ESPN+ is fast becoming a go-to for soccer fans.

From Awful Announcing:

Quote:On Tuesday, ESPN announced they had agreed to a multi-year deal with Italy’s Serie A that would exclusively bring all matches to ESPN’s platforms.

Most of the matches each week will air on ESPN+, but there will be a featured match each week airing on ESPN or ESPN2. Other programming is also planned.

Most weekends, I'm still going to be watching EPL, but it's cool that there is another set of offerings that I can easily access.

Good timing to capitalize on Ronaldo playing for Juventus.

Also, they're building up ESPN+ the right way by aggregating live sports with niche audiences and aiming at a few thousand fans or more for each who might be willing to pay to watch. They just need to be patient and give it a few years to grow a subscriber base.

excellent
I can add them to my schedule of
PL on NBC
Liga MX on FS1
Bundesliga on FS1

The more Euro soccer, the better. Even if you’ve never watched anything but MLS, you know you’re not watching the best.

The Athletic had a good write-up on ESPN landing Serie A rights.

https://theathletic.com/473749/2018/08/1...d-ronaldo/

Quote:As ESPN executive vice president of programming and scheduling Burke Magnus explained in an interview with The Athletic last week, the news that Ronaldo was coming to the Serie A was a massive stroke of good fortune for ESPN, which at that time had secured about 90 percent of the Serie A inventory from IMG, the global sports agency which owns the international rights to the Italian league.

“Originally we were going to take a big portion of the package but not the entire package,” Magnus said. “That piece of the negotiation was done prior to his announcement. So I file his announcement under sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. His decision got us interested in a comprehensive rights agreement. With him there, we wanted to have control of 100 percent of the inventory. And I think it is better for the league to have us able to play with all the inventory for the growth of their profile in the US. Ronaldo coming is a great benefit to a deal that we wanted to do anyway, and it will make it easier for us to build the profile of Serie A in the U.S.”

The part of the deal left for ESPN prior to Ronaldo’s transfer included games that will now appear on linear ESPN and ESPN2. Once the Ronaldo news was announced, IMG had additional suitors inquiring about specific Juventus games, but ESPN was able to close on a three-year deal to acquire the U.S media rights to all 390 Serie A games. ESPN+ will carry an average of nine Serie A matches live each week from August through May while ESPN or ESPN2 will air a Serie A Match of the Week (likely 38 games). The MOTW will also be available in Spanish on ESPN Deportes. Magnus declined to comment on the price of the deal, but Sports Business Daily reporter John Ourand said beIN Sports had been paying around $28 million per year on average for the rights.

Looks like the "Match of the Week" won't necessarily be on ESPN or ESPN2. Torino-Roma is on ESPNNews this Sunday, while next Saturday's Juventus-Lazio match will be on ESPN2.