ESPN Eyeing Up Premier League Rights
As part of a major expansion of its European business, US sports cable broadcaster ESPN has expressed an interest in bidding for the live TV rights to the Premier League when the new contracts come up for grabs in 2010.
ESPN president George Bodenheimer commented in a newspaper interview that the broadcaster would be ‘very interested’ in the next Premier League rights contract with the bidding process likely to begin in early 2009.
BSkyB and Setanta currently hold the UK rights to show live Premier League games until the end of the 2009/10 season with the duo paying a record £1.7bn for the three-season contracts.
BSkyB is paying about £4.8m per game and Setanta £2.8m under the deal.
The Premier League also brought in £625m for sales of its overseas television rights, swelling the coffers of its clubs further still.
Bodenheimer commented: ‘We’re going to work on getting as local as we can. We want to deliver product that is relevant in each country. It’s a country-by-country approach. We want to be investors wherever the top sports product is.’
ESPN currently reaches about 10m homes in Europe and has recently boosted its online sports presence by buying cricket website Cricinfo and rugby site Scrum.com.
In the US is firmly established as the number one sports broadcaster in the US and has long-term deals to broadcast the country’s three key sports – American football, baseball and basketball.
