Eric is a massive soccer fan and I have no doubt they will play hard for the EPL. They have the World Cup rights for 2026. That said, NBC owns the rights now and I'm not sure they will be willing to give them up. If you overpay, you are in just as much hurt because you can't monetize them properly. The rights are being bid on as we speak. Started last month. The UK EPL rights went for crazy money earlier this year...$5 billion pounds. NBC paid about $250M for the US rights back in the day. ESPN will want back in as well.
It will be very interesting to see the final price tag on those rights. Fox paid about $80M for 3 years back in 2009, then NBC tripled that to $250M/3 years in 2012. While the sport won't get anything close to major US sports viewers over here, you have a targeted demographic and a captive audience that has no real competition for the 6 am-noon live sports viewing window on most weekends, as well as live afternoon matches on Mondays that again have no measurable live competition.
I have to think $500-600M will be the winning bid. Can't see it tripling again, but it will definitely go up. Another question when it comes to Fox is how an EPL bid would work with their upcoming Bundesliga rights. Fox starts broadcasting the German league next year, and there's only so many minutes in a morning. Would they try for EPL exclusivity or would they try a shared package that gave them 3-4 EPL matches per week and still allowed for more full DFB coverage?
Have you heard anything on how those negotiations are going as far as the major players (have to assume NBC, Fox, ESPN) and price tag?
