who....this is great! While I appreciate the NASL, I would not pay for a package, especially when they supposedly had a bunch of issues last season. I was hoping they would either put the matches on YouTube ala USL or do something like this! I'm just happy that I get more soccer available to me, but i'm a bit let down that the Cosmos won't be available. I'll certainly be watching some United matches so I can get a look at Ibarra. My assumption here is that at ESPN is at least picking up all of the costs pertaining to the streaming while NASL and the clubs are handling all of the broadcasting. At this point in the league's history, I think it makes much more sense to get your product in front of as many people for as little a cost as possible than it does to sell a package. I just can't imagine they sold too many packages last year so the deal with ESPN may reduce the overall costs while providing more opportunity to generate some advertising revenue in game. I don't really care though, i'm just happy to have access to a large chunk of matches for no extra cost to me.
I'm not saying it's not a positive, Hoosier Boy. I'm saying it's not going to attract new investors. As for the Cosmos, the Cosmos are going to do what's best for the Cosmos. And, in fairness, you might, as well, if you were trying to build an audience for a nascent network. (ESPN did the same thing with what was then called espn2 back in the day, putting Duke/North Carolina on The Deuce when it wasn't as prevalent as it is today in an attempt to build an audience, or beIN Sport getting US road qualifiers in attempt to build relevance.) Why are you assuming that? And there you go. That seems to be the attitude of most folks, who balked at actually - horrors - paying a minimal amount to watch games of the league they were sure was going to supplant MLS and was "Division II in name only." Because when you have a whole bunch of devoted fans who aren't devoted enough to pay for your product, the sky is the limit for you.
Oh wait, I won't get to see the Scorps play @ the CosmLOLs ? Meh, who wants to watch a bunch of old hacks pretend its 1999 while fans pretend its 1979 in a stadium that lost its heart in 2009 anyway ?