September 9, 2009
Press Release,
ESPN America and NFL Extend Partnership with Four-Year Agreement
Deal gives English-language broadcast rights in 40+ countries in continental Europe
ESPN America and the National Football League have reached a four-year agreement for English-language television rights of NFL games in Europe, it was announced today by Lynne Frank, Senior Vice president and Managing Director, ESPN EMEA.
The four-year agreement, which begins this season, enables ESPN America to broadcast approximately 100 NFL games per season – including preseason, regular-season and postseason games, culminating with the Super Bowl – in 41 European territories.
ESPN America will televise four to six live games per week during the regular season including a live game during each of the following NFL broadcast windows: Sunday (1 p.m. EST), Sunday (4 p.m. EST), Sunday Night Football (8:15 p.m. EST.), and Monday Night Football (8:30 p.m. EST). ESPN America will also air the season-opening kickoff game, Thursday/Saturday games, the Thanksgiving Day tripleheader, all Wild Card and Divisional playoff games, the AFC and NFC Championship Games, the Pro Bowl and the Super Bowl.
Additional highlights of the agreement include the NFL Draft, ESPN-branded studio programming and NFL Films programming.
“Securing and expanding our rights to the National Football League, one of the most compelling leagues anywhere in the world, will strengthen our core US sports assets,” said Frank. “This agreement reaffirms our desire to continue to serve fans across Europe with the most comprehensive and diverse lineup of events from the world’s top sports.”
“We are pleased to continue our partnership with ESPN America in serving English-speaking NFL fans across Europe,” said Hans Schroeder, NFL vice president, media strategy and development. “We believe ESPN will continue to do an outstanding job of bringing our fans closer to our sport.”
European territories covered under this agreement:
Albania, Andorra, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus , Czech Republic , Estonia , France , Georgia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Iceland, Italy (including San Marino and Vatican City), Kazakhstan, Kosovo, Latvia , Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, Malta (beginning with the 2010 season), Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Turkey (beginning with the 2010 season), and Ukraine.
This is interesting for a few reasons. Firstly, ESPN just cut into the market share of all those sites (ala Justin.tv) that football fans overseas had to use to watch NFL football. Of course, people who care about sports business aren’t overly concerned with the illegal transmission of football games. The bigger and more interesting point? What kind of ratings will these games pull? Great ratings may not be the penultimate evidence of an impending NFL move to Europe, but consistently good ratings coupled with good attendance at regular season games in Europe could clearly begin to build a solid foundation for a move overseas.
Maybe the Madrid Conquistadors aren’t as far away as once thought?
5 comments
Nope. The new contract is nothing more than the renewal of the old contract from 2005 but under the new Label “ESPN”. NFL was shown in (most) Europe since 2005 on NASN. NASN was bought in 2007 by ESPN and relaunched in February 2009 as “ESPN America”.
The only thing that changed: some more small countries included.
In contrast the coverage of the NFL in the UK was reduces. Not a single preseason game. Pay-TV BSkyB is showing only two instead of four NFL-games sunday at 1pm and 4pm. The Monday Night Game got no UK-broadcaster.
As ESPN America is Pay-TV, don’t expect any significant ratings. There are only few broadcasts on free-tv. In the UK e.g. the Sunday Night Game on FIVE and the London Game on the BBC. In several other countries only the Super Bowl and the Conference Finals. In Germany the Super Bowl (the live broadcast is in europe 12am-4am) got a market share of 7%-8% and is watched by roundabout 400.000 people (80 millions live in germany)
This is very ‘naive’. It’s not about ratings or attendance. It’s about sponsoring and the money that cities and stadiums are ready to shell out for the NFL. Take a look at the decisions for new franchises in the old NFL Europe. This wasn’t about any strategic importance of a city/market for football, but about how much cities like Cologne were ready to pay for the expenses (travelling, hotels, stadium).
The NFL in London is not about a market, but about the willing of the city London and the stadium holder (english FA) to pay the NFL for such game, in the hope to generate money for the costly Wembley Stadium. The whole momentum for american football in europe is since 5-6 years dead.
Don’t expect any Franchises in the NFL or NBA to move to Europe. The whole talk beo Goodell and Stern is only a smoke screen.
First off, thanks for the comment, appreciate it a lot.
On the first point, Yes, NASN is rebranded as ESPN America, but ESPN is now showing more football games than Europeans had the opportunity to watch under NASN (the numbers I saw had NASN showing around 60 games a year) and like you said, its in a larger number of countries. So it does seem like some users that would have had to use something like Justin.tv will now have the ESPN America option. Whether or not they utilize either option remains to be seen.
As for the ratings and such, I think they will be indicative of any potential to a move to Europe. Obviously, if the ratings are bad, then that move looks less likely. The NFL network was on premium tier cable with the largest cable providers in America and cable providers still had people overpaying (bundling NFL network with a bunch of channels they didn’t want) for the service. It showed the demand for the NFL in America was that strong. If ESPN America can’t pull strong, or at least decent ratings? then again i think that’s telling about the NFL’s chances in Europe.
Thirdly, forgive my naivete, but I think that ratings and attendance would most certainly play a role in decisions like these if you are looking at a long investment. Again, not the only evidence, but evidence that needs to be considered. Sure, maybe you could get London to pay enough money now to sustain an NFL franchise. But if there is no sustained fan base to back it…you just end up with the now defunct NFL Europe all over again. If the NFL is truly trying to create a sustained product in Europe, I think they’ll be looking for more than upfront money. And if they aren’t, then shame on them.
Especially with this being the NFL’s first foray into Europe with an NFL team (and not an expansion league?) I would think they would want to get all of their ducks in a row to make sure that team didn’t hemorrhage money or fall flat on its face in a few years, less they lose any chance to put their product in Europe. If anything, I think they would “over do it” as opposed to taking the money and running.
Re: but ESPN is now showing more football games than Europeans had the opportunity to watch under NASN (the numbers I saw had NASN showing around 60 games a year)
I don’t know where you get the 60-games-number from, but NASN* did show since 2005 6games per week: 1pm, 4pm, SNF, MNF and two more games on tape (I got an NASN-subscription since spring 2005, so i got the number first hand).
(*NASN in continental europa, without UK and scandinavia which got the NASN UK-version and now get the UK-version of ESPN America, which has not to be confused with the brand new ESPN UK
)
re: As for the ratings and such, I think they will be indicative of any potential to a move to Europe.
They won’t, because ESPN America is way to small. They won’t, because ESPN America is only broadcasting in english. How popular are french movies without oberdubbing in the USA?
(Europe: population 730 millions, native english speakers 65millions)
What the NFL did try is to get coverage on huge national Free-TV-Networks for special games like the Super Bowl. Problem: while they get coverage, the game is played middle in the night and as shown with the ratings in german television: they are way to small to be significant. There isn’t any significant Free-TV-coverage of the 1pm/4pm-games on sunday, apart from the one London-game
France Television just dumped the Super Bowl after three years due to bad ratings: after a good first year, the ratings for the Super Bowl were bad (as bad as the german ratings). So they dumped the Super Bowl and the game will now be broadcasted by a small commercial channel (but still Free-TV). BTW: here in germany same with the rating. After a good first year, the ratings fell last february for the second time.
The NFL did try since 10-15years to get a stronger presence on the european market, but apart from the UK, they failed miserably. They had already much more coverage even in germany. But they were dumped due to ratings. And since then, the interest in american football is even more reduced, thanks to the cancellation of the NFL Europe and an non-professional football-scene that has got worser in the last 5 years thanks to economical concerns and bad attendance. So the *whole* situation doesn’t look good.
While I understand, that from an US-perspective the NFL looks like an attractive product, please understand that from an european point of view, the NFL already did try to establich professional american football, but got the timing and several strategic decision concerning TV-coverage and NFL Europe wrong.
The TV-coverage of US-sports is moving since years from Free-TV to Pay-TV and now moving vom General-interest-Pay-TV to Special-Interest-Pay-TV like only-english-speaking ESPN America. For each improved TV contract in the last three years, I can name you two contract, where the US-sports got worse conditions.
I talked to a german broadcaster about the problems around the NFL-TV-coverage. Main problem is the lack of understanding that europe is not one country, but fifty countries and isn’t waiting to get the NFL. Talks between the TV-station and the NFL broke down, because the NFL thought they were prime time-material for one of the huge german networks. Which is absolutely laughable. It would be suicide like playing a premier league-match on ABC sunday at the 8pm-lot. Commercial suicide. Since the talks broke down, the NFL is in germany without any free-tv-presence until the late stage in the playoffs.
This isn’t just about the NFL. Talk with german broadcaster about the NBA and you get the same impression: the NBA does overplay their hands. So the NBA is in the biggest european market, in germany, since one year without any tv-coverage. Any. TV. Coverage. Despite Digler Nowitzki. Not a single minute. Talking about ratings: live games from the NBA during weeknights (2am) got three years ago here in germany on pay-tv an audience of only 7,500.
The new NBA-contract in france with Canal+ generated for the NBA only half of the money. Despite several frenchmen playing in the NBA (Parker, Noah, Diaw…)
Another similar thing: talks about an expansion towards europe. While David Stern still talks about an expansion, the facts show otherwise. The numbers of NBA-preseason-games in europe (“NBA Europa live”) is falling. 2007: 7 games, 2008: 4 games, 2009: 2 games. But if you ask David Stern, he is still selling cool aid and “european NBA-franchises within 10 years”.
Sounds like Goodell trying to sell the possibility of an european NFL-franchise. perhaps there will be one. But it won’t be due ratings or fan-support. There will be other factors playing a much more important role. Subsidies by cities. Owners of stadiums/arena like AMG. Sponsors.
So, with this whole big picture from an european view in mind. US-sports became in the last 5years something for fans, but without any chance to generate long-term a broader interest.
I got the 60 NFL game number from this article
http://www.allbusiness.com/services/business-services/3998921-1.html
How can I get the US football games on TV in Paris?
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