No chance. ESPN has high school basketball while ESPN2 has college basketball. College basketball season runs through the first week of April.
This thread has gotten way too long in the tooth. I started a new thread for weekly updates to kickoff times and TV channel assignments for La Liga and Copa Del Rey for January - May 2010: https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?p=19691661 Moderator: please close this thread. Thank you.
I don't know if you guys feel the same way, but i have a hard time watching La Liga (generally speaking). I guess, once you get used to watching the English League, you sort of become spoiled and demand the same type of action. This is my personal opinion, but at times, it is very slow and boring. It lacks the emotion and intensity of the English league. Without a doubt, when you watch a Barca game, you can see how fluid and beautiful they play the game of Futbol. Maybe, with so many games on tv, you sort of become exhausted and saturated by viewing many games, and at the end, you take it for granted because you have so many choices (even if you decide to stop watching or viewing many games). But regardless, it is still nice to have access to so many games, so many different leagues, even at the expense of saturation and exhaustion from watching so many sporting events in the US.
I'm with you, but its all about taste. He likes his speedy tough play, we like our technical passing game. Its great cause everyone gets to watch what they like.
Bottom line: majority of TV viewers of soccer around the world tend to gravitate toward BRAND NAME teams and "A-List" players. Not to mention fast pace. This phenomenon is especially acute in East and Southeast Asia where the majority of soccer TV viewers (and mindless soccer gamblers) now live, and this phenomenon exists in the U.S. as well (just look at Nielsen TV ratings). La Liga has 2 brand name teams: Barcelona and Real Madrid. Both have A-List players (Messi at Barca, Cristiano Ronaldo and Kaka at RM). The rest of the league doesn't sell. This season is no exception as the big two have distanced themselves from the rest of the league. EPL has 4 brand name teams: Manchester United, Liverpool (not a good product on the pitch this season), Arsenal, and Chelsea. Of these 4, the only one that hasn't won a league title during the EPL era is Liverpool. Interestingly, none of the EPL "big 4" are owned by UK citizens. (I personally cherry pick from the smorgasboard of matches available, watching mostly "brand name" teams only when they play each other. I tend to avoid those matches that appear on paper as mismatches. )
That is funny I find the same thing with the English Premier league, I started off watching the EPL but then found La Liga and never really went back the only time I watch EPL is the occasional Monday/midweek night game and also catch a few over Christmas. I find it strange how someone who is trying to say soccer is/will become big in America can make such a comment about one of the top leagues in the world as being very slow and boring.
There is no right or wrong - its all a matter of opinion and taste. In general terms, the English game is "physical" while Spain and Italy are "technical". I have found that Americans being introduced to soccer at a latter stage of their life will find the English game more approachable. Its speed and physicality speaks a language a bit closer to what 'they' are acustomed to. The 'technical' game of Spain or Italy seems to be more appealing to those that have grown up in continental europe and even those (I have found) that have played the game here at the college or higher level. The best analogy I can come up with is chess vs. checkers. The english game is checkers with its quick moves but often a lack of 'finesse'. The continental game is that of chess - a game of strategy that can take a while to develope. To complete the analogy, I would call the game in South America (Brazil and Argentina especially) to be chess with sharp knives and guns thrown in... SA
hahahaha Huhe is right though, people who dont grow up with the game tend to like the speed game. My personal favorite game of the weekend was the Derby of the Comunidad Valenciana between Valencia and Villareal. I bet that was one of the least seen games all weekend. No brand names besides David Villa who is not huge (marketing wise). The Atleti-Gijon game was pretty drama filled too towards the end. You also got to see some good goals with it.
It is frustrating ESPN hasn't been showing many La Liga games. I swore my channel guide had ESPN showing two games on Jan 17th and then nothing. It claims there will be a game next week, but I am afraid as it gets closer it will get bumped. Too bad because I was enjoying another HD game a week.
I would have loved to have seen it unfortunately it was not on TV (my TV). I watched Marsailles v Bordeaux instead ... and promptly fell asleep!
For Sunday, January 10, the TV section that comes in the Sunday newspaper listed two La Liga games for ESPN2 - one to be shown at 10:55 am ET and the other to be shown at 2:55 pm ET. We only got one La Liga game that day - Barcelona vs Tenerife but it was on ESPN and not ESPN2 at 2:55 pm ET since ESPN2 was showing college basketball all afternoon. Just checked the TV section for this week and no La Liga was listed for ESPN2 for Sunday afternoon - it had tennis down from 12:00 pm ET to 5:00 pm ET instead. And ESPN2 did indeed showed tennis as they replayed last years Australian Open Mens Tennis Final between Rafal Nadal and Roger Federer in that time slot. LB...
This Sunday, the directv channel guide used to say Spanish PL game on at 3 pm est; now it says Fishing (in HD!). The theory was that espn couldn't show games when they were live on goltv, but I don't think there was a game on goltv (though now that content is blank on the channel guide, so maybe the game is moving?). Anyway, I guess the fishing must be really good, AND really popular, for espn to show that over something that they've bought and paid for.
The Bassmaster Classic is definitely the biggest event in that sport. So that coupled with NCAA women's hoops is why they don't have a spot for the Real Madrid game. This week aside, ESPN/2's only open slots for most of the year that correspond to La Liga are the late Sunday games as they have wall-to-wall college football/hoops on Saturday afternoons and the big teams normally don't play at 11:00 ET on Sundays. However, the ratings for English-language telecasts not involving Real Madrid or Barcelona were, frankly, disastrous (and ESPN tried airing a few such games early this season), even allowing for the fact that they aired against NFL games. Way below an 0.2, which is what EPL and MLS tend to get and probably the minimum acceptable number for a rights-fee product that is not "essential" for selling subscriptions. Lastly, Real Madrid and Barcelona don't even tend to play as many Sunday games nowadays because of their UEFA Champions League commitments in midweek (plus the La Liga rounds played on weeknights because the season starts a few weeks after most others in Europe). For the people who absolutely must see these games, ESPN still has Deportes (spanish) and online (either language), two platforms which are certainly growing in distribution with each passing year.
It's crappy cause most of the 3pm Sunday games that ESPN has had rights to have been dogs, except last week with Altetico Madrid v Barcelona and Real Madrid v Villareal this week. I will grant that Bassmasters is pretty huge. Even the Valencia game Monday afternoon would have been given there is no EPL Monday game this week, oh well.
yeah - I've gone from a semi-regular La Liga viewer to a casual La Liga viewer this season. I get my fix from the Champions League. I'm not about to watch games on my netbook unless it's games I really want to see.
my Fios guide is telling me "Spanish La Liga Soccer" on a 3pm eastern on ESPN with Womens college bball on at the same time on espn2. Bassmasters seems to be on at 8 in the morning for 2 hours. ESPN is only carrying bowling, strongman and poker that afternoon in addition to the La Liga coverage, again according to my Fios guide this morning
Bottom line: Any rights-fee product that cannot get an 0.2% rating during off-peak hours on weekends does NOT belong on ESPN2 (U.S.) because ESPN2 needs to maintain a minimum average rating in order to keep rates for advertising stable. Tape-delayed women's billards and poker, for example can easily get 0.2-0.3% ratings on ESPN2 during off peak hours. ESPN, Inc. has an outlet for ultra-niche sports events: ESPN360.com (will morph into ESPN3.com on Sunday April 4.) La Liga (in English) belongs on ESPN360.com, but does not really belong on ESPN2. EPL, on the other land, belongs on ESPN2, especially the 83 games during the 2010-2011 season (including at least one match involving a "big 4" club every week.)
The EPL game happens every week, with a few exceptions, so people can plan for it. La Liga games? May or may not happen (mostly 'may not'), teams are 'tbd' until the game starts, time varies. It's not that surprising that the games don't get high ratings. Apparently all the uncertainty of when/where/if a game will be shown is because the of deal that espn made with goltv. You would think that espn could find a slot (2 am on a Tuesday?) to show the weekly game, but it doesn't happen.
"The Bassmaster Classic is definitely the biggest event in that sport. So that coupled with NCAA women's hoops is why they don't have a spot for the Real Madrid game." I am sorry, this quote made me giggle.
I would like to think that this is the reason why La Liga doesn't get good ratings outside of Real and Barca. However, part of me continues to think it's simply because too many English speaking soccer fans in the country have all become attached to an EPL team, and in true American fanboy fashion, are now unwilling to give anything else a chance (because there just has to be one "best" league in any sport, and the EPL has filled that void for soccer in their minds). Though Serie A and even the Bundesliga might do better than La Liga simply because there are a lot more Americans with ancestry from those countries.
you don't think that fan boys attach themselves to Barca and Real Madrid too? Spanish or otherwise? For the most part, popularity isn't a factor of people giving something a chance, it's a factor of predisposition and brand recognition. IMO