beIN Sports 2017-18

ESPN getting Serie A would be a godsend. We'd get all the games on ESPN+ with the ability to watch whenever, they'd mostly have the international feed, and we'd be rid of Cordero and Bonetti. Talk about win-win-win.

 

Except for the 5 bucks a month and I think the lack of games being on ESPN/ESPN2. But maybe the positives outweigh the negatives.

 

I just paid $55 for a month of Fubo primarily to DVR the BeIN Connect matches down the stretch of the European leagues they carry. $5/month for ESPN+ if they get Serie A and make all the matches available is a bargain.

And having the games on ESPN/ESPN2 is overrated. When they usually show a soccer property they have on those channels, they slap their own overbearing graphics over the ones from the int'l feed, use their own sub-par announcers (though not as bad as BeIN's) and run a ticker at the bottom of the screen. No thanks.

 

espn+ is $5/month or $50 for the year. That's cheaper than MLS Live was.

 

Interesting. I just cancelled my fubo because of nothing of significance on bein for the rest of the month. I guess if you can dvr bein connect channels, you can see some relegation battles, but those will never make it on their tv channels, which is what I had.

 

Yeah, I know the title races are decided in most of the leagues, but there's still a wide open relegation battle going in Italy and France, and some races for CL/EL spots. And you're right, BeIN won't show the relegation battles on the regular channels; last year for example they gave us an meaningless Inter match on the main channel on the last day while Empoli and Crotone had a thrilling back-and-forth relegation battle going on the Connect channels. They cut into the Inter match with updates but they should have been showing their matches in the first place.

 

True that! Just for MLS it is well worth the price, even for moderate fans of the league. I couldn't believe it when I saw they showed all MLS matches.

It is so under-priced it makes me think they're trying to get us hooked before they jack up the price in a few months, but we'll see...

 

Okay, looks like La Liga schedule for this weekend is finalized now.

Six matches remain in that 12:30 EDT timeslot, with BeIN TV showing the Seville derby and Getafe v Atletico. The other 4, including a Basque derby, are on the streaming channels.

That's all assuming that a tennis match doesn't run overtime, since arguably the most important tennis tournament that beIN has rights to is happening this week as well.

 

$15/mo is highway robbery. That's what Setanta/FSP used to cost, for the few people who were willing to pony up that kind of cash.

 

I believe my 15 bucks is for the entire sports package.

So I guess it just depends on preference.

Obviously if one just watches BeIN and just for Serie A, then it moving to ESPN would save you 10 bucks a month.

For me it would be an additional amount.

I don't mind it so much. I mean five bucks is just five bucks. But I'm worried we are moving into that realm of everything being like this. If you have to get many services and each are 5-15 bucks.......that could add up on top of a already somewhat large DTV bill.

 

Yeah, I see us heading in that direction with no return. It'll probably be great for some people and bad for others. Those that follow a wide range of leagues will likely be the beneficiaries since there's simply going to be more material available, much of which they would be interested in.

But if you're, say, a die-hard AS Roma fan and only care about matches involving Roma and their matches are spread across 3 different packages / streaming platforms for Serie A, Coppa Italia and CL then you might pay a lot for that 1 or 2 matches per week that you actually care about.

 

That's the point. It's going to be five dollars here, five dollars there, five dollars everywhere. And then I suspect you WILL mind.

 

All everybody complained about was the cable bundle. "Why should I pay for all these channels when I just want to pay for the ones I watch?"

Be careful what you wish for.

 

Exactly. I'm convinced we're all gonna get burned financially with this shift. We're gonna look back on the cable bundles as the salad days.

 

Yeah, I always thought that was a stupid complaint. All you had to do was divide the cost of cable/satellite by the # of channels you were getting to realize that bundling was a good deal for the subscriber.

 

There are 2 separate equations that will give you 2 different answers:

- Divide the cost of cable/satellite by the # of channels you are getting.

- Divide the cost of cable/satellite by the # of channels you are watching.

The ultimate solution would be a service that dealt more on a "a la carte" basis which is what streaming services started off as. Unfortunately, pretty much all the streaming services are starting to emulate cable/satellite business practices. Obviously, this is to optimize profits but I have to think it will backfire on these services in the long run as nothing will distinguish them from cable/satellite except that they will remain less reliable due to internet traffic issues.

The solution? No idea. I know what I would like to see (sports-oriented affordable packages) but that becomes impossible because of the intertwined nature of the TV business that sees providers and network ownership (NBC/Comcast as well as Disney/ABC/ESPN that are perfect examples). Ultimately, I believe in the marketplace. Streaming services showed people that traditional TV viewing is not a "necessity" any longer. A new paradigm in the TV world has developed. It will take some time to sort itself out but as long as competition is not stifled by the gov't, the consumer may end up the winner in the end. All the major networks losing viewership by the thousands every quarter is actually a good start.

SA
www.soccertvblog.com

 

Fair point, but even the second equation isn't going to yield anything in the neighbourhood of $5-15/month for most people (some exceptions, of course).

 

There was never an argument that it was going to cost less for us. We, the sports fans, were getting subsidized by non-sports fans with the bundling. Now Philo and competitors are offering no-sports bundles for less than $20 per month. For them, the unbundling is great. I'm happy to pay as long as I get all the games I want in HD.

 

To each his own.
I like the Pre-World Cup friendlies they show. I also thoroughly enjoyed their World Cup coverage and post match commentary 4 years ago. IT was good to have some perspectives outside of ESPN and Univison.

I look forward to it again this year with FOx and Telemundo being WC newbies..

 

Yeah, I preferred the ESPN coverage 4 years ago so didn't see much of BeIN's, but things have obviously changed. I wouldn't be surprised if BeIN becomes the best option for pre- and post-match analysis this summer. Just hope they put in the effort and show us the "A" team of pundits like they did 4 years ago (IIRC).

 

Just checking out @socceraction's page with the final week's Ligue 1 action on Saturday, and the good news is that BeIN is showing 8 of the 10 matches live on Connect (with PSG of course on the main channel but in a meaningful game for their opponent). But inexplicably one of the two games not being shown involves one of the two teams directly in the relegation fight who can avoid the drop with a win and a loss by the other team in a match in which the other team will be a significant underdog. And one of the televised matches is a true meaningless match between mid-table sides and another involves a team locked into a Europa league spot against a mid-table team going nowhere.

It's proven again that BeIN never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

 

Agree that they should show Toulouse-Guingamp over Nantes-Strasbourg. It might be a listing error on BeIN’s part. I’ve watched games on connect even though the connect channel itself during the game listed another game. With BeIN you have to hope that it’s a listing error rather than a programming choice error.

 

Ill guarantee you they dont even know that Toulouse-Guingamp has any relegation implications. The thought process was likely “duhhhh Nantes, duhhh Ranieri”.
The other day the genius in the studio kept calling Rennes (Pronounced Ren) “Rennes”with an emphasis on the S. Inexcusable lack of research clearly. I can see an occasional player name being mispronounced but its the the clubs name!. I shouldnt know more than the person being paid to present information to me!