Assignment 7--Testing the Hypothesis, Part 1

American TV rights to European soccer leagues.

Soccer fans in the United States are unable to easily and efficiently watch European soccer matches on TV because there are a very limited amount of American channels that have the TV rights to these European leagues.

• Who: Soccer fans in the United States
• What: They are unable to easily watch European soccer matches.
• Why: Because very few channels have the TV rights to these leagues in which the matches are played.

Testing the who: Soccer fans in America are certainly not the only ones who have this need. There are others in countries like Indonesia or Pakistan that have to resort to illegal streaming in order to watch games as well. 

Testing the what: There are some soccer fans in the United States that pay premium prices for channels that broadcast European soccer matches, such as beIN or RAI Italia. Even so, these channels do not broadcast all matches and very often only show the teams with bigger followings.

Testing the why: I think the biggest reason for why soccer on TV is not easily acceptable is because it is simply not as profitable as the other bigger sports in the United States. For this reason these sports channels refuse to make TV rights deals with partners they know won't maximize their profit. 

• Interview 1: This person is a huge soccer fan and explains to me that it is very frustrating that she has to go through the struggle of finding illegal streams on her laptop to watch her favorite team play when she would much rather just turn on her TV and flip to the channel.
• Interview 2: This interviewee tells me that soccer is not really his favorite sport and prefers American football and basketball. He says "it would be cool if there were more soccer channels here". I get the feeling that this person wouldn't be hugely affected if this opportunity were or were not to be taken. 
• Interview 3: This interviewee is a foreign student from India that I spoke to on campus. He tells me that it's a bother that there's a lack of European soccer TV viewership in this country since that is his primary sport. He loves playing pick up soccer on campus so its disheartening for him that watching soccer is such a hassle. 
• Interview 4: The fourth interview took place with a professor I found on campus. She tells me that she is not a big sports fan in general and that she would not be particularly bothered if this opportunity were to be seized or not. 
• Interview 5: The last interview was held with another fellow student on campus who let me know that he doesn't regularly keep up with soccer but has many friends that do. After asking him how these friends of his feel about having to go through the inconvenience of streaming games through illegal means, he says they wish they had more channels with games.

The interviews I conducted gave me a mixed set of results that allowed me to draw a better conclusion than I would've been able to prior to conducting them. I am led to believe that while there are some that are not regular soccer viewers, there is certainly a market out there for soccer fans that want these American TV rights for European soccer.