Nets Ratchet Up On-the-Pitch Plans
European Soccer Coverage Heats Up as Summer Wanes
By Mike Reynolds -- Multichannel News, 8/19/2007 8:00:00 PM
While the opening whistle won’t blow on the college football season for another 10 days, new fútbol campaigns have begun in earnest around The Continent.
Top leagues in England, Germany, France and The Netherlands kicked off earlier this month and they will be joined by players on the pitches of Spain’s La Liga and Italy’s Serie A.
And Fox Soccer Channel, Gol TV and Setanta Sports are bringing the action back to the States with new lineups and expanded ancillary programming.
Fresh off a renewal for England’s top league and a new rights agreement with the Italian circuit through the 2009-10 seasons, Fox Soccer Channel will provide up to six live games from Barclay’s Premier League and Serie A per weekend.
Ratcheting up its news and analysis fare, FSC will flank the game coverage with a pair of live studio shows. Fox Soccer Match Day, presented by DirecTV, bows each Saturday at 9:30 a.m. (ET), providing a preview for the weekend’s soccer action with predictions and in-depth analysis and a lead-in to BPL matches.
On Sundays at 1 p.m., Super Sunday + will serve up a fast-paced recap of the top matches from soccer circuits from around the globe. Super Sunday will be followed by FSC’s final Serie A match of the weekend.
Both shows will be hosted by FSC commentators Christian Miles and Andy Houlihan, with former Queens Park Rangers standout Gary Richards joining the duo on the wrap-up program, which features new advertiser Bass Ale in a product integration play.
“Fox Soccer Match Day will set the stage for the soccer weekend, while Super Sunday + over 90 minutes will recap the action for fans with a lot more depth and highlights,” said Fox Soccer executive vice president and general manager David Sternberg. Previously, the network aired a 30-minute recap show on Saturday night.
FSC, which has crossed the 31-million subscriber plateau, hopes to add that total with a pair of free previews the weekends of Aug. 17-19 and Aug. 24-26.
Setanta Sports is also in the middle of free preview through Sept. 5 on Dish Network, after reaching an accord with Dish parent EchoStar Communications to carry the channel for $14.99 per month. Also available on DirecTV, the deal makes the soccer and rugby proponent — which sublicenses 90 BPL games from FSC and holds the exclusive U.S. rights to top leagues in France, The Netherland and Scotland — accessible to 30 million homes.
And there could be more via cable.
“We’ve been talking about carriage as subscription video-on-demand service, but with switched-digital technology the operator is now looking at a [premium launch,]” said Setanta Sports Holdings joint CEO Leonard Ryan, who emphasized that North American viewers would get a taste for the game as it is presented in England. “It’s very important to have the announcers, the original look, the brand from the U.K., as part of our fully integrated format here in the U.S. and in Canada.”
Based in San Francisco, Setanta Sports North America is owned by Dublin-based Setanta Sports, which also operates pay TV networks abroad. The U.S. arm also runs Setanta Broadband and Setanta Premium, which delivers live events via satellite to sports bars.
“Our premium business has held up well [with the proliferation of soccer coverage], but we want to gain access to more viewers’ homes,” said Ryan.
That growth, he said, will come via U.S grassroots programs, the continued success of the U.S. national team, the migration of top U.S. players to European leagues and the continued development of the domestic circuit, Major League Soccer.
“To really thrive, we have to move past a reliance on expatriates,” he said.
As for the soccer-centric Gol TV, which counts some 10 million subscribers via English-language feeds on sports tiers and Spanish-language packages, chief operating officer Rodrigo Lombrello said the hybrid network’s weekend lineup will encompass four games from La Liga, a quartet from the German Bundesliga, a pair from Colombia and one from its various rights to Central American action.
Gol’s roster, though, no longer includes game coverage from Serie A, after passing on a renewal option.
“We feel we made the right decision. The best talent — Thierry Henry is now with Real Madrid, Ronaldinho and [Lionel] Messi are with Barcelona — is in the Spanish league,” he said. “The Italian league has become stagnant.”
Sternberg disagrees: “Italy won 2006 World Cup and most of that team’s players are in the league. Juventus is back (after being demoted to second division after a match-fixing scandal). It’s nice to have two of the top three leagues in the world. Serie A will bring more and different viewers to FSC.”
Meanwhile, Gol is extending its own ancillary programming, adding its one-hour GolTV News show to weekends.
“Soccer fans want to get caught up with all the action around the world. We’ll be showing top goals and highlights on Saturday and Sunday nights,” said Lombrello. “Our shows on Monday and Tuesday will be less about the standing and results, but feature more analysis of what happened.”
