Chivas offered a glimpse at what a simulcast arrangement could look like earlier this month. When American sports ground to a halt due to the coronavirus pandemic, the team offered major U.S. sports broadcasters the right to carry its March 14 match against defending Liga MX champions C.F. Monterrey at no cost.
“Chivas saw here in America, where they had not been on television for the past year, that it could provide an opportunity for fans to have a couple of hours of enjoyment of football and a few moments to just think about other things than the difficult times that we’re all going through,” said Tag Garson, a New York-based senior vice president at Wasserman Media Group who represented Chivas in talks with the networks.
Arturo Gálvez Alfaro, legal director at Chivas, added, “It is something we wanted to do to give back in these extraordinary times since people weren't able to go to the stadiums and see other leagues or games.”
Within 24 hours of kickoff, Univision Communications Inc.’s TUDN, Fox Deportes, ESPN Deportes, CBS Sports and live TV streamer fuboTV all signed on to deliver the match, which was also available through Chivas TV and YouTube. Fox Deportes, which regularly broadcasts Monterrey’s home matches, pulled together a 30-minute pregame show prior to the match’s 11 p.m. ET kickoff, which featured Los Angeles Galaxy star Javier “Chicharito” Hernández discussing his love for Chivas, whom he played for from 2006-10.
Across the three Spanish-language cable networks, each of which added its own commentary and graphics, the match delivered a combined average audience of 598,000 total viewers. (FuboTV and CBS Sports, which streamed the game in English on CBSSports.com and the CBS Sports app, both declined to share viewership figures.)
Saturday night Liga MX matches that air on Univision’s flagship broadcast network routinely deliver high six- and low seven-figure audiences, but the 415,000 who tuned in for Chivas-Monterrey on TUDN was the cable network’s second-best audience for a Liga MX telecast in 2020.
The match was played behind closed doors, and Liga MX has since suspended its own schedule.
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