By David Gold
August 11 – America’s Major Soccer League (MLS) has agreed a three-year deal with NBC Sports to broadcast 45 live games a season, replacing the existing arrangement with Fox Soccer.
Included in the deal are the rights to 38 regular season matches, as well as play-off games and United States national team games, to be shown on the sports network’s new ‘Versus’ channel.
MLS commissioner Don Garber spoke of his delight at securing the deal.
“Our new partnership with the NBC Sports Group is a significant step forward for Major League Soccer and US Soccer,” he said.
Mark Lazarus, chairman of the NBC Sports Group, added: “MLS is a perfect fit for our new group and we are uniquely positioned to help grow soccer in the United States with extensive coverage on NBC Sports Network, significant programming on the broadcast network and our growing digital platforms.”
ESPN and Spanish language station Univision also own rights to MLS games, with their respective deals expiring in 2014.
NBC hold the rights to broadcast the Olympics, the NFL, NHL and Notre Dame Football, and US media outlets report that the new deal is worth around $10 million (£6.17 million/€7.01 million).
The agreement will see live MLS football return to US network television, and is a significant boost to football in the US, as it means the MLS could get exposure through promotions and adverts during the breaks of major sporting events in the US, such as the Stanley Cup finals or the Olympic Games.
NBC has plans in place to promote the league during next year’s Olympics in London, giving the league exposure on an unprecedented scale.
US soccer has not taken off in the way organisers would have hoped despite the national team performing well in the 2009 Confederations Cup and 2010 World Cup in South Africa.
“We’re going to try and get games on some of those weekends when the NBC Sports Network has Olympic programming, and we can throw right into live Major League Soccer games,” said President of Programming for NBC Sports Jon Miller.
“That’s the kind of lead-in and promotional platform that (MLS) probably hasn’t seen in a while, and that’s one of the benefits that we think we bring to the table.”
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