NBC Sports exec continues to push for EPL games in United States

NBC Sports exec Jon Miller, who secured the multi-billion dollar Premier League broadcast deal, is lobbying for Premier League matches to be played in the United States for the first time.

Since 2013, NBC has held exclusive rights to broadcast Premier League games in the USA. And over the past decade, viewership and popularity of England’s top soccer league have skyrocketed under their watch. In fact, six of the most-watched Premier League matches ever in the U.S. occurred in the last 16 months. Given this surging interest, hosting official Premier League fixtures, not just pre-season friendlies, seems like a natural and mutually beneficial next step.

In a recent conversation with The Athletic, Miller said he would “continue to push for” top-flight English games to be played stateside.

In Miller’s sit-down with The Athletic, NBC Sports’ president of acquisitions and partnerships seemed very supportive of EPL matches being held in the States, especially given a booming American audience and a chance to further connect English football to one of its biggest international onlookers.

“This is a point that we’ve had conversations with the Premier League, and they’ve been very open and receptive to listening to me,” Miller told The Athletic. “We did the Premier League Summer Series (in pre-season) last year where we had six teams come over: Fulham, Aston Villa, Newcastle, Chelsea, Brighton & Hove Albion and Brentford. We had nine games in seven days in five cities around America (and 265,000 fans were in attendance). It was great.

“All the teams that came over did well, had a great experience, and really were able to interact with the fan base. And the Premier League saw that it was very successful. At some point in the future, I would love to see a couple of Premier League games open the season here in big stadiums on our opening weekend. And I know that’s something that we’ll continue to push for because I think that there’s an American audience here that would like to see regular season games but in the meantime, we’ll continue to work with the Premier League to do everything we can to make the games available to as many people as possible.”

It certainly remains to be seen if NBC and Miller can pull this off, but it’s quite notable that a high-ranking executive wants EPL games in the United States. The idea has always been wildly unpopular in England, even as fans in Europe have seen NFL regular season games cross the pond for years. It seems like the ball is rolling in that direction, though, with La Liga already indicating games are coming overseas. So it could be only a matter of time before the Premier League—and NBC, for that matter—try to strike the iron while it’s still hot.

[The Athletic]