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Cosmos land TV deal with One World Sports

CosmosOneWorldSports (Cosmos)

By DAN KARELL

They aren’t in Major League Soccer, but that clearly hasn’t stopped the New York Cosmos from aiming for the stars.

The North American Soccer League club announced a deal on Tuesday with One World Sports, an English-language TV station based out of New York City. The channel primarily covers sport in Asia, but will now in addition air all seven of the Cosmos home games in high definition.

Broadcasting the team’s matches will be JP Dellacamera and former Cosmos goalkeeper Shep Messing.

What do you make of this deal? Do you get One World Sports at your home?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

    • I disagree.

      I’ve said for a long time now that JP is horrible. He sounds like a Hockey analyst and I find them to be some of the most annoying in sports.

      Reply
  1. I have One World Sport because I have Dish Network. I watched the Asian World Cup qualifiers on it this morning. The commentary was horrible, but at least I get to watch Japan. At least the Cosmos will have real commentators. One World Sport is good if you need to get you fix for darts, pool, badminton, table tennis, squash, or Asian rugby.

    Reply
  2. The Cosmos should be in MLS. It’s silly that they’re not. They remain a legitimate international brand to this day, with a lot of history – good and bad – but history none the less. It’s the recently announced 2nd new York MLS franchise that is a bad idea.

    Reply
      • Then don’t read about or watch American soccer. Franchisees are how soccer survives in this country. If you cringe at that then watch another league from another country.

      • That’s what they are, though. Oh, right. You’re trying to be a football snob. Everyone is impressed.

        “Club” would imply they have more than one team or sport. That’s an old/outdated term that wouldn’t be applicable.

        Talk about cringe worthy.

  3. I’m sooooooo supportive of what Cosmos are doing. I know some folks like to be snarky and poke fun at them, but how is this anything but a positive for MLS and American soccer.

    Cosmos seem totally uninterested in being a part of MLS because they don’t like the single owner and they don’t like the salary cap. They want to be a tradition soccer club.

    They may fail miserably. In that case, MLS will get to crow about how superior their cost-containment model is (while everyone watches European and Mexican soccer because the product is better).

    If they succeed, MLS will have to step up their game and spend more and more on player salaries.

    Everything that ails MLS depends on player salaries. Increase those and you get better players and better players means better TV ratings…..and better rating equals more money.

    Good for the Cosmos. American soccer needs a little more chaos.

    Reply
    • Sounders did the same thing when MLS started. Obviously MLS wanted the Sounders at the start, but Oki, who owned them then didn’t like the structure. He went with the “free enterprise” route. It was first division at the time ( still not sure what makes the divisions be “lower” w/o pro/rel ) and it was fine.

      He was a great owner. Contributed 2% of revenue or all the profit to charity. It was fun. We won. We had lots of local talent, we had money, billions, so we won. But new ownership and the money moved the Sounders on to the real league.

      It IS cool that the Cosmos are holding out for what they want. They made a TON of money in the NASL days with the same type league, but unfortuantly Americans will not support it big enough to be anything, but small time for a loooong time. If the Cosmos dominate, that will not help their chances it will kill it, been down that road before.

      Reply
  4. It is nice that they have a shirt sponsor and a TV deal, but to be worth anything we have to know the terms. My rec league team has a shirt sponsor and some games are available via the internet.

    Reply
      • Shirt deal was reported as 3 million for three years.
        TV deal is on a property already owned by Seamus O’Brien. It’s an in house thing.
        More impressive is getting JP

  5. So no more Shep on MSG for Red Bulls Games? He is quite good at keeping it honest when things arent going well, which I like. Can always tell he would run for anything Cosmos related though. Best of luck to him if he leaves.

    Reply
    • that’s rich! good one, hha!
      No MLS fan boy should talk viewership when broadcast of games are struggling to beat the “Smurfs” for eyeballs

      Reply
      • FWIW the Dynamo had been widely aired in Houston but they joined up with the rest of the pro sports ship of fools in Houston by signing with Comcast for local broadcasts. Comcast is currently on something like 40% of cable providers in town, so about half the games are difficult for more than half the cable subscribers to see. Luckily we have more than our share of national telecasts.

        Last I heard the holdout cable providers and Comcast were nearly a dollar per subscriber apart. The net effect is you can only see Astros/Rockets/Dynamo on some cable providers in town.

        So, while MLS has recently made strides in getting games on TV, you’re only a bad decision away from sliding back down the pole. Granted, this Cosmos thing is no more than hype but MLS needs to keep itself widely available on TV.

      • when the LA Galaxy was on Fox Sports West they were averaging about 20,000 viewers. For some games they had more people watching at the stadium than on TV.

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