Would you rather FSW...

[wu-tang beez]

Originally posted by Dr. Wankler
It might be because he did "Soccer Made in Germany" on PBS when I was a kid. ----- the ball was growing a beard, as they say in South America)

I guess I'm the only one who missed that show or perhaps am not old enough to recall it.

Growing a beard? Giggle :D

Anyone else notice McHead getting more face time on FSW than Leave it to Beaver reruns on tv?

[billf]

Soccer Made in Germany is what made me a fan of watching soccer in addition to being a 7 or 8 year old kid that played soccer!

I like the way FSW is set up now. I've always found it easier to follow the English Leagues, so the EPL focus works for me. I've only had FSW for a few weeks though, so I haven't been annoyed by too much yet.

I would like to see the Dutch League though. I saw a few games last year when I was able to sneak a peek at FSW and I enjoyed it.

Serie A would be nice as well, but the rights fees are expensive I think. Also, the production quality of a lot of Italian games are pretty poor. The video is washed a lot of the time or the colors are not balanced right for some reason. I find this to be the case in a lot of the RAI broadcasts anyway.

[cpwilson80]

Placing aside the money issues, I'd like to see the following:

--Serie A
--EPL
--La Liga
--Dutch league
--Marquee matchups from Germany, France, Scotland
--More European competitions
--Any competition with MLS teams that isn't league play

Reality prevents this from happening, but I'd be sound as a pound if it could.

[cosmosRIP]

How about some Euro2004 qualifiers.

[jjayg]

I will throw my two cents into the discussion. I agree with most of the sentiments expressed here.
First, don't touch the EPL. It's just fine the way it is. If adding other games means subtracting reruns so be it. But EPL is really quite good the way it is. Same goes for Bundesliga, Argentina and Brazil. They are all good, leave them be. The La Liga game of the week is next to useless. I too was extremely excited when I heard that FSW was going to have La Liga. But, in fact, they don't have La Liga. They have La Liga scraps that are near worthless. If they can't get the top games then just drop it. Of course, I would love to see Serie A if that's at all possible. But appearently it's not. Still, that would be my first addition. One good Serie A match a week would be great. At the very least lets get Dutch soccer back!!! Definately. French I could do with or without. If we could get it, though, we should have it. Finally, I would agree for the most part about SPL. Do not lose Celtic-Rangers matches. Still, if it isn't costing us any other leagues, I would keep SPL the way it is too.

[mbrossetti]

I've no real desire to watch lower level English games. I was happy with FSW showing the playoffs from Div 1 last year. I'd be content with that again.

Get rid of the SPL. I don't care if it gets replaced with the 5th and 6th showing of some Premiership match from saturday. I can't stomach Celtic and Rangers on my TV any longer. The quality of play in the SPL compared with the Bundesliga or Eridivise or Le Championatt is laughable. Everyone knows it's a two team race and sadly there are a handful of supporters in the US, so it makes some sense for FSW to carry Celtic and Rangers games on tape. But then again, when most of the supporters are from the UK and they tend to hed to bars to watch the games live, do the tape delay feeds really need to be shown.

Nice try on La Liga, but if they can't even occassionally show Barca or Real, there aren't many people that would watch. I'd cut them some slack if they were able to pick up a halfway decent match. I'd take Athletico Madrid - Celta Vigo, or some other reasonable talented teams, but Vallacano - Recreativo and the like is painful to sit through. End the experiment now.

I can take the German league Saturday and Sunday mornings. But they need something else to fill the time on the weekend. Last year it was great, Germany at 9:30, England at 12, France at 2:30 and Holland at 5 all on Saturday. Great lineup. Now it seems to change every week. I'm just happy with a consistent supply of quality matches that aren't repeated more than 2X a week. Pick the leagues, just make sure they're quality. And while I lament the loss of Serie A, I enjoyed the 2:30 live feed and the Monday night replay, I do know that RAI made the prices somewhat prohibitive, so I'll suffer through the Italian broadcast on Sunday mornings if the game is any good.

[SYoshonis]

I'm one of those fans that keep the SPL on FSW. I couldn't be happier with one of my two favorite teams (Celtic, and whomever is playing Rangers) being shown every single week.

Having said that, the point about the games in the SPL themselves being ugly is well taken. Take one of the two best teams in the league off the field, and they get even uglier. But, it's not like the French league is a whole lot better, in my opinion.

I'd like to see the sort of coverage the EPL and Bundesliga gets extended to the Argentine league. There are usually three EPL games shown every week, two sometimes three Bundesliga games, and only one Argentine game (although I absolutely love the Argentine highlights show). Show one or two other games from Argentina every week, and two from Brazil, and that's my optimum mix. Throw in the occasional FA Cup tie, one game from Italy and Spain, and we're very good to go.

[FlashMan]

and o yea. more US Open Cup games! i've really enjoyed those the last few years, especially since there's no place else to see them.

i also found myself enjoying the A-league matches i witnessed last summer, catching some up and comers or seeing some ex-MLSers or just to eye the overall quality of the league. i hope they continue with that on friday evenings.

i also hope they can maybe acquire some rights to the Concacaf champions Club tournament. that would be pretty cool as well, and i'm sure it would be cheap to purchase. (although if no one was showing the game to begin with, there would be no feed to pick up and therefore make it impossible to do.)

[zpjohnstone]

My preferences, though they're apparently shared with many, many people-

Drop the SPL. I don't even care about Rangers-Celtic.
If this is what we're going to get of La Liga, I can live without it, as I think the money could be better used on the next items.
Show a little more EPL. ie, one more weekend match.
Bring back French League.
Bring back Dutch league.
Get Copa Libertadores and CONCACAF Champions Cup or whatever it's called.

Fantasy Wish- Euro 2004 and/or qualifiers. Libertadores might also reside in this department, I guess.

[rangers00]

Where do people get this notion that "FSW doesn't get Serie A because it's expensive"?

Serie A was probably expensive in the boom of soccer rights (around 2000, when Nationwide signed that obscene contract with ITV Digital), but folks, it's 2003 now. Lots and lots and lots of expensive deals collapsed or got renegotiated. Witness the deals of the Nationwide, Bundesliga, and all those Serie A contracts with PSN (it was probably expensive that led to PSN's bankrupcy, but that's 12 months ago).

FSW can't touch Serie A, because GolTV owns its rights in North America. You can receive GolTV, with its 4 Serie A games per week, with a 4DTV. People with Canadian systems can catch the same 4 games, WITH BRITISH COMMENTARIES, on TeleLatino Network.

People in America has no chance to watch live Serie A unless:

- you get RAI International from Dish
- you get a 4DTV system and a C-band dish
- you get a Canadian system
- GolTV can launch on a DBS/digital cable platform
- GolTV collapses and the rights get resold again, which is very likely. If PSN and Canal de Futbol couldn't launch in the U.S., why does GolTV think they can?

[billf]

I read somewhere that Serie A's rights were expensive, but I forget where. Since FSW had Italy last year, I figured there must have been a rights fee issue.

What is 4DTV?

[Lance90]

EPL is great, but Fox Sports Liverpool has got to stop showing Houllier's boring, crappy team every weekend. It's becoming quite painful to watch this seemingly talented team play some of the most unattractive football in the EPL. Once in awhile, when they're playing a top team is fine, but spare us their struggles against the minnows. Ugh.

[rangers00]

Originally posted by billf
I read somewhere that Serie A's rights were expensive, but I forget where. Since FSW had Italy last year, I figured there must have been a rights fee issue.

What is 4DTV?

It's stated on a Fox web-site regarding FSW. The statement was made by one of Fox's programming director. Of course, when you refuse you purchase an item that is desirable, what's the best excuse?

"the price isn't right".

I can't think of a better excuse.

4DTV is a delivery platform of digital satellite programming. There are analog and digital signals from satellite. In digital, there are MPEG2/DVB and DC2 formats. Dish Network, as well as many Ku-band ethnic channels I advocate here, use MPEG2/DVB. Canada's Starchoice uses DC2, so do the 4DTV providers in the U.S. So 4DTV (the platform) is analogous to DC2 (the technology). Goltv is one of those channels. During the baseball season, you can get lots of baseball wildfeeds in the clear with a 4DTV receiver. I think Goltv is also in the clear right now.

[voros]

I can say one thing I _don't_ want to see, is this television show drama thing they're going to put on FSW.

I'd rather sit through an hour long commercial for EnerX.

[Dr. Wankler]

Originally posted by voros
I'd rather sit through an hour long commercial for EnerX.

Well, STAMINA would be a good word for that, too.

[Sachin]

I guess no one would be interested in all A-Leauge, all the time.

:D

Sachin

[voros]

Originally posted by Sachin
I guess no one would be interested in all A-Leauge, all the time.

:D

Sachin
{Cue majestic sounding music}

VOICEOVER:

"Demmin...

"Sawatzky...

"Aristodemo...

"These and more of the best players can be seen in the league that defines greatness.

"The A-League only on Fox Sports World!"

[QPR Kevin H]

Originally posted by voros
I can say one thing I _don't_ want to see, is this television show drama thing they're going to put on FSW.
Oh, you have no idea how bad it is. Prepare to be amazed.

[voros]

Originally posted by QPR Kevin H
Oh, you have no idea how bad it is. Prepare to be amazed.
I'm practicing changing the channel as we speak.

"Where there's a will there's an A" is on FSW. FSW is no longer on my screen. It's just that easy.

[CRSvideo]

hmmm.... Though I'm bummed about never getting to see any matches in La Liga that involve Barca or Real, I would not consider FSW's La Liga coverage a disaster. I still make it the top match that I watch each week. You wouldn't be able to show many league's without showing the "top" teams, but La Liga, being such a tight race and having lots of quality teams, is the one league that you'd be able to get away with it. Betis, Celta Vigo and Deportivo are still exellent teams, and we've seen quite a bit of Sociadad which is in fact leading the league. Most people are of the mind to just ditch it, I want it to stay and hope that they'll work on getting more (and maybe one day I'll be able to watch Saviola or Raul, two of may favorite players in the game). And overall, I think that the TV production of the La Liga matches are the best of all the leagues (I'm talking about the base feed that's being worked with, not the anouncers that FSW used, though I have no problems with them).

I also miss the Dutch league that I had last year (FSW was only available to me a year ago, so can't comment on anything they had before then), but then I was only ever really interested in Ajax. They just at the moment have a very exciting team of young, talented players. I wasn't particularly interested in the rest of the league. And if the team is not able to hold onto those talented players (which rumors seem to indicate) then I might not be too interested in them anymore either.

The French league was also fun. Nice collection of young talent there. Overall as a league the most missed.

I wish they had Serie A, but then, despite the fact that they are one of the richest leagues in the world, the quality of their production is poor. Surprised they wouldn't do a better job with it. As it is, I still get Serie A matches on Rai International, and though I'd prefer that I'd be able to watch with English speaking commentators, I can deal with watching in Italian (especially since my favorite team, Fiorentina, no longer exists in Serie A).

I don't mind the amount of league coverage they give to the EPL. Like a poster said before, it allows you to follow the league (when they used to show Sky Sports rather than Fox Sports each night, then it was too much EPL, but Fox Sports' more balanced coverage has imporved that aspect). I assume that FSW is working with a limited budget and so can't give us everything (that would be too much to hope for). 3 games over the weekend works for me.

I like their coverage of the EPL and Bundusliga as is. Hope they can improve their coverage of La Liga (don't know how doable that is with ESPN's contract), and bring back the Frech league. Scottish Soccer I can do without. Argentina and Brazil are OK, though it would be better if they could get more matches each week. It would be awsome if they could get some international matches (Euro qualifiers, Concacaf tournaments and others). Oh yeah, and the UEFA cup that they show, that to me is almost worthless as it such a small portion of the tournament (the opposite of their EPL coverage, doesn't give you enough of a picture of what's going on in the tournament). Either show more, or don't bother (hopefully show more).

chris...