Sources said that ESPN outbid beIN Sports, Fox Sports and NBC Sports this week for a U.S. package of European soccer rights that include the '20 European Championship and its qualifiers, European World Cup qualifiers and the planned UEFA Nations League tournament of friendlies. Univision picked up the Spanish-language rights to the same package. Sources said ESPN agreed to pay more than $110M for the rights -- a huge increase from the rights fees UEFA currently is making. ESPN currently pays $16M for both English and Spanish rights to two European Cups ('12 and '16), and Fox pays around $50M for Spanish- and English-language rights to the '16 Euro and '18 World Cup qualifying packages that it sublicenses to ESPN. Univision’s winning bid for the Spanish-language rights is said to be around $70M, sources said. CAA Eleven represented UEFA in the bidding process. Even though ESPN and Univision won the bidding process, neither have actually signed a contract. That is expected to be a formality.
GOLDEN GOAL: Univision and Univision Deportes’ telecast of the Mexico-U.S. CONCACAF Cup topped all sports last Saturday night, including a slate of college football games and an LDS matchup. The nets drew 5.1 million viewers for the Spanish-language telecast, marking the most-viewed non-World Cup soccer match on any net since a U.S.-Mexico World Cup qualifier in '13. FS1 added another 1.6 million viewers for the soccer match -- the net’s best for a soccer match outside of the FIFA Women’s World Cup. ABC had Miami-Florida State up against Mexico-U.S., drawing 3.5 million viewers for that game, while ESPN had Arkansas-Alabama (4.8 million viewers) and Fox had TCU-Kansas State (2.8 million viewers). TBS had Mets-Dodgers NLDS Game 2 on Saturday night, drawing 4.2 million viewers.
