Anyone know if the tournament in January 2013 played in South Africa will be on tv in the US, and if so, what channel?
The million dollar question. In recent years, we've had nothing. Prior to that the Arabic channels on Dish would show some games and TV5 would show some games. It would be great if BeIN jumped in on this, but I'm not holding my breath.
This comes up any time there is a African Cup of Nations I don’t get how non of the big soccer channels in the USA would not want to show this now I am not African but I am a football fan like the rest of Big soccer and if the African Cup of Nations was on lets say Fox soccer I would watch all the games and I think many more would do the same because African soccer is on the up. Ok I could understand if this was some thing out of the OFC but its not
Not sure about African football being on the up (with each passing world cup, CAF teams to worse than the one before), but one would think the quality of football is good enough to warrant at least the knockout phase to be on TV.
The last CAF wasn't the most exciting, but the two previous tournaments were quite good. The problem with CAF is the problem with the CONCACAF Gold Cup: only 1 meaningful tournament every 4 years with 1 meaningless tournament mixed in. There is nothing at stake during years when a Confederations Cup berth is not at stake.
Umm not quite. International football is taken pretty dang seriously in Africa, much more than in many parts of Europe. If you look at how the players and fans treat it, there is no such thing as a meaningless CAN.
My comment was directed at US/Canadian TV rights more than the tournament itself. That is, the tournament may mean a lot to Africans but if the tournament is played every 2 years and if only 1/2 of those counts beyond the tournament, there is less incentive for a US network to pay prices on a tournament that will only draw hardcore fans--and many of those hardcore fans will end up skipping many games because their favorite club teams are playing. But I should add as a regular viewer of this tournament that there have been recent situations where players opt not to play because of fake injuries and there are many games played in front of super-small crowds with many empty seats. So, Africans may be excited about the tournament on the hole but the host countries seem to have a hard time filling stadia during early rounds (and sometimes during 1/4 finals). This could be unique to recent hosts. I can't remember if the early rounds in Ghana were the same. 2008 is too far in the past.
Don't disagree. It's just my point is that Africans, including ex-pats in North America, will take it seriously and watch it whether it's a Confederations Cup year or not. Fans don't travel as much in Africa because of poor infrastructure and lower incomes. Potential viewership is more important to broadcasters than attendance in the stadium. With GolTV and FSC both having lost or about to lose significant properties, I'd like to see one of them bid on a near future CAN.
Any updates on this? I assume that no one is going to air it and that it therefore is totally fair game for streaming...
Your point is flawed because it assumes that partaking in the Confederations Cup is a bigger deal than winning the ACN. This may be true in Oceania and North America where only 2 teams have a shot at winning the confederation, but it's certainly not true in every region. That said, having the tournament in 2 consecutive years is a bit much.
Looks like ACN will be on ESPN3. Just checked my WatchESPN app, and the games are listed as upcoming. Great news!
Well, this may be the push that gets me to upgrade my cable from super basic to just normally basic... I want that ESPN3 access, and I really want to watch this ACN.
http://soccernet.espn.go.com/fixtures?league=CAF.NATIONS&cc=5901 And as far as I can tell, every last one of them is going to be put up. I am so excited to let my social life die for a few weeks.
African Nations Cup kicks off today at 11am ET. All matches on espn3.com. No sign of matches on ESPN Deportes or the english language channels. Full schedule listed on my CALENDAR or the official CAF site here. SA www.soccertvblog.com
Just found out this great news!!! So excited! The Africa Cup is such an exciting tournament! Lots of cracking goals, fast paced play, etc Hopefully ESPN puts the Championship match on ESPN2 at least. I'm not getting my hopes up for that though
It sucks that ESPN doesn't use Classic to at least put games on TV. People of course would still complain because Classic doesn't broadcast in HD. I still prefer to watch live sport on TV than than on a computer if I had my druthers.
So far the stream looks great. Audio is kind of weird though. No background noise and just the commentator can be heard in a studio.