The Premier League is the most-watched football league in the world, broadcast in 212 territories to 643 million homes and a potential TV audience of 4.7 billion people. The Premier League is broadcast in the United States through NBC Sports. Premier League viewership has increased rapidly, with NBC and NBCSN averaging a record 479,000 viewers in the 2014–15 season, up 118% from 2012–13 when coverage still aired on Fox Soccer and ESPN/ESPN2 (220,000 viewers), and NBC Sports has been widely praised for its coverage. NBC Sports reached a six-year extension with the Premier League in 2015 to broadcast the league through the 2021–22 season in a deal valued at $1 billion (£640 million). Early history Founded in 1888 as the Football League, the league is the oldest such competition in world soccer. It was the top-level soccer league in England from its foundation until 1992, when the top 22 clubs split away to form the Premier League. PBS (1978-1983) Beginning in 1978, highlights of select games were broadcast on PBS under the title All Star Soccer with Mario Machado providing the commentary. For the 1980-81 league season, Star Soccer switched from Mario Machado and used the ITV feed with commentary from Brian Moore. Trans-Atlantic Challenge Cup (1980) In 1980, the first ever Trans-Atlantic Challenge Cup, a friendly soccer competition that was hosted by the New York Cosmos, of the original North American Soccer League took place. The Trans-Atlantic Cup featured teams from Europe competing against teams from North America. Manchester City's matches against the New York Cosmos and Vancouver Whitecaps were televised on American television. FNN/SCORE (1987) The 1987 FA Cup Final between Tottenham and Coventry was televised by FNN/SCORE on tape delay. English Soccer (1990-1992) During the 1990-91 and 1991-92 seasons, Jim Rosenthal hosted English Soccer, which was broadcast on regional sports networks across the United States. The format of English Soccer was similar in that to BBC's Match of the Day, where the majority of the highlights were focused on the biggest game of the week, and a shorter amount of time was given to showing the goal highlights from the other matches. Since 1992 SportsChannel America and Prime Network (1992-1996) Prime Network was one of the first media companies to purchase the US rights to overseas soccer leagues. When the Premier League officially launched in August 1992, Prime provided a match of the week on a delayed