Fox Sports has signed a new rights deal with CONCACAF to broadcast the '17 and '19 Gold Cups, meaning that the tournament will "remain a biennial event for the time being," according to Jonathan Tannenwald of PHILLY.com. Fox Sports COO David Nathanson said, "The Gold Cup, whether for Fox Soccer Channel or for Fox Sports 1, has historically been one of the highest-rated tournaments on our air. For us, it's the crown jewel of national team competitions for our confederation. In our area, there is no tournament that's bigger or more relevant for national team competition." Tannenwald also noted that with the '15 CONCACAF Cup -- separate from the Gold Cup -- featuring Mexico-U.S. being a "big success" on TV, CONCACAF "wanted to set up the potential for that to happen again, and Fox didn't object." That match, which determined CONCACAF's representative in next year's FIFA Confederations Cup in Russia, drew 6.7 million viewers on a Saturday night across Univision and FS1. That is a "bigger audience than the 5.2 million who watched last Friday's U.S.-Mexico World Cup qualifier in Columbus" (PHILLY.com, 11/18). CONCACAF Gold Cup matches across Fox, FS1 and FS2 averaged 432,000 viewers in '15, up 29% compared to 334,000 viewers on Fox and Fox Soccer in '13. But the '15 Mexico-Jamaica final on FS1 (818,000 viewers) was down from when the U.S. defeated Panama on Fox (2.4 million viewers) in '13. Meanwhile, Univision’s Gold Cup telecasts averaged around 2.0 million viewers in '15, up 40% from '13 (Austin Karp, Assistant Managing Editor).
