Fox Soccer Channel has completed a new four-year extension on its agreement with the English FA to air the FA Cup and English national team matches, including World Cup qualifiers. The agreement does NOT include the English Premier League.
Yes folks, it was my mistake on the post earlier this morning regarding broadcast rights to the English Premier League. Let’s just say I’ve had EPL broadcast rights on the brain lately so when I read that press release I mistook it to include the EPL.
Apologies for the false alarm.
Just give me Premiership matches in HD damn it!
I’d rather ESPN secured the rights for the EPL. I love FSC, but if they were on ESPN you could watch the matches on ESPN360 at any time. I can’t tell you how many Fulham matches I missed this season because of work or being away from home.
Wow, so we’ll have German WCQs on GolTV and England WCQs on FSC. That’s exciting!
Just this morning on an ESPN radio update they noted how “Red Bulls forward Jozy Altidore” was called into the US pool. Of course, this was part of their promoting the upcoming friendlies, but still, any time you can get the Red Bulls mentioned on the radio, that’s good stuff.
If ESPN snaps up EPL rights, they will have a perfect platform for promoting it through the Euro Cup. I also suspect that they would get the best pick of games, that FSC would continue in a secondary role and that the big loser would be Sentanta.
The link Ives posted this morning stated that the FA Cup final WILL be broadcast on FSC under this pact. Also, a quick search of the web also notes this about the pact.
Anyone notice ESPN actually giving soccer news and highlights lately? Is it just because of EURO and the USA friendlies or have my strongly worded e-mails finally been read? I mean if you cover poker, horse racing and car racing, you think the beautiful game can get a mention.
I’ll bet you’ve had EPL broadcast rights on the brain… You dropped a VERY enticing nugget of information when you said ESPN might consider an ESPN3 with EPL as its centerpiece. Care to elaborate or speculate on that subject?
I am sick of FSC. All year we get the FA Cup and the final rolls around and it’s on PPV.
Manchester United is playing for the title and we get boring Chelsea beause they liscended it out to Setanta that nodbody gets… I already pay extra for FSC…
Oops for me too! I totally misread it as well…
Ives,
Why no mention of Setanta Sports who will be dividing the FA Cup coverage with Fox Soccer Channel?
Does this mean they might actually have The FA Cup Final, and it not be on PPV?
I’m guessing not.
So, does this mean the PL games are still up in the air?
It’s okay Ives, I figured it was an early morning mistake. Do I win anything for being the first to notice?
By the way, this is still a good deal for FSC. The FA Cup can produce some mouth watering ties and the England World Cup Qualifiers could be quite interesting. Aren’t they in the same group with Croatia again?