I was pretty surprised to see the FSC lineup for European WCQ's on Wednesday. Four good matchups to determine qualifiers or playoff representatives will not be seen in my neck of the woods. You would think the Russia at Slovakia, Czech Republic at Finland, Bosnia at Serbia, or Switzerland at Ireland matches would be shown Wednesday. However, I'll be stuck with Belgium at Lithuania, Norway at Belarus, and Northern Ireland at Austria! If the schedule were pre-determined weeks or months ago, I'd cut Fox Soccer some slack. Granted, if Belgium had beaten Spain Saturday, their match at Lithuania would be crucial for qualifying. But since they lost, the luster of this match is gone. Had Norway lost to Moldova or Slovenia had beaten Italy, the match in Minsk would be very important. Now it's been relegated to "so what" status. Does anyone have some inside info on how Fox Soccer Channel determines which games get aired and which ones don't? If they couldn't carry any of the Wednesday "marquee" matches due to contractual obligations, I'd buy that argument. Either way, it's still a bummer .
FSI bought a package from Setanta Sport, supposedly just so they wouldn't be completely lacking in matches on international dates. Setanta Sport naturally held the best stuff for Setanta Sports USA or the pubs.
If you want the best WCQ games, get Setanta USA or go to the pub. FSC just gets the leftover games that play out the schedule. That's what you get when you don't pay extra for niche contents.
Setanta is actually a pretty good deal. I believe it is around $10/month and during qualifying it usually offers some good matches. You can also cancel once qualifying is over without any penalty... So for getting a handful of decent matches for $10, you cant really complain.
I can't wait for the killer lineup on Wednesday. Norway vs Belarus will be the greatest match ever played. In addition, watching Belgium/Lithuania and Austria/N. Ireland battle for absolutely nothing is the very reason that football exists on this planet. FSC scores another hat-trick! Two thumbs up.... ...............their ass.
Quit bashing FSC for the poor choice of qualifiers. As was mentioned above they only get the scraps from Setanta. Setanta aren't going to sell the best matchups to FSC because they want to show them not sell them to a rival. You could either have these poor qualifiers or you could have informercials. As has been said in other posts on this board if you want the best of world football then you need more than FSC.
Well, FSC could have one more game on this Wednesday, but chose not to (though it turns out it's meaningless with the best runners-up system). That would be England v Poland, which they've put on PPV.
Maybe I'd let FSC off the hook if they weren't lying about the nature of these games. They just showed an ad for the Lithuania v. Belgium match that claimed that the match would determine a WC spot. They've also said that the Belarus v. Norway match was critical as "Belarus would go all out in a last ditch effort to get to the world cup" or words like that. Of course in reality none of these matches matter at all for WCQ. It is bad enough that FSC only show meaningless crap but to lie about it is just too much.
Then what would The Sandman post about? All he does is watch FSC then bitch about it on Big Soccer. Hey Sandman, I hear ESPN hates soccer, too! Or maybe you could try turning off the TV. I hear there's this thing called "outdoors". It could be good for you. Thx, Jay!
Of course, FSC deserves nothing but sympathy for showing three meaningless WCQ matches. I'll break it down for you, in case you've been living in a cave the last couple of years. Norway=playoffs, Belarus=OUT, Belgium=OUT, Lithuania=OUT, Austria=OUT, N. Ireland=OUT. Why are you defending their match selection, other than to give the tired old "quit bitching" argument? Go watch your Andorra vs Armenia thrillers and leave the bitching to me.
But that's just it, it's not their selection. It's Setanta's. They can only show what Setanta will sell them and Setanta's kept the best for themselves.
Okay, but Cannon makes an excellent point, in their promos they are claiming that these games are integral to WC qualification.....and that simply isn't true. They do deserve criticism for that, at the very least.
Of course, they could have bid for the games in the first place and got the rights that way, but chose not to (or got outbid).
Screw Setanta. A good portion of us have no access to that channel or a pub that does carry it. Fox Soccer Channel...should be called Fox Scraps Channel..because that's all you get is scraps. I'm in a foul mood because I can't even locate a Serbia-Bosnia torrent this afternoon.
So now we are blaming them for attempting to operate in a different business model than Setanta?? Obviously Setanta can afford to pay more for these games than FSC, they are still in startup mode and need to attract subscribers. A huge portion of FSC's budget goes to their EPL rights....that's never going to change. Setanta doesn't have that expense.
Its one thing to bitch (believe me I do it alot), but you dont seem to understand the reality of the situation. This is business. It is about $$$. Setanta is going to keep the important matches to themselves b/c it makes financial sense for them to do so. Either that, or make them so damn expensive FSC would be idiots to buy them and try to resell them at a loss. So until FSC gets deeper pockets than setanta and can outbid them for the entire nut of games, I suggest you start saving $$$ for PPV or move closer to a soccer pub. (I did the latter )
The $$$ I saved by not buying PPV has gone to an S-Video cable and eventually a new graphics card. I am now watching Ireland vs Switzerland, a match that actually matters, on PPlive. FSC can go suck it for all I care.
curious. How much was it (each game?)? I might need to secretly set something like this up on my work computer! I dont care so much about the cost of the card.
OK, I mean if you want to talk about that, that's exactly what I was telling you on Saturday in the other thread. Here is a list of matches I was able to check (at least some important parts of today): Netherlands - Macedonia Ireland - Switzerland England - Poland Italy - Moldova Finland - Czech Republic Germany - China (friendly)
Does this mean you'll stop posting ad nauseum about Hopkins, Bretos and all the other announcers you hate? Or will you still watch FSC and start a new thread bashing every time Allen Hopkins does an on-air interview with an American player during the game? Thx, Jay!
No offense if you like Hopkins, Bretos and Webster. Get their autographs and bobbleheads for all I care. Unless they dramatically improve over time though, I'll still think the same way about them. On-air interview with a player? I've actually never heard Hopkins do that, but that would probably suit him much better than commentary.
What are you whiners complaining about? You get all these Austria X N. Ireland? Norway X Belarus? Belgium X Lithuania in the U.S.? I am travelling in Asia. All I get in the hotel were England X Poland on Star Sports and France X Cyprus on TV5 Asie, and worse yet, it's in the wee hours of Thursday morning. And I can only choose one to watch because they play at the same time. Asia hates soccer, no question about it...