Ever since the 1994 World Cup, the football broadcast market in the US has progressed significantly. Chapter 2 contains information about the US broadcasting market in general and the US football broadcast market in particular. It gives an insight into the country’s market idiosyncrasies, showing that the US broadcast market is highly dynamic, very competitive and dominated by the pay-tv industry. Based on secondary data (i.e. TV audience sizes) this chapter further provides information with regard to the demand for televised sports in the US. It is shown, that even though football holds a relatively small market share in the country’s sports broadcast market, it is a rapidly evolving product, with great prospects.

1. 1.

   An in-depth review of the history of sports broadcasting in the USA is provided by Howoritz (1974). A discussion about the football broadcasting market in Europe and the sports broadcasting market in the USA with a focus on sports rights is provided by Cave and Crandall (2001), Solberg (2006), Gratton and Solberg (2007) and Noll (2007).

2. 2.

   Estimates as of TV season 2014. Median ages were retrieved fromcbssportsnetwork.com; BeIN Sports median age was retrieved from adsalesbeinsports.tv; FOX Sports median age was retrieved fromsportsbusinessdaily.com.

3. 3.

   Contiguous USA: theEastern Time Zone (EST) (UTC:-5 hours) covers roughly the states on the Atlantic coast and the eastern two-thirds of the Ohio Valley;Central Time Zone (CST) (UTC: -6 hours) covers roughly the Gulf Coast, Mississippi Valley, and Great Plains;Mountain Time Zone (MST) (UTC: -7 hours) covers roughly the states that include the Rocky Mountains;Pacific Time Zone (PST) (UTC: -8 hours) covers roughly the states on the Pacific coast, Nevada, as well as the Idaho panhandle (i.e. North Idaho). Non-contiguous USA:Alaska Standard Time Zone (AKST) (UTC: -9 hours) covers most of the state of Alaska;Hawaii Standard Time Zone (HST) (UTC: -10 hours) covers Hawaii and most of the Aleutian Islands. UTC stands for Universal Time Coordinated.

4. 4.

   Note that the prime time differences between the time zones are caused by the fact that US network broadcasters tend not to adjust their schedules for Central and Mountain Time zones. These time zone regions receive either the eastern or western feed and therefore their prime time programming is shifted by an hour.

5. 5.

   RAI International (Italy’s public broadcaster targeting expatriates in the USA) also offers a selection of Serie A games weekly. Similarly, TV5 Monde USA (French broadcaster) offered Ligue 1 games in season 2014–2015, although not for the subsequent season (2015–2016).

6. 6.

   Recently, and due to the relatively low TV ratings of the Bundesliga in the 2015–2016 season, the FOX Network decided to broadcast eight games of the league’s second round in its OTA/FTA network, with an audience reach of about 113 million TV households, in an attempt to boost TV audience ratings.

7. 7.

   For theoretical considerations about the impact of a competitive environment on the policies of free and pay-tv channels see Noll (2007).

8. 8.

   Please note that from this point onward we define as ‘TOP 5 leagues’ the English Premier League, the German Bundesliga, the Spanish La Liga, the Italian Serie A and the French Ligue 1. These leagues are frequently also referred to as the ‘Big-5’ (e.g. Besson et al.2010).

9. 9.

   As already indicated, the US broadcast market is highly dynamic. For instance, Nielsen coverage estimates for January 2016 indicate that beIN Sports is currently accessible to 25.35 million US households (B&C2016) – an increase of almost 50 % in the network availability within 1 year.

10. 10.

    This is particularly the case for Ligue 1 games. Usually one or two games are broadcast on TV, whereas the other games are available only via live streaming on beIN Sports web-TV platforms. Several Bundesliga games were also notably available live free of charge in the 2015–2016 season via FOX Soccer’s YouTube channel.

11. 11.

    Time-shifting is defined as viewing of a program a certain period after the official airing.

12. 12.

    DMA (Designated Market Area) regions are the geographic areas in the USA in which local television viewing is measured by Nielsen. In total, there are 210 DMA regions.

13. 13.

    The US broadcast rights for the UEFA Champions League for 2016–2018 are worth around $75 million (Forbes2015b). There are no reliable figures publicly available for the other European leagues.

Authors and Affiliations

1. University of Tübingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

   Georgios Nalbantis

2. University of Tübingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, Tübingen, Baden-Württemberg, Germany

   Tim Pawlowski

Reprints and permissions

© 2016 The Author(s)

Policies and ethics