On the day that ESPN acquired the TV and internet rights for Euro 2012 and Euro 2016, the U.S. sports television announced that they had withdrawn their offer to host Copa America this summer. According to ESPN, the network wanted to buy the English-language rights for both TV and internet broadcasts in the United States and when Traffic Sports were awarded the internet rights, they withdrew their bid to broadcast the tournament.
ESPN Bows Out Of Bidding For 2011 Copa America TV Rights
Univision owns the Spanish-language rights for the tournament and ESPN wanted to broadcast the tournament in English on TV as well as online. ESPN has made internet soccer rights a priority in recent years and the success of the 2010 World Cup on ESPN3, in addition to the regular television broadcasts, only reinforced the network’s belief in the online medium.
“It’s really unfortunate,” Scott Guglielmino, ESPN’s senior vice president for programming said. “That’s one we would have loved to add. The notion of TV everywhere, really utilizing digital media extensively,” Guglielmino said is a priority for the network.
Copa America is South America's continental championship that will crown the champion of the continent and send the winner to the 2013 Confederations Cup. Brazil is the tournament's defending champion and will look to defend their title against a host of teams from a continent that shined at the 2010 World Cup when every South American team that qualified for the tournament advanced out of the group stages. Argentina will serve as the host of the tournament, which begins on July 1 and runs until the Final on July 24.
With Traffic Sports’ acquisition of the internet rights, ESPN’s interest waned. Traffic Sports is a controversial company that has bought the contracts of players and smaller clubs in addition to media rights in a wide-ranging soccer business strategy. Their holding the contract of U.S. U-20 national team player Gale Agbossoumonde and his frustration with the company for snubbing several moves to European clubs drew the most attention to the company. Now, they hold the internet rights to Copa America, although it is unclear whether they will develop their own way to show matches online or sell the rights.
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