Wednesday, December 18, 2013

Under Further Review: NBC and ESPN trade rights


We see players traded nearly every day in sports. Unless a couple of super stars are involved in the swap, we tend to just ignore them. Outlets like ESPN, Fox Sports, CBS, NBC break the news about a lot of these player trades, something we're all used to by now. But rarely do the media outlets ever make trades like ESPN and NBC Sports made earlier this week when ESPN gave NBC the rights to the Ryder Cup in exchange for the ability to show English Premier League highlights.



The Ryder Cup highlights that ESPN gives up are for Day 1 of the tournament. For those rights, ESPN gets extended access to EPL highlights which will give the network a small presence with the ever-growing league and sport of soccer.

In the end, the deal makes sense for both sides. ESPN gives up something in the Ryder Cup that they ever full valued but has great potential value. NBC gives up only some highlight rights which they hope for ESPN's presence to grow the popularity of the EPL further. Given that NBC's coverage of the EPL has been lauded by sports media critics, ESPN's name being attached to the league will only help draw more attention to the work that NBC is doing.

As Awful Announcing points out, this is not the first time ESPN and NBC are making a media trade:

"And for the record, it's not the first time ESPN and NBC have made a trade. ESPN once traded Al Michaels to NBC for Ryder Cup rights, Olympic highlights, and a cartoon rabbit not named Buds Bunny in 2006."

Anyway, as with any trade, only time will tell who got the best of it. As of this moment, the trade looks like a win-win for both ESPN and NBC.

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Kevin Rossi is a junior Drexel Sport Management major with minors in Communications and Business Administration. Since joining the SMTSU, Kevin has worked his way up the ladder to President. Currently, Kevin is also the Drexel editor for Philahoops.com. Kevin recently finished his second co-op with Temple University in their Athletic Communications office. Follow Kevin on Twitter 
@kevin_rossi.

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