I was sad to see the following in my inbox this morning: I know some on this board have had personal tête-à-têtes with Oliver in the past and I could care less about all that. I just wanted to post a "Thank You" to Oliver for maintaining soccerTV.com for so many years. It has been an invaluable resource to me personally for the better part of a decade, both as a website and a YahooGroups mailing list. It will definitely be missed. Thank you Oliver, and good luck with your new adventures!
soccerTV.com will stay up through at least January 2, 2008. There has been a delay in the escrow process at Moniker, Inc. (the auctioneer) due to key executives being on winter vacation. There is a possibility soccerTV.com will stay up in its current form through the weekend of January 6. The last soccerTV Update e-mail that Oliver Tse will send out will likely be on January 3 or January 4.
So what's gonna take it's place? Where are people going to go to find out what soccer is on TV? Or do we have to go to individual sites from now on, like FSC's site, goltv's site, etc, to get our info?
That's because you didn't subscribe to soccerTV Update, the FREE weekly email newsletter. The weekly emails, not the website, was the real value for the 24000+ subscribers, and more importantly, the sponsors who were sure that their message would get to 24000+ soccer viewers in the U.S. The email newsletter, not the website, was the "secret sauce" which made the entire business work once the Internet advertising business model switched from "hits" to "registered users" after the dot-com bust. The long time sponsors (i.e. Setanta, GolTV) basically paid for the email ads and got the web ad banners for free. There are a number of competitors out there, not to mention that the new owner of soccerTV.com hasn't revealed what he plans to do with the assets yet. We will know soon enough.
soccerTV.com the website will remain up in its original form at least through the morning of January 7. Moniker, Inc. (the auctioneer) has to tie up one loose end with the buyer before the escrow can close and the new owner can take over the assets.
The website was awful. You needed a bottle of aspirin to read through it. It was pretty irrelevant in this day and age of on screen menu's of digital cable. Now the email list, that was pretty good as far as insider news was concerned. It wasnt anything special though seeing as how all the info was immediately posted on bigsoccer within minutes. I really dont think the loss if this site will hurt anyone in the least bit.
I think it's a big loss, although it looks like the Live Soccer TV site will fill the gap (if only they can get it working for Firefox so there aren't these strange scroll bars in the middle of the window). I disagree about on-screen guides. Too often the guides are wrong, aren't updated until the last minute, or not filled in (i.e., ESPN Deportes will just list UEFA Champions League or TyC will just list Futbol Argentina), whereas Oliver would list the actual games. I think he did a great job with the site, and hope he continues to provide us with insider knowledge on this forum. Take care. EDIT: Of course 15 minutes after I post this message I go to watch Chelsea-QPR on the DVR and what do I have Ipswich-Portsmouth. So, FSC feeds DirecTV information for the on-line guide but that information does not match the content. I am guessing that SoccerTV would have had the right info.
I never subscribed to the newsletter but I still thought it was a great resource, especially for EPL action on weekends. I'll miss the site for sure.
I'll miss the site too - BigSoccer TV helps fill a small part of the gap, but soccerTV was a great resource.
I was a frequent visitor a few years back and it was indeed a good source of info. Sad to see it go but Oliver should be quite happy with the 60 some Ks in his bank account.
The escrow should close by the end of the business day on Wednesday, January 9. Oliver Tse will provide the buyer with consulting support for 90 days after escrow closes.
Winning bid was 80K, 12K of which goes to the auctioneer for commission, with the seller taking home 68K. http://marketplacepro.moniker.com/auction/events/184/results.html
Was there anything in the deal that prevents him from starting up a similar site under a different URL, such as soccerTseV.com?
The reason why OT sold the soccerTV.com assets in the first place was because he didn't want to spend 10-15 hours a week running the website any longer.
I, for one, will miss your site, Oliver. Now it's just some photo of a kid and a fat guy and an even fatter guy sitting on a couch and a bunch of useless links that lead to nowhere. Why would I follow a link that leads to Target for all my International Soccer needs?