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Univision Deportes, BeIN Sports to broadcast Road to Brazil friendlies

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By FRANCO PANIZO

If you are unable to attend any of the seven Road to Brazil friendlies that will take place in the United States this summer but are hoping to watch them, you are in luck.

It was announced on Tuesday that Univision Deportes and BeIN Sports will be the broadcast partners of the 2014 Road to Brazil series. Additionally, ESPN Deportes Radio will be the official radio rights broadcast partner. The seven games will take place in several cities across the U.S. from May 29-June 7 and will showcase 10 countries, six of which are preparing for this summer’s World Cup.

BeIN Sports will broadcast all of the matches starting with Honduras-Turkey on May 29, and four of those friendlies will air on the network’s Spanish language channel. Univision Deportes, meanwhile, will broadcast five games in total, with four of them airing on Univision Deportes Network and the other broadcasted on Univision.

The 10 countries partaking in the Road to Brazil series include Spain, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Greece, Honduras, Bolivia, El Salvador, Israel, Turkey and Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Here is the full rundown of the Road to Brazil broadcast schedule:

5/29 8pm – Honduras vs. Turkey – BeIN Sports, UDN, ESPN Deportes Radio

5/30 8:30pm РBosnia and Herzegovina vs. Ivory Coast РBeIN Sports, UDN, BeIN Sports en Espa̱ol, ESPN Deportes Radio

6/1 9pm – Honduras vs. Israel – BeIN Sports, UDN, BeIN Sports en Español

6/3 7pm – Greece vs. Nigeria – BeIN Sports, BeIN Sports en Español

6/4 9pm – Ivory Coast vs. El Salvador – BeIN Sports, UDN, ESPN Deportes Radio

6/6 8pm – Greece vs. Bolivia – BeIN Sports,  BeIN Sports en Español, ESPN Deportes Radio

6/7 4pm – Spain vs. El Salvador – Univision, BeIN Sports, ESPN Deportes Radio

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What do you think of Univision and BeIN Sports airing these friendlies? Which of these matches most excites you?

Share your thoughts below.

Comments

  1. May 27, 2014 7 PM PT USMNT vs Azerbaijan, ESPN2, WatchESPN, UniMás

    June 1, 2014 2 PM ET USMNT vs Turkey, ESPN2, WatchESPN, UniMás

    June 7, 2014 6 PM ET USMNT vs Nigeria, ESPN, WatchESPN, UniMás

    Reply
  2. So, Man City now owns teams in Australia, Japan and the US. I am assuming they are losing money since they are in trouble with Financial Fair Play, so what is their end game? Are these all just brand extensions? Expansion of scouting network and reserve squads? A way to get around Financial Fair play (Man City Japan pays the 250 million release clause on Messi’s contract and then loans him to the English Man City)? Are they just going to developed nations with money and growth opportunities in football?

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    • One thing FFP overlooks is the old model of a vanity project. In the old days sports teams were not as business obsessed and you might want to own a team out of civic pride knowing you’d lose money. But on the upside you gained notoriety as the owner of……Team X.

      I see FFP as a softer handed implementation of a salary cap, based on double entry bookkeeping. The team as business model. I see that bumping up against the vanity model and its modern cousin the LBO.

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    • FFP doesn’t necessarily mean the team is losing money. It means they are spending more than they earn. Which means the owners are injecting cash in to the transfer kitty instead of it being earned income.

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      • There is no such thing as a free lunch.

        ” It means they are spending more than they earn.” That is the definition of losing money. The loss may not be coming directly out of the team due to the injection of money, but it is coming at the expense of the owner.

  3. BEIN is on Cablevision, Time Warner, Verizon, ATT, DirectTV, DISH and Comcast among others you may want to check/contact your local providers.

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  4. Personally I think it’s a wasted opportunity to telecast on BeIN, but the growing approach to soccer telecasts is to take the money and ignore whether anyone can watch, ie, availability of the network on cable menus. I’m glad the US is on ESPN and that these games can be seen in Spanish, but the fewer things BeIN shows, the better. I even like Schoen and Hudson, it’s just a travesty to have whole swathes of important matches on a network few can see. But I guess as long as the check clears no one cares.

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    • Isn’t BeIn pretty established across most providers at this point? Obviously it was a huge deal when they initially launched and hardly anybody was able to see the USMNT qualies, but that was two years ago.

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      • BEIN is definitely established, but it’s mostly like what VS (now NBCSN) was about 10 yrs ago pre-NHL – not widely available in homes. I have a pretty good sports tv package and don’t get a sniff of BEIN.

      • BeIn might be established among most “providers,” but the providers require their subscribers to pay for BeIn extra money on top of what they already paid. At least, this is the case in my area with Verizon FIOS, I would have to pay over $120 extra per year to get this channel. Most Verizon FIOS viewers will not shell out this kind of money for this channel. In contrast, a lot of sports channels (such as ESPN 1&2, FOX Sports 1, NBC Sports Network) come as part of most normal subscription packages.

    • That’s soccer in a lot of countries. Sky Sports has a lot of games in England and you need a subscription. Unfortunately, with only 15 minutes of commercials during the game, most of which take place when people are going to the bathroom, a general TV deal isn’t worth enough.

      The subscription giants can come in and bid higher knowing people are willing to shell $10 a month to watch them. So if that customer leaves the room during halftime, they don’t care. Which is why a lot of subscription commercials are awful and repeating.

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      • And it’s a tad silly that you have to go to the pub to watch your team play. Some of the imitated rituals here for soccer hipsters are a practical response to the access limits there.

        Also, (a) the number of actual eyeballs will affect ratings will affect sustainability. 40% of fans can see Comcast SN here. They have the Astros, Rockets, and Dynamo. They couldn’t actually afford to pay their nice contractual amounts because they lacked provider deals and ratings. Bankrupt now.

        Plus (b) teams should look at $ versus visibility as tradeoff. The Rockets were decent this year with marquee players but trapped in a pointless TV deal. They limited their own fan excitement. That excitement surely carries not just subjective but also tangible economic value.

        Last, this is an issue with several MLS teams as well as US away qualifying. Periodically PPV or something like that has pushed access in one direction. But the best outcome for the fans is a widely available network paying a reasonable rate.

  5. Looking forward to these games for sure. I’m curious, does any of the money from these friendlies benefit American soccer in any way? Certainly the stadia will get a cut. And, in my opinion, any soccer in the US is good for all soccer in the US. But are there any concrete benefits to American soccer from this series?

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    • Pretty sure USSF is getting a cut; probably 50 – 60 % of the gate. For the Mexican friendlies on US soil, they were getting 60/40 cut in our favor.

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      • Helium-3, I understand the first sentence is a guess, but where did you get the second set of figures from? Just curious.

      • Yes, I know there was a lawsuit by other federations against USSF for this, not sure what the result was.

      • http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/wire?section=soccer&id=8279255

        Is this the lawsuit you were referring to? It seems the judge ruled that the USSF can take “sanctioning fees” for Olympic and amateur matches. A case that went to Fifa said that USSF can sanction matches in the US between other nations.

        So I bet the USSF definitely makes money of Mexico friendlies as well as the other friendlies taking place here.

    • Yes.

      USSF, as a non profit, posts their financial reports on their website and you can find out what kind of cut they make.

      Spoiler alert; All of these friendlies (esp El Tri!) really help float our team!

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  6. You scared me – I thought you meant the USMNT friendlies. Please tell me those will be on ESPN or Fox or some channel I get (not BeIN).

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      • Tahiti has at least been to a major tournament. El Salvidor were terrible before their match fixing scandal that robbed them of not only experienced players, but a few of their most promising youths.

      • Actually all the lifetime banned players from match fixing were old guys around 30. So as far as youth goes, they didnt tske any damage there

      • And they were just one win away from advancing to the hex. They were dominating at home vs Costa Rica even though their two best forwards got hurt and subbed off in the first half

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