ESPN Planning To Buy Premier League Rights

December 10, 2007

Disney-owned ESPN now reaches over ten million homes in Europe, but having the rights to the Premier League owned by the network is a great option, spectators say.

ESPN president George Bodenheimer says the network is interested in bidding for the rights to Premier League matches in 2009. He even called it a “fabulous property” for one to have during an interview. Bodenheimer said the network, which is 80 percent owned by US broadcaster ABC, a subordinate of the Walt Disney Corporation, wanted to expand.

The news is not likely to go down with Premier League’s distribution partner, Setanta Sports at this time holding four out of the six Premier League packages and which is anticipated to bid a second time.

BSkyB pays about £4.8m for each game and Setanta £2.8m. The league also offered a new £625m deal for overseas television rights.

It is seen to likely face rough competition with BSkyB and Setanta seeing football as an asset to gaining more subscribers.

Some Europeans have not liked the idea of “Americans” covering their sports matches assuming ESPN does win the rights in the future. Some, however, loves the idea knowing that it will outclass Sentana or BSkyB.

To add to ESPN’s interest in Premier League football, they also recently bought the world’s largest cricket website Cricinfo and Scrum.com which is known to be the largest rugby website. According to ESPN’s website, they are able to reach 93 million homes within the United States and broadcasts to 190 countries in 15 languages.

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