Tag Archives: EPL

ESPN Adds Two Saturday EPL Games To Its Weekly US Broadcast Schedule

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According to EPLtalk website

ESPN has acquired the TV rights to two of the weekly Premier League slots on US television for the 2009-2010 season. Beginning on August 15, 2009, each week ESPN will feature the 7:45am ET Saturday game and the 3pm ET Monday game.

Those two weekly time slots were previously held by Setanta Sports who in the past had sub-licensed those games from Fox Soccer Channel. Despite Setanta losing the two timeslots to ESPN, Setanta US will continue showing the two 10am ET Saturday slots (one game on Setanta US, and the other on Setanta Xtra), as well as the early Sunday morning ET kickoffs and the Tuesday and Wednesday midweek Premier League matches. The games shown by Setanta will also be available on its broadband package at http://www.setanta-i.com

The article also offers some games you can expect to see, including Chelsea v Hull City on August 15th at 6:45am on ESPN2, Liverpool v Aston Villa at 2pm August 24th and Chelsea v Burnley on August 29th at 6:45am.

So to cover your bases, it looks like satellite is still the best viewing path since Mediacom hasn’t added Sentata to their Sports package, at least not to my knowledge.

English Premier League, La Liga and ESPN

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Barclays Premier League trophySome of you may have seen a few items related to the English Premier League broadcast rights. Sentanta has gone into receivership and their UK broadcast rights have been pulled. ESPN has won the rights to broadcast 46 live Premier League matches in the United Kingdom for the 2009-10 season, and has also been awarded a contract for the 2010-13 seasons.

For those who read the notice closely, you will have noticed that they are UK rights, not USA rights. As Ive’s notes

What it might mean is better coverage of the EPL on programs like Sportscenter, and improved soccer coverage on ESPN as it handles covering the EPL in England.

In related news, ESPN struck a deal with GolTV to partner in multimedia broadcast coverage of the Spanish League, which includes FC Barcelona and Real Madrid.

The new deal will allow ESPN to show La Liga matches on ESPN, ESPN Deportes as well as ESPN360.com. More than 95 matches will be shown on Deportes, with at least 114 matches set to be streamed on ESPN360.com. ESPN2 will televise select matches (‘Super Clasico anybody?) while ESPN Mobile TV will also air matches. GolTV will continue to air its 120 La Liga matches throughout the year.

By the way, I’ve been contacted by both Fox & Hound as well as Boomer’s, the place taking over the old Coester’s space, regarding the possibility of broadcasting soccer and attracting our community. So we’re keeping a close eye on how we’ll get our fix. Look for updates right here!

Wall Street Journal Looks At The English Premier League – Not Pretty!

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MAY 28, 2009
English Soccer’s Morning After – Years of Unrestrained Growth Brought Heaps of Glory — and Debt; ‘We Are in Serious Trouble’

As the Premier League vaulted to prominence with a frothy mix of TV money, rising ticket prices and a devoted — and increasingly international — fan base, it became a status symbol for billionaires across the world. They paid huge sums to acquire teams and waged a salary arms race for top players. Corporate sponsors lined up to splash their brands on teams or, in the case of banking giant Barclays PLC, the whole league. Its teams generate an estimated $2.4 billion a year in broadcast fees, tickets, sponsorships and merchandising.

Today, thanks to Britain’s deep recession, the league must spend its off-season grappling with falling ticket prices, ailing corporate sponsors and financially distressed owners. Unlike teams in the NFL, Premier League clubs are almost entirely unregulated: There is no salary cap, players are freely traded, and league administrators have no control over who buys and sells clubs. Given such wide latitude, some owners racked up big debts during the credit boom, both on buying the clubs themselves and recruiting expensive, on-field talent. Analysts fear the owners who spent big will now be whipsawed by the downturn and forced to make deep cuts.

How will your team handle the new realities?