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November 28, 2006
MLS TV Rights Fee Summary
MLS, throught its marketing arm Soccer United Marketing ("SUM"), has done an excellent job in securing TV rights fees for MLS games. Over the last couple of months, MLS has announced that SUM has brokered rights deals that pay the league $20 million annually for the next eight years. A summary of those deals, as reported by Street & Smith's Sports Business Journal, is as follows:
ESPN/ABC - 8 years at $7-8M a year - Season opener on ABC; 26 regular season games (Thursday nights) on ESPN2; 3 playoff games ; all-star and MLS Cup on ABC; men's and women's national team matches; World Cup Qualifiers; MLS Draft and multimedia content for various ESPN platforms.
Univision - 8 years at $9-10M a year - Spanish language TV rights to 25 regular season games, 3 playoff games, 10 U.S. Men's national team matches, 5 U.S. based internationals run by SUM, MLS highlights on Reupblica Deportiva and Contacto Deportivo, online and wireless rights.
Fox Soccer Channel - 11 years at $2.2M a year - MLS Game of the Week on Saturday Nights, 3 playoff matches, 2 men's and 2 women's national team games through 2010, 3 internationals, online and wireless rights.
HDNet - 3 years at $2.5M a year - 26 regular season games, half of which are exclusive, 3 playoff games.
It's good news all around, especially with the Univision contract. That should give the league more credibility with Hispanics. The FSC coverage is also reportedly going to have three hours of coverage, including the game, every Saturday. It will include 1/2 hour pre- and post-game shows. It's good this is starting in 2007, so they'll have time to work out the kinks before showing the Quakes games in 2008....
Posted by Colin at November 28, 2006 09:34 AM
Comments
MLS already used to be on Univison, back in 1997, I think. And they also had El Matador Luis Hernandez playing for LA Galaxy, Jorge Campos playing in Chicago, back in those days. None of this really gave any credibility to MLS among Hispanics during that time period. What makes you think it will be diffrent now?
Posted by: Jiren at November 28, 2006 02:47 PM
I think the fact that they are paying a rights fee, as opposed to being paid to air the games, will cause them to tone down what I understood to be overly negative comments about poor quality of play. Combined with the recent improved quality of play, the designated player rule (Beckham rule) and the MLS-MFL tournament, the exposure level of MLS should be good and positive.
Posted by: Colin at November 28, 2006 03:22 PM
Also significant in this new TV deal is that the ABC and ESPN2 games will reportedly, for the first time, be broadcast in 16:9 HD (as will the HDNet games, obviously). When the new San Jose Earthquakes begin playing in 2008, hopefully FSN Bay Area will also broadcast the team's regional games in 16:9 HD like they do for the Giants, A's, Warriors, Sharks and certain college football games.
Posted by: Goodsport at November 29, 2006 07:51 AM