Quote:
Originally Posted by vincerooney
Do we know what the situation is with sports rights which will be broadcast on ESPN? I thought ESPN would just be ESPN america and was going through the football tonight and have found french football is actually being broadcast on ESPN tonight. Is all french football on ESPN?
Might get a bit confusing if its not...
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Yes it's all very confusing.
This seasons FA cup is on ESPN but the following season it's on BT Sport.
I guess if BT had not bought ESPN, ESPN would have had to put this seasons FA Cup rights to tender and BT risk losing them to Sky or paying more.
I imagine BT agreed to buy ESPN to avoid this and for ESPN it allowed them to exit the market with minimal exit costs. If ESPN had just closed down this year they would have had to deal with expensive exit clauses for contracts with suppliers, production teams and staff etc.. instead they can now just TUPE the staff to BT. For the French league and some others I imagine ESPN's contract agreed to show a minimum number of matches on the channel so I imagine that's what they will do and any on top of that quota would be free to show on BT sport.
I might be wrong but having worked in contracting and dealt with TUPE etc.. I'd imagine it's something like this. Hence apparent cheap price ESPN was sold for.