I normally would have posted this in the regular BeIN thread, but since it involves spoilers with today's African Cup of Nations semifinal, I wanted to keep it out of there and put it in a separate topic with spoiler warnings in the title. (begin rant) First, you have the rights to the third (or fourth, depending on where you slot the Gold Cup) biggest continental international tournament and you can't even show one of the freaking semi-finals live?? Instead, we get the *first leg* of a Copa del Rey match with Barcelona which is already being shown live on BeIN Espanol. I mean it's one thing to be Barca-centric with the ratings they pull, but tape-delaying *one* Barca match out of the 60 or so they broadcast on the channel every year isn't going to impact the overall ratings very much, especially with it playing live on the Spanish channel. But OK, Barca uber alles, whatever, fine. Show the ACN match on tape-delay. Most of us are at work anyway and would be DVRing it. It's in a 2-hour slot from 5PM to 7PM Eastern, and of course it being a knockout match, it could run over going to extra time and penalties. No problem, there's no live match at 7PM, just a couple of talk/highlight shows (The Xtra/The Locker Room). Surely if the match goes to extra time, there's no problem in letting in run as it if were live and pre-empting these shows, so I figure I'm good to watch it tape-delayed instead of seeking it out live or finding a EuroSport download somewhere. So I sit down to watch it, we're about 10 minutes in, everything is fine. But suddenly the action jumps forward 5 minutes. A few minutes later, it jumps ahead another 5-10 minutes. Immediately I know they're trying to cram an extra time match into a 2-hour time slot, so now the regulation 90 minutes are spoiled. Thanks, BeIN. Now I fast-forward to the end of regulation since I know it will end level. So I figure at least I can watch the 30-minute extra time and enjoy that unspoiled. It was about an hour & 23 minutes in when it starts, so I figure the match got decided in extra time somehow since there isn't enough time left in 2-hour slot for penalties. But noooo, within a couple of minutes they started doing 5-minute time jumps in extra time as well, so now I know that extra time's a waste since it's going to penalties. At least they didn't contrive to screw up or spoil the penalty shootout somehow. So in the end I got to watch about 5-10 minutes of the first half and a 5-10 minute penalty shootout without knowing what was going to happen. I can't think of a way they could have made this whole telecast more viewer-unfriendly other than to run a ticker with the final result on the bottom (which has been done before by others, I know). As I said at the beginning, the decision to tape-delay was ridiculous, but if they were going to be hell-bent on cramming a 3-hour match into a 2-hour window, at least do the following: 1. Wait until the last possible minute before skipping ahead in time. At least show the first half in its entirety to ruin as little of regulation as possible. Starting jumping around in the second half if you must, not at the 10-minute mark of the match. 2. Show extra time in its entirety. If you have to cut time, cut it out of the second half. At least give the viewer this much, along with an unspoiled first half, so we can at least have 75 minutes of enjoyment. If it goes to penalties, shave a few minutes there by cutting out the 45-60 seconds between each kick. 3. Actually just don't cram a 3-hour match into a 2-hour window. Schedule like you actually understand what soccer fans of reasonable intelligence - your primary viewership - are like. It's been almost 5 years now, BeIN, I know it's naive of me to think you should have learned something by now, but really you should have. /rant
I wasn't aware they did that to the tape delayed match. That is really crappy. Not going to defend beIN in any way shape or form because what you describe above is inexcusable. But here is a couple of points to keep in mind: - The biggest mistake beIN continues to do is treat the US market like they treat their other markets (France, Spain, MENA). In other words, the streaming channels are looked at as regular channels. In this day and age, I don't have a big problem with that except their streaming service is sub-par in that it has no on-demand capabilities. In the MENA region, they have 16 channels so showing events live as well as delayed is not a problem. But you shouldn't approach the US market the way they have. Over the decades, the US soccer fan has developed some unique characteristics due to lack of coverage (in the past) and more importantly, the time zone difference between us and Europe. Watching matches on delay is very much a US trait (and perhaps in the far east). From spoilers to squeezing delayed broadcasts into original 2-hour windows, its not very accommodating to the market. To play devil's advocate to my own view, perhaps beIN should treat us like the rest of the world and have the fans adjust. Fine. But in that case, provide on-demand or a way to record streaming-only matches! - Showing Barcelona instead of AFCON is a little harder to argue against. Last weekend's AFCON matches drew at their best 44,000 and 49,000 viewers to beIN. The weekday matches were no more than blips on the rartings scale. Today's Barcelona match should easily double if not triple that viewership. I have argued for variety on the 2 beINSports channels in the past and would like to see happen but have come to terms that Barcelona and Real Madrid will always take precedence over any other matches. I am actually a bit surprised when the occasional Serie A match pushes one of the La Liga giants to delayed. From what you described above, beIN get an "F" for today's AFCON coverage. There are simply no excuses... SA www.soccertvblog.com
All I can say is amen. Watching football in the US is constantly 2 steps forward and 1 step back. In this case I can think of two major steps forward: No CAN matches on US TV until 2015. Great. But here we go with edits (1 step back). Last season, Fox had almost every Libertadores match live and unedited after nearly a decade of 95% of games shown on delay and edited. Then Fox did not show a single Copa Sudamericana game on TV and that trend continues with the Libertadores. Step back.
Gold Cup? lol. ACN is easily top 3. But yes... BeIN really wants to take us back 15 years to the days of FSC. All they need to do now is show the second-half highlights of a game during halftime of that same game, then they will have achieved their goal. I would disagree with your point #2 though. They should've just shown the regular 90 minutes + PKs if they really had to keep to the 2-hour timeslot. That way the only thing the viewer loses is 30 minutes of scoreless football. And they get 90 minutes of football + PKs without anything being spoiled.
Well sure, if extra time is scoreless then go right to the penalties. My larger point was don't jump ahead in time until you absolutely have to do so in order to fit the 2-hour slot. If extra time is fruitless, then that time is a lot later, say deep into the second half. As for MetroChile's post above, the ACN was shown on espn3 in 2013. Some matches may have been on ESPN Deportes as well, but I never looked into that since I could watch espn3 on my TV set.
The 8 teams eliminated in the ACN Group Stage are better than the 4 teams eliminated in the Gold Cup Quarterfinals and the best 4 CONCACAF teams who didn't qualify. However, if the ACN and Gold Cup winners played a two leg series in September of odd-numbered years when both tournaments are played (this is hypothetical and ignores the fact that these days have WCQs), I think the Gold Cup winner would win most of the time.
Yeah, but we're talking about the tournament itself, not the quality of the winner. The Gold Cup isn't even top 4, to be frank. Its only used to see which team goes to the Confederations Cup. If that tournament gets scrapped, like is rumored, than the Gold Cup will be nothing.
How is the Gold Cup not Top 4? That would make it worse than AFC and/or OFC. The Top 16 CONCACAF teams in the FIFA Rankings have an average of 507.38 points. The Top 16 AFC teams in the FIFA Rankings have an average of 465.69 points. Furthermore, starting in 2019 the Asian Cup will have 24 teams, which will decrease the average quality. In terms of the Top 16 in each confederation, AFC has the advantage of having 31 percent more members. Both the amount of members and average FIFA Ranking points exclude CONCACAF teams that are not FIFA members but can play in the Gold Cup.
Well, here we go again. BeIN leaves the CAN final after the game so they can show Juve-Inter but then come back with a split screen just as the trophy is being lifted. They show the trophy celebration for 20 seconds and back to Juve-Inter. If they were making this choice because Juve-Inter was just beginning then maybe I could see the logic. But they did this in minute 70something. In other words, if you are a Juve or Inter fan, you're not getting anything out of this move since you will likely watch the full game during the re-broadcast later tonight. If you want to see a full trophy celebration, you're also getting nothing out of this. One thing about BeIN from day one until today, 90+% of the time, they will make the wrong choice when they are faced with a choice. In this instance, focus on the game at hand, a final. Show the medals and the trophy. Then cut to whatever remains of Juve-Inter, knowing that the full match will repeat. I'm not a Juve or Inter fan but if this was Roma or PSG then I wouldn't even mess with the live broadcast because I would expect that sensible producers will show a full medal/trophy celebration. I would set my DVR for the full broadcast that happens a few hours later.
Juve Inter game listed for 8pm, I wanted to watch the second half since I was unable to where I was, set the dvr, go to watch it and they're showing the Huddersfield Leeds game instead. WTF!
same thing on the Spanish channel - I set the DVR for their 6pm broadcast of Juve-Inter, then when I went to check it out I found they broadcast Sevilla-Villarreal in the slot. No idea why they felt compelled to mess with the schedule this weekend.
It was on the schedule last night, I set the dvr to tape it. Even when I went into the list to watch it it says Serie A Juventus vs Inter.
I think Real Madrid postponement screwed up their schedule completely. I found the juve-inter game in its entirety under celta-real m game albeit in spanish. Then, under juve-inter they had sevilla-Villareal.
It actually worked-out pretty well for BeIN, I think. Three big matches played at the same time and only 2 channels. Inevitably there will be people upset, except one game gets postponed so problem solved. They might've even got a nice ratings boost for the Serie A match from people tuning-in to see Madrid. Plus now they'll have a nice fixture to fill-up their midweek schedule later this season when the Celta - Madrid match is played. If I'm being picky my only complaint is when they switched away from the ACN final right after the final whistle to show the final 20 minutes of Juve v Inter on the English channel.
What's the point of having the same match on both the English and Spanish channels? You can access either language from either channel, so just show a different match.
I have nothing bad to say about BEIN's coverage of the ACN because in years past no one would even pick up this tournament. They at least picked up the rights and showed most of the matches live. The only thing I will say is it would have been nice to see the Trophy presentation at the end. But that is about it.
Because ACN in 2006 and 2008 (and possibly even before) was available on TV5 (French channel). I said this before. Just because you were unaware of this does not mean it is not a valid conclusion.
Well, I suppose I have to specify then. No one in English or Spanish (which is what really makes money here in the USA and really what people give a darn about when it comes to soccer coverage) Would broadcast the games on Television.
I think what we have to conclude is that when we are in a forum that mostly talks about networks in English and Spanish and mainstream availability it can be easily construed that was what I was talking about within the context.