A story just showed up in my news reader with this headline:

"ESPN Said to Plan Bid for English Premier League Soccer Rights"

Now, I've mentioned these rumors before, and the BBC reported essentially the same information a month ago, but there are a couple more details in the Bloomberg piece that are worth analyzing.

First, ESPN is said to be "considering bids for one or two of the six packages on offer". The 138 EPL games each season are divided into six packages; currently Sky holds four and Setanta two. No one network is allowed to control more than five of the packages.

It's theorized that ESPN will start a new channel in the UK to broadcast their games (I believe it's a theory: it's stated as fact in the Bloomberg piece, but it isn't attributed to any ESPN source).

As an American soccer fan, I'm excited about this prospect for a couple of different reasons, each which relate back to the general state of the game in the U.S. One, ESPN is the premier American televised sports provider; a channel dedicated to soccer in the ESPN family would be a major step up in terms of exposure. There doesn't appear to me to be any reason that this channel wouldn't be available in the States, as there would be no extra cost to ESPN in terms of language or staffing. Two, the future ESPN soccer channel seems a logical place for MLS broadcasts to end up. There should be little conflict, with seasons that overlap for only a few months each year and start times hours apart. If ESPN is going to invest so heavily in the game abroad, why not throw a few more dollars at the much cheaper domestic league? American soccer is desperately in need of a dedicated studio show, and the new channel would provide a good platform for it.

I may be a little blinded by the potential windfall that ESPN dipping its over-sized toes into the EPL could be for American soccer fans, so please don't hesitate to ground me if you see any negatives.

I will say that I hope the American cable giants don't dick around with adding the new channel if it does come to pass. I'd be forced to switch back to satellite.

Just for reference, here's
an additional story on ESPN and the EPL rights from the Telegraph.