ESPN Prices revealed - Have they made a big mistake?!

underlay_guru

Hi,

Just found out that the ESPN channel to show the matches aquired from Setanta is going to be £12 per month (or £9 per month if you already subscribe to SkySports).

With prices and programming similar to Setanta, have they came in too high with these prices? I certainly won't be subscribing. setanta only managed 1.2m subscribers. Who on earth is going to pay the same rate for equally rubbish programming?!?!

del1001

yes, I can't see ESPN having much success at those prices, especially as they've only got 1/6th of all available live premier matches next season, comparatively that makes Sky sound cheap :shocked:


EDIT: having done a bit more research the above info I posted isn't strictly accurate, ESPN have actually got 2/6th of coverage for next season, but then falls to 1/6th for the following three seasons.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/story?id=656557&cc=5739

underlay_guru

ESPN QUOTE:
"We hope football and sports fans will enjoy ESPN's compelling mix of Barclays Premier League football, international sports and the best of the US sports in both SD [standard definition] and HD," said Lynne Frank, ESPN's managing director for Europe, Middle East and Africa."

Whoot! £12 a month for a handfull of Premier League games, sandwiched between hours of recorded dull American sport, piles of adverts and Eurosport-type coverage!

How about chucking in ESPN Classic and ESPN News as part of the package?

DJBenson

The advantage ESPN have over Setanta is HD coverage. The league matches they did have had poor coverage when compared to the likes of Sky Sports in terms of picture quality and commentary. ESPN is a major sports broadcaster (owned by Disney no less) so "failure" isn't a word I'd be using right now.

What will be interesting is when it comes to rights bidding next time round, will be interesting to see how ESPN get on given their financial stability...could give Sky a run for their money

underlay_guru

DJBenson wrote: »

The advantage ESPN have over Setanta is HD coverage. The league matches they did have had poor coverage when compared to the likes of Sky Sports in terms of picture quality and commentary. ESPN is a major sports broadcaster (owned by Disney no less) so "failure" isn't a word I'd be using right now.

What will be interesting is when it comes to rights bidding next time round, will be interesting to see how ESPN get on given their financial stability...could give Sky a run for their money

Hi,

I concur this completely, and am fully aware that ESPN is part of a massive corporation.

My point is that, for the next few seasons at least, there is nothing there which will inspire people to subscribe, after all, Setanta failed to attract more than 1.2m subscribers over 2 EPL seasons (and failed drastically, might I add, considering they had live SPL coverage, live golf coverage, live horse racing coverage over a total of 8 sports channels).

ESPN are offering ONE channel for this price, which for the majority of its programming will be recorded American sports coverage.....which does not generally appeal to the majority of British people! Their EPL coverage is also to be partly produced by Sky, as well as their advertising, so I doubt very much this will be a worthwhile venture (unless their are no plans to snatch any more EPL from sky anyway).

ESPN have an almost unlimited kitty to throw at this venture, but if the first 5 seasons are a failure, any shrewd company will pull out.

laffer

£9 a month is simply too much and I cannot see them getting significant subscriber numbers. Is ESPN Amercia (which is now part of the NEWS pack) going to leave the news pack as well? That would be a shame but if this is so I cannot justify £9 a month for it.

underlay_guru wrote: »

Hi,

I concur this completely, and am fully aware that ESPN is part of a massive corporation.

My point is that, for the next few seasons at least, there is nothing there which will inspire people to subscribe, after all, Setanta failed to attract more than 1.2m subscribers over 2 EPL seasons (and failed drastically, might I add, considering they had live SPL coverage, live golf coverage, live horse racing coverage over a total of 8 sports channels).

ESPN are offering ONE channel for this price, which for the majority of its programming will be recorded American sports coverage.....which does not generally appeal to the majority of British people! Their EPL coverage is also to be partly produced by Sky, as well as their advertising, so I doubt very much this will be a worthwhile venture (unless their are no plans to snatch any more EPL from sky anyway).

ESPN have an almost unlimited kitty to throw at this venture, but if the first 5 seasons are a failure, any shrewd company will pull out.

underlay_guru

Hi,

As far as has been made aware today, only the new ESPN channel will be included at this price. ESPN classic will run as normal. ESPN America will be scrapped, and its coverage moved to the new ESPN Channel. they are also currently in talks over live SPL coverage, however this will be shared with Sky, but would not consider this to be a exactly a 'money spinning' deal! (Again, look at Setanta, they had the matches, and had piles of other SPL related coverage. There is simply no high volume market for it).

preecey

Actually, £12 a month seems just right.

Remember - Setanta Sports needed 1.9m subscribers to break even.

That doesn't matter as much to ESPN because they are backed by the massive Disney corporation. If ESPN doesn't survive in the UK they just withdraw it. They'll make money elsewhere, regardless.

Setanta was a significantly smaller company.

Inactive

preecey wrote: »

Actually, £12 a month seems just right.

Remember - Setanta Sports needed 1.9m subscribers to break even.

That doesn't matter as much to ESPN because they are backed by the massive Disney corporation. If ESPN doesn't survive in the UK they just withdraw it. They'll make money elsewhere, regardless.

Setanta was a significantly smaller company.

So it's OK to call this a Mickey Mouse outfit..

iniltous

I think the OP makes a good point, if Setanta couldnt get enough customers even when offering deals to customer of BT Vision, Virgin Media etc, and that starting season 2010-11 ESPN will only have half the English P.L ganes they will have in season 2009-10 ( the EPL probably the only thing they will have that lots of people would be prepared to pay for) they are asking too much (IMO)...to get market share you would think they would pitch the price at a point were people would say 'its only XX' why not' ,I was expecting ESPN to be about £5/month, then they would hope that due to customer inertia, that when they lost half the EPL games most of their subscribers wouldnt be bothered enough to call and cancel, at the proposed price I wouldnt have thought they will get even as many customers as Setanta, especially if the dont discount to Virgin/BT,

underlay_guru

DJBenson wrote: »

The advantage ESPN have over Setanta is HD coverage.

Fair play, but I wouldn't consider this to be a MAJOR advantage though! It isn't going to get footy fans in their millions to sign up, is it?

preecey wrote: »

Setanta Sports needed 1.9m subscribers to break even. That doesn't matter as much to ESPN because they are backed by the massive Disney corporation. If ESPN doesn't survive in the UK they just withdraw it. They'll make money elsewhere, regardless.

Of course it will matter to them. They are here to break into the UK sport TV market and make as much profit as possible. The last thing they want to do is run at a loss and ditch the UK market, even if they are a massive outfit!