So, a deal has been reached for who has the rights to air the Premier League over here. And the current broadcaster of the Premier League, NBC, won the rights for the next 6 years in a highly competitive bidding war. Apparently they had to pay over $2.7 billion for the rights - over double what they paid for their current rights. I think that says a lot about the increasing popularity of "soccer" and particularly the Premier League in the US - it works because the games air early in the day over here, so they don't clash with any of the big US sports. I'm not unhappy that NBC retained the rights, their coverage is good and extensive, but with one major caveat - the main channel that shows Premier League games, NBC Sports Channel, is closing at the end of the year. I'm sure that NBC will air the games on another one of their channels - they've got plenty to choose from. But as long as they don't start airing most of them on their streaming platform, then I'm okay with that. But today was not a good indicator of things going forward - every single game today, including the big one in Man Utd vs Chelsea, was streamed - which as someone who likes to record games so that I can watch them when I wake up, is a problem because I can't record games being streamed.
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