Fox became the first US free-to-air network to show an English Premier League game live yesterday, January 22, with the Arsenal v Manchester United match.
The game was promoted by Fox alongside its coverage of the NFL National Football Conference American football championship game as part of an ‘Epic Sunday’ sports programming line-up. The Premier League game started at 11am Eastern time, and was followed six hours after it finished by live coverage of the San Francisco 49ers v New York Giants NFL match.
Fox has previously broadcast live Premier League games on its Fox Soccer and Fox Soccer Plus pay-television channels. The main Fox network is available in 114.7 million homes in the United States, while Fox Soccer is available in 41 million homes.
“To do this 10 years ago, had we put to the affiliates that we wanted to take the time to show a soccer game, we would have been either laughed at or it would have been a violent and an immediate rebellion,” Fox Sports chairman David Hill told the Associated Press.
Fox Sports general manager David Nathanson said the presence of US football players in the Premier League was helping to boost interest in the competition.
Fox will show live coverage of the Chelsea v Manchester United Premier League match on February 5 prior to live coverage of the Super Bowl in a broadcast that is being promoted as “the game before the game.”
The network broadcast three Premier League matches on a delayed basis earlier this season, with each game attracting about 1.6 million viewers, according to audience measurement company Nielsen Media Research. Fox Soccer has attracted an average of 142,000 viewers for live and delayed Premier League games this season – an eight-per-cent increase on last season’s figures.