FIFA Should Change TV Rights For World Cup Qualifiers, Fans are Getting Screwed
FIFA grants television rights for World Cup qualifiers to the host federation. The U.S. plays at Honduras this week, so Honduras owns the U.S. TV rights. Honduras sells the rights to a speculative company. That company demands unreasonable money from a television network. When the deal falls through, there’s an exorbitant pay-per-view system to recoop the investment. Most fans can’t watch, those that do must pay exorbitantly.
This is a problem in the U.S. and elsewhere. The England-Ukraine match was shown online for a £10 pay per view. FIFA could solve this problem immediately.
The simplest option would be to set minimum guidelines for sale of the rights. Honduras must sell the U.S. TV rights to a network, ESPN, that reached a certain number of households.
Another option could be splitting the television rights for all matches. U.S. Soccer owns the U.S. rights to every match the U.S. plays. They could, therefore, incorporate the away matches into the home deal they have with ESPN.
The current system is wrong, it screws the fans, it should be changed for 2014.
To watch one match on cable TV is 35 bucks. I am not paying that for one match. The USA match is not on the tube. I watched Paraguay match and listened to Argentina-Peru on the Internet.
TYLER DUFFY FOR EMPEROR OF FIFA
why you gotta be like that