Quote:
Originally Posted by richard1960
Even as an occasional football watcher and not a fan of any club i would have to agree with you on that one,on a saturday evening when only dross is on BBC1 and ITV watching a live football match on ESPN is a better option by far and makes the TVXL sub more worthwhile. 
---------- Post added at 16:05 ---------- Previous post was at 16:03 ----------
ESPN will not get into a bidding war with sky i have always said that the relationship between the two is far too cosy for that to ever happen. 
---------- Post added at 16:18 ---------- Previous post was at 16:05 ----------
You are right to be sceptical i always have been this from an article.
Senior executives at ESPN emphasise that relations with News Corp and Sky are cordial, pointing out that Sky market ESPN to their subscribers in the UK and that the US network piggy-backs on the Sky platform. ESPN's biggest audience was 917,000, when Manchester United played Tottenham in October last year, but they will not reveal how many customers they have. Syfret estimates the number at 1.2 million, about the same as Setanta. Sky have more than 10 million customers, though not all of them subscribe to their sports channels.
AND
Wolff says ESPN is happy for Sky to be the senior partner in the UK. "There will be markets where we bid against each other; there are other territories where we will not. You could have a very good second position in a market if that's the best business model you can build at that time." He adds: "We have a complex, multifaceted relationship with Sky [but] complex relationships aren't new to us. We just have to manage that."
Do you really think ESPN are really going to bid against sky for premier league rights or just carve it up between them hmmmmm now let me think.  |
Thanks for that , it pretty well sills the deal, No competition, just a carve up.
That makes the decision not to go for Football League rights strange
