Yes, stop dreaming. It's the UK RIGHTS!!!. ESPN wants to become a British broadcaster, going up against BSkyB and Setanta UK. It's not about ESPN broadcasting the Premiership in the U.S. Of course, someone would think that the Premiership is just a ESPN broadcast away from being mainstream content, as in "kids would channel surf, stumble across a Premiership game on ESPN on their cheapo analog cable, and become Premiership fans for life".
Yes Dave O'Brien and Wynalda on EPL games!!! What could be better than that. Oh wait, any other English speaking broadcast team on earth would be better than that. Never mind. .. And there goes Aaron Lennon, he has very interesting eyebrows doesn't he Eric.... Yes Dave, but when I played my eyebrows were much better than that....
Here's another article about it, although pretty much the same info. http://www.sportbusiness.com/news/163086/espn-interested-in-uk-premier-league-rights
Damn... dreams shattered. I really thought we might have EPL on Saturdays before college football and the weekday games on in the afternoon.
I suspect that part of the deal would be to get the USA rights as part of the same package..like Sky's sister (Fox Soccer Channel) has the north american rights as part of their EPL deal. SO...if this comes to pass, then yes, you may see an EPL game before your fall college football games-and more than one when the college season is over.
ESPN having the rights to the Premier League would be terrible. We would get far fewer matches then we do now and I'm sure we would get awful commentary. As terrible as the production can be on the pregame and halftime shows for FSC they at least have the intelligence to use the English commentators. I'd rather continue to pay for my niche content than let ESPN ruin it.
This is about ESPN owning the PL rights IN THE UK. Has nothing to do with them broadcasting the games in the USA.
I know that. I was responding to the person who stated that he wanted the Premier league on before college football over here and the person who stated that he wouldn't be surprised if there was a tie in to the rights over there with the rights here similar to the way that FSC has the rights and is affiliated with SKY sports.
I only hope that under the pressure of the people to whom they broaadcast the show, they learn how to do it the right way. And then to apply that knowledge in the USA. So, that will be our gain, being able to watch a good game, with resourses and recourses of ESPN showing the game the right way. No more tickers repeating the same "news" over and over and over. No more ni game interviews. No more showing people's faces yelling to the camera just the game, the only thing that matters. Please ESPN, go and learn then give us the product the way it has to be given.
Why aim so low? Why not go for the jackpot? EPL on the networks. CBS/NBC/ABC would show the EPL and pre-empt college football on Saturday. CBS/Fox would drop the NFL pre-game show and show the 08:00 PT EPL game on Sunday. At 10:00, Greg Gumbel would say: "due to overrun of the Chelsea/Liverpool game, we will bring you to your local NFL telecast once we hear the final whistle at Stamford Bridge". EPL on ESPN? it's pitiful. Given the popularity of the EPL worldwide, the American networks should drop the NFL and televise the EPL... But somehow I get the feeling that people have the fixation on ESPN. They would rather see the EPL on ESPN than EPL on CBS/NBC...
I more or less shrugged when I read the article, which was before I saw this thread. Since I happen to live in the USA and not the UK, ESPN's buying the UK rights means nothing to me. Maybe a few extra highlights on SportsCenter. Big deal. And really, I'm not any great fan of FSC, but the only possible advantage I could see for ESPN's having the USA rights would be if they carried their broadcasts in HD. Maybe if they added a little production standard. But I knew that somebody would hyperventilate about it on BigSoccer.
I have to admit I didn't realise it had nothing to do with the US rights. But surely ESPN having the UK rights would help the PL get exposure in the states? Don't the big guns of ESPN sit around the table talking about what content they have? Wouldn't there be emails from different company branches saying stuff about their content? I'll bet if there was no ESPN in the rest of the world, there would be absolutely no soccer coverage on ESPN US.
Some people might, since soccer on the networks tends to get pre-empted in some markets (not New York obviously, but it happened for this year's MLS Cup Final on ABC in other places), whereas that's not a problem when a game is on ESPN/ESPN2 (earlier game overruns excepted).
Well I expect, if this were to happen and it would extend to ESPN getting rights to broadcast matches in the US, that the commentators they would use would be the Champion League commentators (Tommy Smyth and co) rather than the MLS commentators (Rob Stone and co). I think it would not be a good thing for people who are fans of the EPL here in the US though because I don't think ESPN would broadcast many matches (maybe one a week, 2 if you're lucky - too much either gridiron football programing, both college and pro, to air durring the weekends for them to replace with EPL matches).