Major League Soccer

ESPN deal gives U.S. fans the gift of World Cups, weekend games.

(Wednesday, January 2, 2002) -- Christmas came either a little late or very early for American soccer fans, depending on your personal perspective. Regardless, they have something celebrate today.

After months of uncertainty about the ability in this nation to watch the 2002 World Cup in English, Major League Soccer announced it had acquired the American television rights to the 2002 and 2006 World Cups, then packaged them in a partnership with ESPN and ABC, insuring league games will be broadcast and marketed for five years on the Disney family of sports channels.

Whether this dramatic action, which will done under the auspices of a new, yet-to-be-named corporate entity to be styled after NFL Properties, the highly-lucrative marketing arm of the National Football League, produces professional soccer’s breakthrough in the United States market will take much time, maybe years, to determine. The American, fan, however, has come out the big winner.

All 64 matches of the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, which runs from May 31 to June 30, will be broadcast live in English without play being interrupted for commercials. ESPN and ESPN2 will feature the three U.S. first-round matches from South Korea, beginning with Portugal Wednesday, June 5, at 5 a.m. (ET); South Korea Monday, June 10m at 2:30 a.m. (ET); and Poland Friday, June 14, at 7:30 a.m. (ET).

ESPN and ESPN2 will re-air at least nine live telecasts later the same day. Presumably, the American matches will be among those. The ESPN Classic channel could also be employed for re-airings. Among the minimum of nine games shown on ABC will be the June 30 championship match.

Disney is committed to broadcasting at least 11 games from the 2003 Women’s World Cup in China with the championship match to be shown on ABC. All matches in the 2006 World Cup will be broadcast live with at least 12 matches, including the final, on ABC.

Despite repeated questions on a national media conference call this afternoon, officials from MLS, ABC Sports and ESPN would release no financial details of the deal which was close to completion for more than two months. Presumably, MLS’s investors are making a considerable financial commitment for the one remaining provision of today’s announcement from New York -- weekly league games, mostly on ESPN2, for a five-year period, and a close partnership between MLS and ESPN\ABC in television production and sales.

As the 2001 MLS season neared conclusion and the existing contract neared expiration, speculation intensified that after six seasons, league games would no longer appear on ESPN with special events on ABC.

"We were confident that we would have had an extension of our agreement with ABC and ESPN without the World Cup," MLS commissioner Don Garber said. "We were able to do a deal that included both. It took us a great deal of time in very arduous negotiations with Kirch (the World Cup rights holder) to finalize our World Cup deal. It made no sense for us to announce an agreement that has the elements built into it that this one does without having finalized all elements of the package. Without the World Cup, we would have had a relationship with ABC and ESPN. We now feel we have a better one, a more comprehensive one, a much deeper commitment to programming, scheduling and promotion than we would have had without having such a comprehensive relationship."

In 2002, 26 MLS regular-season matches will be televised on ESPN2, 22 on "Soccer Saturday" afternoons. The other four games will be on ESPN2, which reaches 82 million homes, on Thursday nights.

"Soccer already is the most popular sport in the world and we will make every attempt to enhance the platform on a global basis and to bring that home and continue to spark soccer on a national platform," said ESPN senior vice president and general manager of programming Mark Shapiro. "Without Major League Soccer we don't do this deal. We're excited about having these live events both from the global perspective with the World Cup and also on the national stage. We have an exclusive and consistent window for ESPN2 and we've already shown that albeit slowly, soccer is catching on. It's a very big participant sport in this country and we hope that will generate into ratings. We've been a supporter of this league and we've been there since its inception. We will continue to drive it, focus it and recharge it as often as we can because we believe in it and we believe in Don Garber."

Given that Garber came from the NFL -- and sources within the league said he worked tenaciously to put this deal together -- it is not surprising the new MLS corporate entity will be patterned after NFL Properties.

According to a press release, the new company was "formed by MLS investors to manage sales, service and broadcast production for the World Cup properties. Additionally, the new company has purchased the MLS broadcast and sponsorship rights through 2006." The initial investors are Anschutz Entertainment Group, the corporate entity of Philip Anschutz that operates five league teams, the Hunt Sports Group, a family operation, led by patriarch Lamar Hunt and his son Clark which runs two teams, and Japanese advertising agency Dentsu. New investors will be sought.

Another thing that wasn’t explained was the potential strange relationship between the investors in Major League Soccer LLC, the partnership that formed and has run the single-entity MLS, that are investors in the new company and those who are not part of the new venture.

For example, the new company has acquired MLS broadcasting and sponsorship rights from themselves and other partners of MLS LLC, creating a significant gray area as to who is acting in whose interests. Additionally, the new entity will actively pursue additional properties, such as broadcast rights with a league official using a TV contract with the Mexican national team as an example. Though these projects will be built from the MLS platform, will only some of the MLS LLC partners profit? Or did some in MLS LLS decline participation in the new company, therefore meaning the prinicpals are in a position to gain more only because they were willing to risk more?

"The company will be an extension of Major League Soccer and will be run by the management of the league with sales assistance from some of the leading sports marketing agencies in the world," Garber said. "The purpose of this innovative broadcast and marketing concept for Major League Soccer is ultimately to strategically grow the interests and viability of the sport in this country by aggregating the broadcast and marketing rights for these very important properties."

The entire rights sale for the 2002 World Cup has been something of a fiasco for world governing FIFA. Most world television rights were split between two media companies: ISL of Switzerland, FIFA's official marketing arm, and the Kirch Group, a German conglomerate.

Kirch supposedly was awarded all rights in Europe, as well as English language rights in North America. ISL received rights in various languages in the rest of the world, with one exception.

FIFA directly sold the South American rights to the Brazilian parent of the Mexican company which owns Univision, the Spanish-language network in the U.S. As part of that deal, Univision acquired the Spanish-language rights in the U.S., creating competition for Kirch within a market for which it theoretically owned the rights.

Kirch ignored that fact when it went to American broadcasters, originally asking for in the neighborhood of $60 million for U.S. rights to the 2002 Cup. Considering that most matches would be played in the early a.m. hours, given the time difference from Asia and the fact Univision already had broadcast rights, draining the Hispanic and other markets, no sane American TV executive could even consider a deal.

Then ISL collapsed, its bankruptcy forcing FIFA to transfer all rights to Kirch. With rights in many countries unsold, Kirch suddenly was anxious to negotiate. As word leaked out over the past several months that officials from MLS and AEG were talking to Kirsh, it was assumed the asking price was dropping. Though no figures were released, the fact that today’s deal also included the 2003 Women’s World Cup and the 2006 World Cup, might give a good indication that the final amount was only a small fraction of the original asking price.

Senior correspondent Robert Wagman contributed to this story.

Gary Davidson is managing editor of SoccerTimes and can be e-mailed at editor@soccertimes.com..