The U.S. soccer squad has just secured a friendly game with the French team. That deal occurred less than a week before bids are to be submitted in Zurich, Switzerland, for the U.S. broadcast rights for World Cups ’18 and ’22. Three networks are expected to bid—NBC, Fox and ESPN. Those bids will be for the English-language rights. The Spanish-language rights in the U.S. will be bid on by Univisión and Telemundo (NBC).
Process
After submission of the bids, the FIFA executive committee will meet on Thursday. Unlike Olympic bidding on rights, the companies will make no formal presentations. The committee could make its decision on which companies will get the contracts as soon as Thursday. They may take longer and they could come back and request more information.
These rights are exceptionally important. Those who win the bid will be charged with building audience support for soccer through to 2022. That is a major part of the deal. As an example, ESPN paid $100 million for the World Cup 2010 and 2014 rights. They made the 2010 Cup a major priority.
Frontrunners?
ESPN is considered to be favored due to their yeoman’s work last year during the cup. It paid off as the U.S.-Ghana second round game drew more viewers than all but two games of the ’09 World Series and all but Game 7 of the ’10 NBA Finals. The total numbers on those watching the U.S.-Ghana match in the U.S. came to 19.4 million.
ESPN continues to look good. They have decided to carry every one of next summer’s Euro 2012 games live. They did the same thing for last summer’s Women’s World Cup and the men’s World Cup in 2010. Plus the 2014 men’s World Cup is to be a major venture for ESPN. Univisión is also a favorite. They paid $325 million for the Spanish-language rights to World Cup 2010 and 2014.
Competition
Fox, which is offering Premiere League action from Britain this year, is focusing a lot of energy on winning the bid. They are broadcasting Premiere League matches on Sunday afternoons during prime NFL time. The company has the only soccer network in the U.S., Fox Soccer, which provides 24-hour coverage seven days a week. Fox is offering major coverage of MLS this year.
As far as NBC is concerned, they are the only bidder that has created a proposal that includes English-language and Spanish-language coverage. This sets them off from the other two.
Going With What They Know
Still, most people believe that the FIFA committee will go with what they know. There don’t seem to be any major rumblings against Univisión or Univisión. Whoever wins the contract will have a golden opportunity to expand the market share that soccer has in the U.S. And with such a large Spanish-speaking population, which continues to grow, which ever company secures that contract will be poised to generate some major advertising income.
Will soccer ever be a huge sport in the U.S.? It could be if those stations that win the World Cup contracts can create enough buzz and provide premium coverage that will capture the imaginations of viewers. One stat that will be very telling will be the amount of cash bet on soccer in the U.S. during the World Cup.
