This comes from veteran golf reporter Geoff Shackelford. I didn’t see the story when it originally came out on Friday, but a reader sent me a link via Twitter. It’s regarding ESPN’s rights to the Ryder Cup which NBC traded to Bristol, CT back in 2006. It appears the two networks are about to conduct another trade for the same Ryder Cup rights.
Shackelford reports that ESPN is about to trade its rights to the first day of the 2014 Ryder Cup to NBC. ESPN would get increased highlight rights to the English Premier League and have the ability to show them on SportsCenter. As it stands now, ESPN can only show them on a limited basis.
Networks usually don’t make trades with each other. However, ESPN and NBC were dance partners once before back in 2006 when ESPN traded Al Michaels to the Peacock so he could call Sunday Night Football. In exchange, NBC gave ESPN the rights to the first day of the Ryder Cup (along with ESPN paying some good money to get those rights), increased highlight rights to the Olympics through 2012 as well as highlight rights to Notre Dame football and NBC’s horse racing events. The Peacock also traded a cartoon called Oswald the Rabbit which was drawn by Walt Disney and was the forerunner to Mickey Mouse. Disney lost the rights to the cartoon to Universal and could never gain them back. But thanks to this trade, the Disney company was able to obtain Oswald and put it under its corporate umbrella.
Now for this new trade, NBC would be able to air the first day of the Ryder Cup, either on sister network Golf Channel or NBCSN, or could even air it on the NBC Mothership.
Next year would have been the last for ESPN’s contract with the Ryder Cup, but the network still has golf events in 2014 such as the first two rounds of The Masters®, its final year of televising USGA events like the U.S. Open and the Open Championship.
We’ll provide more information on this story when it becomes available.
Now I wonder if the next ESPN/NBC trade will involve Michelle Beadle …..
