Live on Telemundo: US-Mexico qualifer shown on mun2

The USA and Mexico plays a World Cup qualifier on Aug. 12 at Azteca Stadium in Mexico City. American fans will be able to see the English telecasy on the mun2 network at 4 ET. Live blog is here

mun2?

Never heard of it. Not surprised. I will be honest. I saw on ESPN that it was Comcast Digital, which I have. And sure enough, it’s ch. 607 on the dial.

The Spanish call will be on Telemundo which owns the rights to all Mexican National Team matches played in Mexico.

From the Washington Post:

While the main network will carry the game in Spanish, Telemundo senior vice president for sports Jorge Hidalgo told the Insider today that his company will keep the English rights and show the match on mun2, an eight-year-old cable outlet geared toward a younger Latino audience that regularly shows programming with audio in English. The identity of the announcers, who will call the game in English, will be unveiled soon, Hidalgo said.

Telemundo is planning a one-hour pregame show, while mun2 will offer just a few minutes. The video feeds will be identical, Hidalgo said.

Awesome ratings plan geniuses! You force people to watch your channel in the 600s for a game at 4 p.m. on the East Coast, 1 p.m. on the West Coast. So let’s review:

You want to introduce your network for a non-primetime game. Great coordination.

Who wants to take bets that they will force the game back to primetime just to increase their ratings?

However, they are not the only network to do this. The NFL Network does this because they can. They can air its games on its network for better access on the cable dial. It took a couple of years, but the NFL finally got what they wanted.

So how did this happen? Media giants can not play nice and the fans lose in the end.

More from the Washington Post:

Since 2000, Telemundo has had a contract to show Mexican matches on U.S. television. For past USA-Mexico qualifiers at Azteca, the game would end up being shown on an ESPN outlet because the U.S. Soccer Federation had a formal relationship with Telemundo. But for the past two years…..

the USSF has worked with Telemundo’s rival, Univision, which shows USA matches on its main network as well as Galavision and Telefutura.

NBC owns both Telemundo (available in most markets) and mun2 (30 million U.S. households).

Sources told the Insider that ESPN did make an effort to acquire the English rights for the USA-Mexico game. Telemundo, however, clearly sees the potential for a huge audience — on both of its outlets.