Sports TV Rights News

[krup]

NBC and the Premier League just announced a 6 year extension of their deal. No $$ terms were released except to say it will be an increase from the existing contract.

Interesting that several sources say they were competing against another joint Fox/ESPN bid. That makes sense considering with the CFB they have, ESPN couldn’t take on the EPL by themselves.

It makes one wonder if instead of this ESPN versus Fox battle people are expecting over the B1G contract, that they will instead cooperate to 1) make sure they keep the B1G away from anyone else wanting a cfb presence, and 2) divide up the B1G content to fit best amongst the other contracts they each have (for example, Fox would have trouble fitting many Saturday night games given previous B12/Pac12 commitments).

 

[rutgersguy1]

I've always said that I found the splitting of the B10 contract between Fox/ESPN to be the most likely scenario. ESPN exclusively 2nd and Fox exclusively the least likely scenario. I think the B10 likes being on a widely distributed and known network like ESPN and I don't think they want to totally abandon it. Keep a foot in the old and the new.

 

[Upstream]

Guy1 - That's pretty reasonable. I expect that if FOX is part of the deal, then the B1G will insist that they show some games on FOX's broadcast stations.

 

[rutgersguy1]

Guy1 - That's pretty reasonable. I expect that if FOX is part of the deal, then the B1G will insist that they show some games on FOX's broadcast stations.

I'd expect all of the above as far as channels from the ESPN family/ABC/FS1/Fox Broadcast network if it's split. The PAC12/B12 have games that are shown on the main broadcast channel as well as FS1 and if Fox gets part of the B10 package I'd expect the same.

 

[rutgersguy1]

NBC and the Premier League just announced a 6 year extension of their deal. No $$ terms were released except to say it will be an increase from the existing contract.

Interesting that several sources say they were competing against another joint Fox/ESPN bid. That makes sense considering with the CFB they have, ESPN couldn’t take on the EPL by themselves.

It makes one wonder if instead of this ESPN versus Fox battle people are expecting over the B1G contract, that they will instead cooperate to 1) make sure they keep the B1G away from anyone else wanting a cfb presence, and 2) divide up the B1G content to fit best amongst the other contracts they each have (for example, Fox would have trouble fitting many Saturday night games given previous B12/Pac12 commitments).

Was just reading up on this a little and there seems to be conflicting information with regards to the bidding for the EPL. One article I read said there was a joint bid by ESPN/Fox/Discovery/Univision and couple others including one by John Ourand of Sports Business Daily said the EPL said they wouldn't accept any joint bids. So ESPN (college football conflicts) and Univision never submitted bids and only NBC, Fox and BeIn sports all submitted solo bids.

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/Daily/Closing-Bell/2015/08/10/EPL-NBC.aspx

I think it was probably a good move by the EPL. Yea NBC isn't as big as ESPN but they do treat them well with regards to exposure and putting them on their broadcast channel as well. At ESPN you may get buried among the other sports properties but at NBC you're treated better because you are one of the main properties.