By FRANCO PANIZO
New York City FC have found a home. On a television network, that is.
NYC FC announced on Thursday morning a multiyear agreement with the YES Network, which will serve as the club’s flagship station and radio rights holder. The network — which airs games of club co-owner the New York Yankees — will televise all NYC FC’s regular season matches, home and away, within its traditional service area.
Additionally, all of New York City’s games will be streamed live and for free via the FOX Sports Go app to Cablevision and Time Warner Cable customers.
A radio deal with CBS Radio’s WFAN had been previously announced. WFAN has the rights to air all of NYC FC’s games, including friendly matches.
New York City will begin its inaugural season in MLS in 2015.
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What do you make of this news? Are you as surprised as you were by NYC FC’s home jersey design?
Share your thoughts below.
I have to say my absolute favorite part of this post was the kicker:
“Are you as surprised as you were by NYC FC’s home jersey design?”
I don’t want to speak for everyone, but I will. Yes, we were.
Any idea what will happen if there is a Yankees broadcast during an NYCFC match? Is there a backup network it will move to? I know usually only 1 game per week, but seems like it’ll be hard to accommodate Nets, Yanks, and NYC fans.
I believe there is. I recall that when there have been Yankees and Nets games at the same time, the Nets game moves to some YES2 channel they have for overflow games.
Ah I see. Looks like that is just on Directv. I unfortunately have Fios which has no overflow channel.
YES!
“streamed live and for FREE via the FOX Sports Go app to Cablevision and Time Warner Cable customers”. So pull out your wallet and pony up to PAY THE MAN (cablevision and time warner).
Sorry ManCity USA. I cut those cords long ago.
Wow, we are all really interested and impressed by your decisions as a consumer.
“we are all” you ain’t
actually MLS’s most popular demographic is the under 35’s which also happen to be the most of the cord cutters.
But I stand by my original assertion that there is nothing FREE about this. I also understand that there are many of people who do have cable and have no problem with their decision.
I would never claim to be “ALL”. Unlike…well you know who.
NYCFC not doing right by the fan base. Gotta have it on broadcast/antenna before you start squeezing them for cable dollars.
This is insane. The Knicks and Rangers aren’t even on broadcast TV. NYCFC is lucky that they have a cable outlet at all. No broadcast station in NY would ever televise the games.
Thing that surprises me is that there is a radio deal. And on WFAN, which is a big station.
It’s a shame that there aren’t midweek daytime games. Love to see Francesa have a meltdown because he is preempted by NYCFC. He already is going bonkers that his simulcast on FS1 is preempted by UCL and Europa League matches.
“Beggars can’t be choosers.” OTA TV is best for fans, no doubt, but MLS teams take what they can get. There are not a ton of networks chomping at the bit for local soccer programming (yet).
Geez, even the Yankees themselves are hardly ever on over the air TV, maybe 20-30 games a year max out of 162.
good stuff, figured this had to happen. interesting note about the Fox Sports Go thing though.
Are they gonna broadcast female genital mutilation at halftime?
Emiratis aren’t into that. At least get your stereotypes right.
In response to a 2011 survey in the UAE, 34% of female respondents said they were “circumcised” – referring to FGM
(links available upon request)
to wikipedia?
It’s much more an African Islamic thing. It happens in other places but it’s not universal like it is in say Somalia or Sudan.
In any case, its hardly pleasant to be a woman in those countries.
that makes a lot of sense now doesnt it??
As a RBNY fan, the radio deal sticks in my craw. Not because of anything NYCFC is doing but because RBNY has been around 20 years and has never had an English language radio deal. No wonder so many people in the area have no idea RBNY even exists.
you see NYRB filed a “discovery” claim on Gerrard? good ol’ MLS…
I burst into laughter when I read this post thinking it was a joke. I did some research and realized it was not.
MMLS.
lol i had the same reaction when i saw it.
They never had a radio deal? Never seems hard to do. Maybe you wouldn’t have a great deal but someone had to have been interested. FC Dallas was on a Christian programmed FM station. That’s certainly better than nothing.
Yes, that’s the reason! All of those people huddled by their radios on the weekends, listening to Fireside chats, waiting for FDR to stop talking…
I thought RBNY were on the ESPN radio station in NY?
I can assure you that RBNY have never ever had an English language radio deal in the history of the club.
Fitting network for a club (and league) that are nothing more than YES men to MCFC.
So a soccer team partially owned by the New York Yankees will be on a TV channel entirely owned by the New York Yankees. In other stunning developments, the sun rose in the east this morning.
Event more stunning was how YES stopped showing Arsenal games but instead switched to Man City immediately after NYC FC was announced.
This is a Franco Panizo piece. What did you expect besides a statement of the obvious???? This could have been a one paragraph piece.
Of course anyone with access to Google could go and find this:
“Therefore, the Yankees technically do not own YES. The Yankees, however, receive a rights fee from YES that is somewhat higher than MSG previously paid. In 2007, the portion of the network owned by Goldman Sachs was put up for sale for estate taxes reasons.
In November 2012, five years after Goldman Sachs put their stake in YES on sale, News Corporation (now 21st Century Fox) agreed to terms on a 49% stake in YES. As a result, each of the previous owners of YES had their ownership stakes reduced.
It was announced in January 2014 that 21st Century Fox upped its stake in the network from 49% to 80%, giving Fox Sports majority control of YES Network.”
Thanks for stopping by.
Wonder if they’re getting any money for their tv deal.
The Yankees own the YES Network and they co-own NYCFC, so I don’t see how there’s any net gain in revenue for NYCFC.
*Correction: The Yankees own 20% of YES. The remaining 80% is owned by Fox, so maybe there will indeed be rights fees paid to NYCFC.