Just before the weekend, the English Football League has found a new TV home in the US after they’ve parted ways from ESPN as CBS Sports will now take over the rights over the next three seasons that will begin from the upcoming 2024/25 season soon until 2027/28. It covers from the 2nd division Championship down to League 1 and League 2 as well as the EFL Trophy and the domestic League Cup competition as lots of matches across multiple divisions and cup competitions will be streamed on Paramount + with selected games on cable channel CBS Sports Network & its free 24/7 FAST Golazo channel.
While it’s still some time away before the next Premier League rights comes around from at least 2028/29, it’s great to see CBS stepping up as the home of other major English Football competitions that belongs to the English Football League. Sure, the Championship mostly has lots of old Premier League teams trying into get promoted into the big time that isn’t like Arsenal, Liverpool or Man City but it’s still one of the best European leagues nonetheless if you want to watch more of English Soccer.
Now not all will succeed especially when coming from overseas but as long as you can make an impact in the 2nd tier, then you can go on to achieve so much more in the top flight where the levels become much tougher against some of the world’s best players before an established or even a Top 6 side can come in to pay huge sums of $$$ for your services.
Yes, it would’ve been great if CBS can show some important match-ups on the main channel like the League Cup Final as well as the Championship Play-Off Final but then they still have PGA Tour golf on Sunday afternoons at least during the first half year before the NFL takes over from August to January. You also got a few Championship clubs that is US owned as these don’t give them enough of a shout to have it on the main CBS when it comes to the historical relevance that can translate to their viewers who is always used to watching the Premier League, but Wrexham on the rise with Hollywood co-owners in Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney who are set to play in League 1 soon after their excellent League 2 campaign in 2nd last year.
I hope CBS can have a think about it at some point if Wrexham can get promoted into the Championship at season’s end, so they can show some key match-ups on the main channel throughout the campaign like NBC does in the Premier League.
But for now, English Football is on the rise with CBS Sports onboard for the lower divisions and some of the important domestic cup competitions as interesting to see which commentators and studio team will be onboard – specifically for their US audience where some matches will come from the world feed like Sky Sports in the UK for example since they’ve been successful with their foray into soccer for a few years now that began with the UEFA club competitions back in mid-2020.
And on ESPN, since they’ve lost the EFL rights, they now only have the FA Cup competitions having just extended for another four years back in May and yet all of the games are sit out entirely streamed on ESPN + without the Final being on ESPN or even ABC at all since 2018. Don’t know why but I guess that’s the direction they’re going these days.
