There's been rumors for awhile that ESPN has wanted to create a soccer-specific channel. ESPN Classic was rumored to be paired into an NFL Network when they NFL was just starting out with its live games package. The channel has been a dud for a while now as various conferences and leagues have reclaimed copyright for games and documentaries for their own networks.

ESPN's President, John Skipper, is a huge soccer fan. He was very upset when FOX outbid ESPN for the 2018 and 2022 World Cups. When ESPN held on to the 2006 and 2010 WCs, per the ESPN book by James Miller, it was Skipper's prodding to continue to badger FIFA officials who had parameters of a deal with NBC for those WCs. Paraphrasing details from the book, Dick Ebersol thought he had a deal for several weeks, waiting on a contract, until FIFA called him and told him that they made a deal with ESPN instead.

FOX vs. ESPN vs. BEin Sport will be interesting. GOL TV, as an English language channel, is nearly dead and DirecTV will be dumping the English feed of the channel in mid-September (it will remain in Spanish language packages). Getting all the games televised favors ESPN. Presumably ESPN2 & ESPN3 would be involved. Wonder if they'd do a GamePlan-like package for games if they don't create a soccer-specific channel. FOX's model has revolved around sublicensing games to ESPN, keeping some on FSC, using FS+ as a subscription channel and the FoxSoccer2Go package/app for the rest.