ESPN+ to offer Bundesliga whiparound feed ‘Goals Arena’

ESPN has been airing and streaming matches from the Bundesliga, Germany’s top soccer league, since 2019. But for this season, which begins Aug. 18, they’ll be offering a new watching option. That will be a Bundesliga-produced “Goals Arena” whiparound feed for days where there are multiple matches at the same time.

https://twitter.com/worldsoccertalk/status/1687520650489942016

Here’s more from that World Soccer Talk piece, by Ed Perovic:

Germany’s Bundesliga is making a new whip-around show available to its international TV partners including ESPN+. For the first time, services showing the Bundesliga around the world have access to the league’s multicast of matches that kickoff simultaneously on Saturdays as well as weekday rounds.

The German top flight is calling it ‘Goals Arena’ for English-language audiences.

A simulcast of matches kicking off at the same time has been a staple of German Bundesliga broadcasts for years. In Germany, the program is known as ‘BundesligaKonferenz’ or simply ‘Konferenz’ and airs on Sky Sports Germany (current rights’ holders) every Saturday at 15:30 CET as well as every weekday round being played on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.

It’s a quick action multicast with commentary from each match. It goes from stadium to stadium with quick “flips” to matches as goals are scored. It’s a great way of following up to five matches in the Bundesliga simultaneously.

The traditional broadcasts of each match will remain available as well, but it’s notable to see this whiparound version now also offered to U.S. viewers. This will be a dedicated ESPN+ channel, and will be broadcasting beginning at 9:30 a.m. on Saturdays (starting Aug. 19, when there are five matches at that time). This season will only have one midweek round, on Dec. 19 and 20 (a Tuesday and Wednesday respectively), and the whiparound feed will be available then as well. The commentary featured here will be the standard international English feeds.

This follows a number of other whiparound feeds in soccer, including CBS’ The Golazo Show for UEFA Champions League coverage, the Apple TV+ MLS 360 option, Peacock’s Premier League Goal Rush, and some ESPN has tried with the FA Cup. And the concept’s certainly proven popular in other sports as well, from NFL RedZone to NBA CrunchTime. It’s significant to see this now available on ESPN’s Bundesliga coverage (which is largely carried on ESPN+, with some matches on linear TV), especially as that company has Bundesliga rights through 2026. So this may be an option for some time to come.

[World Soccer Talk]