No longer is it rare to turn on your TV early Saturday or Sunday morning and see a Mexican National team player playing in a European league. Of course, not all of them are easy to find on your program guide or preferred streaming service. It might be easy to turn on NBC and see Raul Jimenez playing against Chelsea but it might take some work to find Jesus Corona flying down the wings for Porto. I keep an updated Google Calendar with dates and kickoff times that will make it easier to know when these games are taking place but in this article, I’ll try to find where to watch those games. Whether its on TV or via a streaming service.
I will go league by league to see what (if any) TV deals they have in the US.
Jupiler League (Belgium)
Gerardo Arteaga at KRC Genk
Omar Govea at Zulte-Waregem
This league did not get an American TV deal until halfway through last season. Luckily for me, they signed up with ESPN+, a service I already have. Similar to most of their deals, 3-4 league games will be streamed on the service a week with the bigger clubs getting more games. Look for Genk to get more games than Zulte-Waregem.
Eredivisie (Holland)
Erick Gutierrez at PSV
Edson Alvarez at Ajax
The Eredivisie’s deal with ESPN+ ended at the end of last season but many predicted they would extend their deal. It took until the season opening week to get a deal done and expect the same coverage as last season. Luckily for us, the 2 Mexicans in the league play on the 2 biggest clubs. Look for all their games to be included in the 3-4 weekly streamed games.
Primeira Liga (Portugal)
Jesus Corona at Porto
Another league that use to be on Univision Deportes Network. The league will now be featured on GolTV with 3-5 games a week on the channel. fubo.TV streams the channel in their Sports Plus Package as well.
Serie A (Italy)
Hirving Lozano at Napoli
Johan Vazquez at Genoa (allegedly)
Serie A was been one of the first big soccer rights deals at ESPN+ but will move to Paramount+ for the next 3 seasons. Their schedule will be similar on Paramount+ with all league and cup games streamed on the service with a few on cable. I wished the league would have stayed with ESPN+ but Paramount+ has a nice group of competitions including Champions League & Europa League.
Premier League (England)
Raul Jimenez at Wolves
I would argue this was the easiest league to follow in the US a couple years ago but NBC made some changes to how they show the games. Instead of pushing the “non-premier” games to overflow channels that cable providers carried for free, NBC now has them on their own streaming service, Peacock. Pretty soon they won’t even have NBC Sports Network and even more games will be exclusively on Peacock. The FA Cup and EFL Cup will be streamed on ESPN+.
La Liga (Spain)
Andres Guardado at Real Betis
Diego Lainez at Real Betis
Nestor Araujo at Celta Vigo
José Juan Macías at Getafe
Hector Herrera at Atletico Madrid
ESPN made a huge push for La Liga’s TV rights and finally wrestled them away from beIN Sports. US viewers rejoiced as many of us could not even get beIN Sports from a cable provider. For the next 8 years, ESPN will essentially be the home of Spanish soccer with the rights to La Liga, La Liga2, Copa del Rey, Copa de la Reina and Spanish Super Copa. 100% of La Liga games will be on ESPN+ with some of the bigger games on ESPN and even ABC. Replays will be available as well. It’s gonna be really nice watching Lainez play on an HD stream instead of bootleg ones.
Ligue 1 (France)
Eugenio Pizzuto at Lille
While beIN Sport lost La Liga, they still have Ligue 1. Unlike La Liga, Ligue 1 has Messi. As for Pizzuto, I think he will go on loan elsewhere. Don’t expect to see him lining up against PSG this season.