Senior Editor, Soccer America Magazine

Following up on a landmark media deal for the World Cup and other FIFA events, a new MLS television deal that includes a rights fee is indicative of how media and technology influence soccer in America.

Before this year, most soccer fans in the United States had never heard of Dave O'Brien.

By the end of the year, they might be real tired of him, not because of his competency, but from sheer overkill. O'Brien, who had done no soccer for ESPN before this year, will do at least 40 soccer telecasts in 2006, after calling mainly baseball and basketball for ESPN the past few years.

His elevation to primary announcer for soccer telecasts in the United States – World Cup, national team, MLS – is a sidelight of new partnerships struck by ESPN and ABC Sports (both Disney companies) that will radically alter the production, promotion and dissemination of soccer content. Disney's deal for MLS rights, still being negotiated and not yet finalized at press time, will include the first rights fee paid by a broadcaster to the league.

For the first time in its history, MLS won't be on the hook for the several million dollars a year it has paid for the past decade to buy time on national telecasts.

''This deal will take us out of the risk game and have the network take responsibility for producing the games and have the risk of selling ads to cover their costs of production as well as the costs of rights fees,'' said MLS Commissioner Don Garber in mid-March.

The deal is just part of two major media deals that were still being negotiated and not yet finalized at press time: A FIFA deal with Disney and Univision, the Spanish-language network, for U.S. media rights to FIFA events, beginning in 2007, and MLS deals with Disney and Univision. (MLS had games on Univision in 1996-98 and Univision rival Telemundo the following three years but has had no national media reach in the important Hispanic community since then.)

MLS won't command from Disney a rights fee anything like the $160 million paid by adidas last year to outfit all MLS teams, fund the Generation adidas development program, and invest in league properties, but it will wipe out considerable expense. To be determined is how much control MLS cedes to ESPN in production decisions, such as how many cameras to use and where to place them, as well as the selection of producers, directors and announcers.

National and regional MLS telecasts are currently produced by Winner Communications of Tulsa, Okla. Production costs are paid by the league, and MLS tries to recoup its investment by selling the advertising time.

''Economics of our television in the past were so thin that we had to very carefully manage production and expenses,'' says Garber. ''Going forward, production will be the responsibility of the broadcaster who will be looking to grow their ratings base and expand the value of their other ancillary programming through media rights.''

Television rights are still the major component of broadcast deals, yet television is now accompanied by other forms of content, not only radio and other broadcast platforms, but also outlets based on Internet, broadband and wireless technologies. They are called new media, digital media and multimedia, and rather than following the World Cup by simple text messages or Internet linkups on a cell phone, a user might be able to watch telecasts live on a video iPod or dial up highlights on a cell phone.

Rather than just eyeballs on screens, or ears glued to radio earphones, modern fans have myriad ways to follow games and events, and modern programming executives such as Scott Guglielmino, vice president, programming for ESPN and ABC Sports, track the trends intently.

''From the way ESPN and ABC Sports have positioned ourselves certainly here in the States, we're going after the fan wherever the fan is, and we're trying to accommodate that insatiable appetite for sports content across whatever platforms fans are looking for it,'' he says. ''From a FIFA perspective, they were very much aware of our ability to deliver content and certainly FIFA content in that manner across those platforms. The deal that was struck is indicative of that ability.''

Guglielmino is not simply a TV exec with dollar signs in his eyes. He played soccer in Connecticut, where his first youth soccer coach was recently elected U.S. Soccer president Sunil Gulati.

''I was a very, very young soccer player, about 5,'' says Guglielmino, who went to Cosmos games as a child, attended UConn and started with ESPN in 1993. ''I barely remember those days, that's how young I was. It's great that the federation has Sunil. He's tremendous.''

FIFA DEAL. In November, it was announced that a consortium of ESPN, ABC Sports and Univision had agreed to purchase U.S. rights to FIFA events through 2014 for $425 million. That deal, which is still being finalized, trumped a nearly completed deal that would have sent those rights to NBC/Telemundo and Fox Sports and might have placed MLS in serious jeopardy, since without a stake in the World Cup, Disney probably wouldn't have been anxious to lock up MLS on ESPN and ABC.

American soccer interests, worried about the implications of no MLS on ESPN, lobbied FIFA to reopen the bidding, and FIFA will have gained millions of dollars in the revised deal, struck with Disney and Univision.

Covered by the FIFA agreement are the 2010 and 2014 World Cups, the 2007 and 2011 Women's World Cups and other FIFA competitions. They will be broadcast in English in the U.S. by the ABC and ESPN networks and in Spanish by Univision.

The English-language rights alone were valued at $100 million, which is a 250 percent increase over the $40 million paid by Soccer United Marketing, formed by the operator-investors of MLS four years ago, for FIFA events from 2002 to 2006. The escalation of information technologies accounts for some of the increase, yet Guglielmino points out the properties' value has increased as well.

FRIENDS IN HIGH PLACES. In Guglielmino and John Skipper, ESPN's Senior Vice President and General Manager, MLS and soccer have not just media backers, but actual fans with significant clout. They see opportunity in the sport in a business sense, and spectacle from a sporting sense. It means the World Cup will be extensively covered and heavily promoted, but it doesn't mean MLS will become a regular staple on ''SportsCenter'' or a big chunk of ESPN The Magazine.

Guglielmino says ESPN is very careful not allow a programming decision – acquiring rights to a major league – to drive what happens on ''SportsCenter.'' ''It's always a difficult task for that group to figure out what should be in an hour show with all the commercial breaks,'' he says, ''From my perspective, they do a job second to none and I think from a general fan perspective the highlights are in line.''

Yet for MLS broadcasts, the new deal with ESPN handling the actual production could mean there is more focus on the game itself, rather than back stories and education. That would be just fine with former Fire GM Peter Wilt.

''By spending so much time setting the scene, explaining the background, and talking about sidebars,'' says Wilt, ''attention is taken away from that particular game, and that is very different than any telecast elsewhere in the world. It's a tradeoff the league has chosen to make.''

Wilt would also like to see some soccer broadcast staples become regular features of American coverage, such as that definitive camera angle on or near the edge of the penalty area. ''For an offside camera, why in the rest of the world does it seem so easy to get the replays that will clearly and quickly tell you that the linesman's call was right or wrong?'' he asks. ''In Major League Soccer, you just can't get it. It just doesn't happen. It's rare to get a decisive replay quickly that shows whether or not the linesman's call was correct.''

The importance of television in MLS goes as far as executive producer Michael Cohen consulting with teams building stadiums so the designs can accommodate camera bays at vital locations and include in-house production facilities and studios.

''We see them ratcheting up their production values as early as 2007, and you might seem some of those changes this year,'' says Garber. ''We need to earn our coverage on 'SportsCenter' and just because they broadcast our games doesn't bring with it an obligation to cover us on 'SportsCenter.' I do believe ESPN will promote us more and embrace the league more and do that in a wide variety of ways that will help Major League Soccer and help grow our fan base. It's a logical jump that now they are at greater risk they will work to grow their ratings and therefore make economic sense for the deal.

(This article originally appeared in the April 2006 issue of Soccer America Magazine.)