A few thoughts popped into my mind thinking about the topic and reading the thread. It has taken me a few days to sort it out enough to write out the thoughts.
1. This clearly is a post-Ebersol NBC move. Ebersol would only pay out big bucks for sports if they had a broad appeal or there was some angle to reach a broad audience. The EPL broadcasts are only going to reach a relatively tiny audience in the US and NBC seems okay with it. For as long as I can remember, which for me means going back to the 1970s, any time ther was a move to make soccer more accessible, there were comments, often written with a sneer, about somebody's delusion that soccer was going to compete in popularity with the major American sports. The last instance I remember was when the LA Galaxy signed David Beckham. In this case I haven't seen any comments (though there were other things in the news) so NBC made the deal with no pretense of "bringing soccer to America." I assume they figure if they get the rating ESPN live baseball gets they can make money. The point is that NBC paid out a lot of money for rights to games knowing that they will have a niche audience. They are not going to Americanize the sport or broadcasts and they are not loading up on the hype. 2. NBC chose EPL over MLS. In the discussion over making soccer a mainstream sport for TV, it has been a solid rule that Americans would not root for, nor pay attention to non-Americans. The conventional wisdom has always been that the way to build American interest in soccer was to give people local teams to support and they eventually would seek out the top level of play in the world. So step one has always been to build up the MLS. NBC believes that they can generate sustainable interest showing English teams with English announcers. I assume the choice for EPL recognized the lack of language barrier and that city names/team names sound normal. So they chose the English league rather than Spain, Italy, Germany, Brazil, or Argentina. 3. This shows me that live TV now has a premium value. We have been hearing for years about the disruption that came with DVRs and now we can see that a network values live events and how much they are willing to pay for them. -- -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TVorNotTV" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
