ESPN Still Looking To Acquire The EPL

Wednesday, January 14, 2009


It's been awhile since we've had any news on ESPN's acquisition of the English Premier League, but Reuters is reporting that Disney is still interested in the Soccer league. And that....well that's really it at the moment....

LONDON, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Walt Disney Co's (DIS.N) ESPN TV network is interested in acquiring further sporting rights if it fits with its business, including for the English Premier League, a spokesman said on Wednesday.

However, the spokesman declined to comment further on its immediate plans, following a report by the Bloomberg news agency that said ESPN planned to bid for some of the live rights.

Bloomberg said the most watched U.S. sports channel was considering bids for one or two of the six packages on offer, citing a person familiar with the plans, who declined to be identified because the bidding process had not started yet.

The FA Premier League sent out invitations last month to tender for the rights for 2010 to 2013.

"We are interested in all rights, including the Premier League, as long as they fit our business," the ESPN spokesman said. "But we don't have any comment on the Premier League despite press speculation about it."
Well that's telling us a whole lot of nothing, isn't it? I'm almost positive that the EPL will be in ESPN's hands soon. I guess it's just a matter of when.

ESPN says interested in English soccer rights (Reuters)

Posted by Awful Announcing at 1:01 PM

9 Comments:

From your lips to God's ears...

Anonymous said...
Jan 14, 2009, 1:24:00 PM  

Man, I'm still torn about this. I'm sure it would mean easier access to the games for me, but I hate ESPN getting its hands on anything.

Watching Sportscenter the other day and hearing them proclaim the Man U- Chelsea match the "biggest match in the world" made me want to crawl in a hole. These fuckheads don't know a thing about soccer, and are nearly guaranteed to make a mockery of this.

I only wonder how this will affect the clubs. They receive substantial profits (in the area of 60 million pounds) for playing the the Premier League. And it's not like English clubs are franchises. The clubs in Europe are bigger than the leagues, unlike here in the US

Anonymous said...
Jan 14, 2009, 1:31:00 PM  

Yeh i can't decide if its good or not either. On the one hand they won't be as good as Jeff Stelling...on the other hand they will bring so much money it will be silly what can happen. So good and bad points.

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Adelante4 said...
Jan 14, 2009, 1:45:00 PM  

I don't know if anyone saw this, but over the weekend, ESPN included some European soccer results to the bottom line and ESPNEWS ticker. This is the first time I can think of that a non-Champions League European club result was included on the bottom line. They showed scores from the EPL, Italy's Serie A and Spain's La Liga.

Its looking clear that ESPN is going to get some European soccer league. As you say, its just a matter of when.

Anonymous said...
Jan 14, 2009, 1:57:00 PM  

Yeah Anon, I saw that as well and thought of this very situation.

Anonymous said...
Jan 14, 2009, 2:30:00 PM  

So if this news is a whole lot of nothing, you told us about it why...?

Morgan Wick said...
Jan 14, 2009, 3:48:00 PM  

This blows. Leave the EPL alone. If ESPN wants to f*ck up American sports, have at it, but don't mess up this sacred institution.

How soon before we see the EPL in those sophomoric, brain-dead ESPN TV ads?

Let's face it. Whatever America touches, turns to crap.

Anonymous said...
Jan 14, 2009, 6:10:00 PM  

They must be really hard up. What happened? Did they run out of tractor pulls to broadcast?

Anonymous said...
Jan 14, 2009, 8:48:00 PM  

Great, are they then going to ask their play-by-play people to treat the game seriously when important things happen? Anytime you watch the rare recap that isn't done by ESPN Deportes talent (which is borderline as it is -- oh that soccer game, only those latin types play that, right?) they act like they've been asked to do play-by-play of the producer's kid's under-8s game.

Anonymous said...
Jan 15, 2009, 12:54:00 AM  

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