ESPN's Global Soccer Ambitions

In a sign that soccer will be vital to its future global growth, ESPN is launching a channel to show English Premier League games to British fans

By Mark Scott

Less than two weeks remain until the new season gets under way for Europe's big soccer leagues. Global stars like Real Madrid's Cristiano Ronaldo and Liverpool's Steven Gerrard will be lacing up their cleats and taking to the field in front of hundreds of thousands of screaming stadium fans and millions of TV viewers around the world. But they're not the only ones warming up for the games: U.S.-based cable sports giant ESPN—a unit of Disney (DIS)—is making a major new play in the lucrative world of European soccer.

ESPN already beams European matches to audiences across Asia and the Americas. But in a signal of its broader global ambitions, the sportscaster recently bought the rights to show 46 English Premier League games this season to British viewers—the first time it has cracked a major domestic market in Europe.

To serve its new audience, ESPN is launching a British channel set to go live in August. In addition to this year's games, the broadcaster will show 23 matches per year from 2010 to 2013 in a deal that reportedly cost nearly $400 million. The channel will be carried on British cable and satellite providers, including market-leader BSkyB (BSY), which is 40% owned by Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. (NWS). ESPN also plans to screen games in Britain from the German, Portuguese, Russian, Dutch, and U.S. soccer leagues.

Cracking the European Market

By expanding its footprint to Britain—where soccer was born—ESPN is taking a major step toward furthering its international presence. The network already counts 200 million households outside the U.S., more than twice its presence in its home market, but until now it hasn't had much success in Europe because it shows mainly American sports. Analysts figure that gaining broadcast rights to the world's favorite game should help win over more of Europe's half a billion soccer-mad fans. But it also may pit the network against News Corp., which already has a strong presence in many European countries, particularly Italy and Britain.

"In the next three to five years, we could well see a commercial battle between ESPN and News Corp. over [soccer] rights," says Simon Chadwick, director of the Center for the International Business of Sport at Coventry University in Britain. "ESPN will become more strategically aggressive as it gains experience with this new market."

The fact that Bristol (Conn.)-based ESPN has targeted soccer underscores how important the sport is to its future growth. While Major League Baseball and the NBA still draw high U.S. ratings, international viewership of American sports has remained anemic. ESPN won't comment on its specific plans, but hints that more European expansion could be in the offing. "If [more soccer] rights become available, and they make commercial sense, we will look to invest," says a company spokesman.

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