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ESPN landing rights deal for Wimbledon

S

stationless listener

This is what John Ourand said on Twitter:

Source: Fox made a serious bid to win the rights. Winning bid said to be in the neighborhood of $400M for at least 10 years.
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NBC confirmed that it had lost the bid to carry Wimbledon after this year:

http://www.mediabistro.com/sportsnewser/wimbledon-leaving-nbc-after-43-years-headed-to-espn_b11374

Supposedly, NBC's last offer was to include all events on broadcast, cable and broadband live, but starting in 2014. What were they smoking?! OK, so the Olympics is in 2012 but it's in the same city. Couldn't they just shift a few workers around to make it all happen? And what could be possibly be happening in 2013 that they can't do it all live?! ::)

Oh, well. Another win for ESPN and another major sports property goes to cable predominantly. This could be a harbinger of things to come with regard to the US Open and the French Open.
 
NBC's on-air team confirmed it at the end of the broadcast Sunday. They ran a video montage of highlights from their 43 years, and mentioned that before NBC, Wimbledon was not a broadcast event, the way it is now. NBC invented, as they put it, Breakfast at Wimbledon.

Earlier they ran an interview with Billie Jean King, who was asked how much she made for winning the tournament: "Nothing." Big money has taken over Wimbledon. It made the roof over Centre Court possible. The winners get paid. The players get chairs. I'm not kidding. Billie Jean also pointed out (using video) that in the old days, there were no chairs for the players between sets.

A few years ago, the coverage was split between NBC and USA. This year, it was NBC and ESPN. Next year, it's just ESPN. Get used to it, folks. All of sports will one day go to pay cable. Most of the college bowl games are there already.
 
I dont mind the pay cable route, I mind the fact that ESPN is getting it just to treat it as poorly as they do anything thats not the NBA or NFL. Something I dont get is the fact that ESPN/CBS/USA/Tennis Channel all pretty much use the same announcers...yet they only seem to talk over the point during ESPN's coverage.

Also, I dont remember USA having Wimbledon, but isnt this their last year of US Open coverage?
 
TheBigA said:
KTU_Fan said:
Also, I dont remember USA having Wimbledon, but isnt this their last year of US Open coverage?
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Aha! You're correct.
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I do remember HBO carrying Wimbledon in some form or another -- maybe carrying the rounds on weekdays with NBC carrying the finals.
 
KTU_Fan said:
I dont mind the pay cable route, I mind the fact that ESPN is getting it just to treat it as poorly as they do anything thats not the NBA or NFL.
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I definitely mind it going to pay cable because it gives ESPN more and more leverage to increase its carriage rate to cable providers, thus making monthly bills all over America rise higher and higher.

As someone who recently "cut the cord," getting most of my TV content over the Web through a provider that doesn't allow access to ESPN3.com, this just plain stinks. But I refuse to pay the exorbitant cost of a cable bill for one network (or family of networks). It'll just be that much more business my local sports bar will get from me.
 
The real problem NBC has is that Versus doesn't compare to ESPN. Very little in the NBC-U arsenal compares to ESPN. NBC and CBS really need to step up their game (so to speak) and really do the work to build a competitive sports channel. Or else ESPN will simply own everything. The biggest mistake CBS made was not turning TNN into a CBS Sports channel, built around NASCAR. They had it and let it go. Instead they turned it into Spike with WWE. Part of this is because CBS cable is run by MTV.
 
TheBigA said:
The biggest mistake CBS made was not turning TNN into a CBS Sports channel, built around NASCAR. They had it and let it go. Instead they turned it into Spike with WWE. Part of this is because CBS cable is run by MTV.
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You mean "was" -- the portions of CBS cable that are still around, like Showtime and the CBS Sports Channel, are still owned by CBS, while Viacom owns the MTV family of cable channels, including Spike.
 
I wonder if NBC would have been able to make a higher bid if they hadn't won the Olympics. After okaying that move I bet Comcast said "That's enough, we just spent $2b last month."
 
azumanga said:
Viacom owns the MTV family of cable channels, including Spike.
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That's what I meant when I said that CBS Cable is run by MTV. Had it been a unified company, as it once was, it would have made sense. This is a case where splitting broadcast from cable is a bad idea.
 
It would be nice if CBS Sports Network could take the place of Spike TV. But one is CBS and one is Viacom. Then the network would have top notch sports programing when contracts became avaiable. Currently the network still seems the same when it was CBS College Sports.

As for when TNN has NASCAR weren't they losing money with that? Along with CBS when they used to carry it.
 
I'd be surprised if that wasn't factored in the new contract. And don't forget, it would be "Wimbledon on ESPN on ABC." ::)
 
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