ESPN to Show English Premier League in USA?

By: Daryl | August 6th, 2009

I try hard not to fall for unsubstantiated internet gossip. Seriously. But I’ve learned to trust EPL Talk when it comes to anything English Premier League being broadcast on USA television related.

So if EPL Talk are reporting that ESPN will show two Prem games per week this season, then there’s a very good chance that that’s exactly what’s happening.

Here are the details:

Fox Soccer Channel holds the rights to Premier League games on US television. FSC had previously been sub-licensing multiple games to Setanta US (which is still in business, as it’s separate from the now deceased Setanta UK). But for 2009/10, two of those sub-licensed games…

Saturday at 7:45am Eastern Time
Monday at 3:00pm Eastern Time

…will apparently be on ESPN2 instead.

How do we know this is true? Well, there’s no press release from ESPN yet (expecting it any second) but Setanta has removed both the 7:45am Saturday and 3pm Monday games from its schedule. Which has to mean something. And I think it means the Mouse House is continuing to expand it’s soccer coverage (what with this, the La Liga rights, and the new channel in the UK).

So, assuming this is all true, I see it as a mixed blessing for US based soccer fans. The good news is that the beautiful game is now available on basic cable, with ESPN2 showing English Premier League, La Liga and MLS. That’s a step forward for the beautiful game, towards the mainstream.

The downside is that soccer in the United States is now spread across at least four different channels. So if you want to watch everything then you need ESPN, Setanta, Fox Soccer Channel and GolTV. (And that’s only if you don’t speak Spanish. There’s also ESPN Deportes and Fox Sports en Espanol to think about.)

So the English Premier League will (again, assuming this is true) be spread across three of those channels starting next week. It could get a little confusing, and a lot expensive. But I guess that’s what progress looks like. Remember, once upon a time there was no English Premier League football being broadcast in the US at all.

Some Related Stories:

Category: World Football

« Jozy Altidore is a Twitter Tease | Home | Daily Dose: August 6th, 2009 »

The Offside RSS Feeds

he said

Wow! Thank you! I always wanted to write in my site something like that. Can I take part of your post to my blog?
Lloyd

The "Monday Night Game" is relative to "nightime" in the UK. It's broadcast live in the US at 2:55 pm EDT and 11:55 PDT. So, essentially it will NEVER have to compete with "Monday Night Football". If anything, the average american Football fan, might tune in to the EPL game as a sort of "appetizer" for the big Monday Night game. Bars will love this too, for their lunch time audiences may explode as well.

I love how ESPN is not "messing" with the original production of the EPL games. FSC tampers with it (IE. they have their own branded lead-in, they delay the matches 6-7 minutes to fit their schedule, the feed is abysmal since they are down scaling the HD feed from the production feed, etc). So, GO ESPN!!! Thanks a bunch!
Rony

@Dell Martin: ESPN2HD did broadcast last weeks 2 games in HD.
Aron

Wednesday football Burnley vs Man Utd 1-0 and Liverpool v Stoke 4-0
clbuzz

The year’s much-awaited on-ground spectacle, the English Premier League will be aired soon on the sports favorite channel ESPN. EPL soccer fans have all of their favorite stars coming home.

http://www.clbuzz.com/espn-epl...
fugo

Um.. Setanta's schedule shows the games. And ESPN's does not.

http://www.setanta.com/us/TV-L...

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn...

confusing eh..
thad

Setanta is still a good deal even without these games--3 live games a week, plus almost every game not shown live on Setanta or FSC is broadcast same day tape by Setanta. And the highlights shows without the annyoing FSC ad crawl at the bottom.

Stiil, I wonder if they might drop the monthly fee a bit. Or replace these games with another league. More from the Dutch league would be nice if they still have those rights.

Only a few years ago it was 2-3 live games a week on FSC plus 2 available ppv matches at $20 a pop.

On another note, I think more Americans are going to get into soccer once they watch some of these matches with the atmosphere, etc. It will become a bigger part of the mainstream sports culture. Whether it will help MLS, I don't know, but it will help the sport as a whole. The EPL itself too has to be chuffed with this.
Ivan

The football community has gone crazy since yesterday after EPL Talk broke the news. I have e-mailed/texted about 15 people and everybody is happy!!! ESPN is gearing up for unprecedented coverage of the beautiful game in anticipation of next summer's world cup. Well done. I still plan on keeping Setanta, but the availability of football of the highest quality on a national network is amazing. The summer of soccer in the US will apparently continue into the fall...
shawn

i think this is great, because i can't afford the premium channels, so now i don't have to watch EVERY GAME on justin.tv or some other pirate stream.

as for the time slots, they shouldn't conflict with coverage of other sports. nothing happens that early on saturdays besides a possible college football pre-game show, and i don't think they run pre-game shows on all three of their channels (abc, espn, and espn2). the monday night slot shouldn't be a problem, because the only football (american, that is) on monday is "monday night football," which doesn't air on espn2.
SP

personally, i see more channel coverage as a good thing. sure it's harder to get all of the channels, but now it is easier to have at least one of the channels.
Marcus

One HD on free to air in Australia, is now showing Bundisliga :D:D:D:D:D:D
Schalke vs Nurmberg live 2morow at 11:30pm Yeaaaaaaaa
Ryan

Just a note to everyone saying Chelsea-Hull will feature Altidore, keep in mind that he will be running around at altidude in Azteca on Wednesday the 12th, and then enduring a long plane ride to England on the 13th, so while I would love to see him in the first XI that day, he may come off the bench- if he plays at all
mlyons

I don't see how this makes things any more complicated for the American viewer. Anyone getting Setanta, FSC, or GolTV would already be getting ESPN. I don't think there's a cable or satellite package in existence that has the former but not the latter. For someone like me, who gets FSC and GolTV but doesn't have access to Setanta, this just makes two more matches a week that I can watch that I wouldn't have been able to otherwise.
Daryl

I think Jimmy misunderstood my GolTV comment. Mostly because I'd originally worded it so badly. It should make more sense now I've corrected it, but I basically meant that there's FSC, ESPN, Setanta and GolTV, plus there are also the Spanish language channels like Fox Sports en Espanol and ESPN Deportes. Apologies for any confusion.

Should also add, for US fans: The first game on ESPN looks like being Chelsea vs Hull, very likely featuring Jozy Altidore.
OhYes

It's a step in the right direction. People just need to tune in. :)

And GolTV broadcasts both spanish and english commentaries. Or at least that's what happened when I had Dish Network. I could switch between the two whenever I wanted for any game. I don't know how to do it in comcast but there's probably a way.
Daryl

Chris,

The ESPN games will be:
7:45am Eastern Time on Saturdays.
3pm Eastern Time on Mondays.

I'm not so familiar with the schedules of other sports, but I'd guess those two timeslots will avoid any clashes since one's so early and the other is in the middle of a weekday.
Chris

OK--great news. But when exactly are they going to show them? Between midnight and 5AM? In the fall, ESPN/ESPN2 shows baseball, college (gridiron) football, and NFL programming. In the spring, they show NBA and college basketball. I love this news, mostly because we'll now be able to see the matches in HD, but I am concerned that by the time the matches are aired, we'll have known the outcome for a while.
ar126

While GolTV's commercials are usually in Spanish, I've found that most of the games shown are broadcast with English commentary.

I also think that while it will be rough for soccer fans to watch their games now spread out long the four channels, this isn't really ESPNs target demographic.

The only people who have to watch the 4 channels are people already into soccer who have the other three. These few games on ESPN 2 will expose the average sports fan not subscribed to these extra cost channels to the game and help in ESPNs 09-10 broadcast goal of building up fans and viewers for the World Cup.