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November 07, 2005
SUM's statement on World Cup rights shows cooperation between MLS, ABC, ESPN
Our October 27 note about the competitive bidding between ABC, NBC, and Fox for English-language rights to air the 2010 and 2014 World Cups left a lot of questions hanging in the air. Chief of those was, "If the networks are bidding for these rights, what happens to SUM, the MLS spin-off that purchased the rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups?" While that question has still not been fully answered, the league has issued a statement on the issue which indicates that they should be positioned well to take advantage of the sport's increasing popularity.
MLS Commissioner Don Garber is quoted as follows:
"Given the strong interest displayed by several of the major English and Spanish-language networks and the belief that it was greatly beneficial to the value of soccer programming in this country, SUM opted to work in close partnership with ABC, ESPN and Univision throughout the FIFA bidding process.
"MLS and SUM now look forward to continuing our very positive discussions toward extending our longstanding relationship with ABC and ESPN and once again becoming part of the Univision family. These new television partnerships will provide Major League Soccer and the U.S. Soccer Federation with the most important broadcast agreement in the sport's history in America. In the immediate and long-term future, today's news will prove to be a historical turning point for the sport."
With nearly five and nine years respectively until the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, soccer's continued growth in the U.S. means that despite the $425 million in fees paid for U.S. rights, the broadcast companies stand to make a lot of money on those events. If MLS has helped those companies secure these rights, expect some of those broadcast dollars to start flowing the league's way as well. If MLS starts making money off of their telecasts instead of buying time to get soccer on the air, the light at the end of the league's financial tunnel may finally be in sight.
Posted by Jay at November 7, 2005 03:51 PM
Comments
PLEASE! Throw us a lifeline here. I'm committed to attending MLS Cup with a pretty hefty expenditure associated with that. I will attend Supporter's Summit events and look forward to hearing GREAT NEWS once I arrive in Texas.... yet all of this MLS' future talk is relatively meaningless in the face of our biggest question...Are we actually going to find out on MLS Cup weekend OUR FATE???!!!
I realize that discussions must be occurring and that an announcement is in the offing BUT why does the ONLY news I have have to come from Tim Lieweke? Okay, we're protecting the interests of the potential investors, those they are negotiating with, and the team itself, but is this a BLOG or what?
So, why the announcement Tim?
I will guess that AEG is trying to leverage the competition against each other- I tend to feel he is going to be pessimistic in order to increase the bidding from both (are there 2 or 3 involved?) but when I hear him defend AEG it scares me because it makes me feel as though he's preparing the BIG BOMB for us- "Look we gave you 4 years to get a deal - WHAT MORE could we do?" SSV showed what could be done and the team itself did amazing things, so of course until AEG sells to a local buyer their name will be mud despite their stepping in and "funding" the best years of the franchise' history...so far...
There are hardly any comments or discussion here and although I do not want it to become Big Soccer I do feel like some straight talk about when we will hear a real announcement OR even one saying that deadlines have come and gone in the past, so we'll see...we all know that up until now silence has been a friend of sorts BUT now we are moving into ticket sales time....I can imagine that it wouldn't be too hard to line up some dates with Spartan next year (while new Stadium ground is broken) seeing as how they barely have a tenant in San Jose State football. Speaking of tenants- SJS Soccer plays at Spartan don't they?
SJS Soccer should get more involved with our Soccer Saturdays. They should do an intrasquad scrimmage before a Quakes match or schedule a non-conference match before hand. HEY! I'm dying out here waiting to hear something...anything! In just a couple days I am hoping we finally know...Okay, it has to be time because you can't have a team that doesn't sell tickets....
When I e-mail personnel at Ajax America I never get a response so I figure they too must be involved...I can't imagine that they would choose KC over San Jose as an investment just because of so many reasons- not the least of which is attendence and style of play, but lets go one step further: SAN JOSE the South Bay metropolis vs KC, KS/MO...the Midwest metro area that would have a hard time attracting people from Holland...California vs the Mid-west...Salt of the Earth folks from there- I was born in Missouri...St Louis is a cradle of sorts for American soccer...and yet it comes down to beauty and people's perception of paradise! Ajax America chose Florida for the year round training capabilities among other things; KC? nahhh! But I can easily picture another academy on the west coast and a bigger footprint for Ajax in America....We could even mirror their jerseys only in BLUE!!!!
Posted by: Matthew Martin at November 8, 2005 08:04 AM
Matthew --
I know exactly what it's like to be waiting for the outcome of all this, believe me. We at SSV are confident/optimistic but nothing is done until it's done. As soon as we know anything, good news or bad, we'll pass it along.
In the meantime, keep the faith.
Posted by: Jay Hipps, SSV at November 8, 2005 10:08 AM
Thank you for all you have done thus far! A lot more than just keeping the faith....SSV truly has been the 12th man for the San Jose Earthquakes!!!
All the Best!
Posted by: Matthew Martin at November 9, 2005 06:32 AM