I appreciate your diligence in coming up with counter points, but I'm not really swayed. My comments were general, not specific to ESPN, and certainly they are primarily informed by my experience with NBC, because the EPL is by far the most important thing to me. And you seem to agree that NBC/Gold has some of the shortest shelf-life for content at ~7 days (I'll take your word for that, I haven't tracked it... only know that old content goes poof pretty quickly). And you also mention ESPN+ may have a 30+ day horizon. Either of those cases is a severe limitation in my book. I'm no IP lawyer, but why is it that content that a provider originally broadcast in 2017 can't legally be replayed by them in 2019 or beyond. From a purely customer-centric POV it should be. You also mention that I should be able to watch any match I want to via Google or Youtube. Well, from my experience that's not too dissimilar to finding pirated streams on r/soccerstreams to watch live matches, and I'd rather not have to go through that hassle/crapshoot. How often have I ended up watching some subpar quality video in some foreign language from some dodgy "provider" who implores me to click their link or like their video? If the original content was on NBC or ESPN, it's way more desirable, appropriate, reliable and higher quality to watch a replay from NBC or ESPN, rather than some random Youtube source.
As I said in my original post, I'm in the 1% of the 1% when it comes to watching replayed soccer, as I'm just trying to catch up on stuff from the last couple of weeks. But if your reason for being is watching Stoke-West Brom from 2017 then you're in the 1% of the 1% of the 1%. There is literally no business model that supports this or will ever likely cater to it. I mean, I'd like Kate Upton in my lap while I'm watching the games, too, but let's be realistic. Outside of famous games or cup finals or championships, past sporting events have an extremely short shelf life. So just because streaming doesn't offer an archive utopia doesn't mean it hasn't been a boon to soccer fans.
Don't forget that that Stoke-West Brom full match from 2017 had better not have a spoiler on it! I'm not in the 1% of the 1% of the 1%... but I am in the 5%. NBC Sports coverage of the Premiership is fine with me. I catch every late Saturday game on NBC and every late Sunday game on Telemundo (bonus if Cantor is on the call). I watch NBCSN games if they have a decent-looking matchup at a decent time (not at 4:30 am, not during work hours). Any Big Six game meets the criteria. I am unlike lots here in that I don't watch live games on delay. It's that I'm from the generation where all TV sports were live and if you missed it, well, check SportsCenter or the late local news or the next day's paper and you're caught up. Nowadays I can head to YouTube or NBCSports.com if I want to see the best highlights of a game sooner. Spoilers aren't an issue because IMO the game was dead hours ago and no fan of an American sport gives a damn about having a game spoiled if you're just looking for cool highlights. That's my take. I don't exactly know NBC's desired audience, but their coverage seems fine to me. It's a gateway to other soccer including my local MLS team and PL clubs in other competitions (CL on Uni, FA Cup on ESPN+, League Cup on ESPN+) which I also try to watch. I have seen the hallowed PL review show back in the FSC days. It is fluffy video wallpaper designed to be generic and exportable to any world market where only the voiceover needs to be localized. I'm surprised anybody considers the fate of this show a dealbreaker in NBC's PL package.
Four Eredivisie matches shown this weekend on +. I think for the first time(?) Seem to be going back to 3 next w/e.
They have been showing 4 matches per weekend since Eredivisie came back from Winter Break. They may only be showing 3 next weekend because there is a match between the top-3 that are always shown (PSV v Feyenoord). The key will be the following weekend schedule when there is no "big match". I believe we see 4 matches again. SA www.soccertvblog.com
I just checked the listings for three weekends following this one, and all list only three Eredivisie matches per weekend. Disappointing!
That's not ESPN's choice. These games are produced by IMG for international distribution. Yes, they take the feed direct from the Eredivisie, but it's finished product is considered an IMG production distributed to ESPN, and the reason why you only get 3 games is because that's what is being produced for international distribution by IMG.
ESPN+ have now added a 4th Eredivisie match per round as they have been doing since the Winter Break. So all is normal again. One note: next weekend (March 2/3) still lists 3 matches but that is because the Ajax match was pushed back to Wednesday, March 13th. ESPN+ will show that match, making it 4 matches per round. Here are the complete listings: http://soccertvblog.com/eredivisie-tv/ SA
So... ...I was driving around town yesterday listening to ESPN Radio and to my surprise I heard a familiar voice but just could not figure out who it was. A few minutes passed and I was like man, this guy who is talking about NCAA basketball and NFL football sounds a lot like Taylor Twellman. Well Folks, he has hit the American Mainstream big time (sorta). Cohosting a show on ESPN radio. Now I don't know if this is a long term thing or just this past Saturday but he sounded like he kind of knew what he was talking about. Just thought I 'd point out the milestone of a former American Major League Soccer player being in a position like that to talk about general sports. Not just soccer. And on ESPN. I never thought i'd see the day.
Back on August 11 (I had to search through my texts to find the exact date - haha) a friend of mine had text me around 7:30am (pacific time) to turn on SportsCenter to see who was hosting. It was Twellman talking about everything, from baseball to football to everything. And yes, he did sound knowledgeable and well informed. Forget who the co-host was but at the end of the program he congratulated Twellman on his SC debut. I don't know how many (if any) subsequent appearances he has made on SC but it caught my friend and I by complete surprise. Didn't know he was on radio, too. Found this also... https://www.reddit.com/r/MLS/comments/96hohe/taylor_twellman_is_currently_hosting_sportscenter/
Wikipedia's page for ESPN Radio doesn't mention Twellman. I'm not going to post it on Wikipedia because I don't know the name of the show he's on and when it is. Do we know that he's a regular and wasn't a sub host one day?
That's cool. But I predict you'll be adding more and more of these $5-10/mo streaming subscriptions in the coming year or two. And you won't be alone! That is unless you're the "strict diet" kind of dude/family.
Watched the MLS review show on ESPN+ tonight - it seems to be a UK/British production? Did anybody else notice this?
It does have a very IMG feel to it, I like it. Trying to be better about keeping up with the league this season, easy way to do that.
All of the streams from Sunday, March 10 seem to be gone from the Replay page on ESPN+. I can't access that day on my iPad or my Android phone. The day is just plain skipped over. If I search for a match from that day, I can find it using the search function, but the in the main area it's just disappeared.
Has anyone ran into an issue with ESPN+/ESPN3 where you click on a game during the game and for some reason it starts from the beginning of the stream? This has happened to me a couple times and it drives me nuts lol
Are you not able to fast-forward? I think most would prefer a live match start from the beginning. Joining a match live on these apps is usually the only option until it ends and you can start over.
There was a seemingly random Danish Cup quarterfinal shown on ESPN+ this week - do they have the rights to the cup as well as the league? Just the fact that I could watch an on-demand Danish Cup match in HD streaming on my TV....Xmas morning for this soccer nerd.
Yeah like I was watching a basketball game and I had to leave work to go home......so I go home and try to start the stream and it just went back to the beginning with no option to go to live action......it was odd lol
I have no idea why ESPN regularly has problems with audio mixes. Both friendlies today had no stadium sound until very late in the first half. One would think that the engineers would be curious about the silence during the national anthems. Hopefully they got this out of their system before the Euro qualifiers start tomorrow.
It was pretty weird during the Germany - Serbia match. It had to be something ESPN was doing because Univision Deportes had the crowd noise.
Yeah, it's on ESPN. DAZN Germany had English commentary for Cyprus-San Marino all the way through but ESPN didn't turn on the commentary until minute 25.