FIFA called it "the biggest TV deal in a single country in FIFA's history."
No, it wasn't signed in a European country or in any other country known for its soccer teams. It was signed in the United States. That's right, the nation better known for playing football with an oval-shaped ball has signed one of the largest television deals with international soccer's governing body. However, this is not the most impressive part since for FIFA this is somewhat old news (ESPN and ABC made this deal with FIFA in 2005 for last year's 2006 World Cup and will continue to shwoe evry single World Cup match until 2014). The most impressive news is that ABC and ESPN have signed a deal with UEFA (Union of European Football Associations) to be the offical broadcast partners to showe evry single Euro 2008 match live and the US national team is obviously not a participant in this tournament so why would ESPN take part? According to this article from Soccerway, America's biggest cable sports network has received "immense success" from their deal FIFA. Could this mean that soccer is growing in America? ESPN is no stranger to the Euro Cup, but for some reason they stopped showing matches after 1996, but in 2008, ESPN will indeed show every single match with the help of its partner stations, ESPN 2 and ABC, as well as it Spanish langauge station, ESPN Deportes, which now officially owns the rights for all Spanish langauge broadcasts in the United States.
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