NOT. I won't mention the large amount of matches from ManU/Chelsea/Liverpool, because that is a given - EPL watchers in the USA are glory hunters. But: Tottenham - 3 Manchester City - 3 Aston Villa - 3 Sunderland - 3 Derby - 3 and Arsenal - 1 Everton - 1 Newcastle - 1 Bolton - 1 Portsmouth - 1 Wigan - 1 West Ham - 1 Middlesbrough - 0 outside of Wigan and Tottenham, the latter group are all amongst the best performing teams over the past 10 years, and the former group are amonst the lesser performing teams...
Here is a schedule from EPL Talk's blog, it includes most FSC games minus some midweek ones included above, doesnt include some Setanta from the end of the month, and is missing Xtra, but combining the schedule provided by HDSports with this one, it will give you a good idea... Saturday, August 11 Sunderland v Tottenham Hotspur, 7:45am ET, Setanta Sports West Ham United v Manchester City, 10am ET, Fox Soccer Channel Bolton Wanderers v Newcastle United, 10am ET, Setanta Sports Aston Villa v Liverpool, 12:15pm ET, Fox Soccer Channel Derby v Portsmouth [Tape Delay], 2:30pm ET, Fox Soccer Channel Sunday, August 12 Chelsea v Birmingham City, 8:30am ET, Setanta Sports Manchester United v Reading, 11am ET, Fox Soccer Channel Tuesday, August 14 Tottenham Hotspur v Everton, 3pm ET, Setanta Sports Wednesday, August 15 Portsmouth v Manchester United, 3pm ET, Setanta Sports Saturday, August 18 Portsmouth v Bolton Wanderers, 7:45am ET, Setanta Sports Tottenham Hotspur v Derby County, 10am ET, Fox Soccer Channel Blackburn Rovers v Arsenal, 10am ET, Setanta Sports Newcastle United v Aston Villa, 12:15pm ET, Fox Soccer Channel Wigan Athletic v Sunderland [Tape Delay], 2:30pm ET, Fox Soccer Channel Sunday, August 19 Manchester City v Manchester United, 8:30am ET, Setanta Sports Liverpool v Chelsea, 11am ET, Fox Soccer Channel Saturday, August 25 Sunderland v Liverpool, 7:45am ET, Setanta Sports Arsenal v Manchester City, 10am ET, Fox Soccer Channel Chelsea v Portsmouth, 10am ET, Setanta Sports Everton v Blackburn Rovers, 12:15pm ET, Fox Soccer Channel Sunday, August 26 Derby County v Birmingham City [Tape Delay], 1am ET, Fox Soccer Channel Middlesbrough v Newcastle United, 8:30am ET, Setanta Sports Manchester United v Tottenham Hotspur, 11am ET, Fox Soccer Channel Saturday, September 1 Fulham v Tottenham Hotspur, 10am ET, Fox Soccer Channel Manchester United v Sunderland, 12:15pm ET, Fox Soccer Channel Blackburn Rovers v Manchester City [Tape Delay], 6pm ET, Fox Soccer Channel
The full, complete and final schedule will give me a good idea. Bits and pieces is a waste of time, just wait for the real thing.
I believe the picks for the 10 am Satuday games (and weekday matches when there are more than one) are done a couple of months at a time. The 'complete' US EPL (or is it now BPL?) schedule won't probably be known until sometime in 2008.
Umm, get Setanta?? It's funny to me that fans of Premiership clubs can actually still complain about a lack in coverage. Your team's match is available live on US television nearly every week!
Dude, through the 26th this is complete, with the only exception of Setanta Xtra matches, which is the 3rd choice 10 am game that the fewest number of people can get. The schedule is released bit by bit all season
Wasn't really complaining. I'm not a fan, more of a emphasizers. I'm a working man and even with Tivo I couldn't watch that many matches on a weekend, considering there's also GTV. Still, I might get Setanta for the Uefa Cup.
You're not understanding this. The 3rd Choice 10amET game is shown on the regular Setanta Sports USA channel at NoonET (unless there is some other big event, eg Rugby, in which case it delayed by a few more hours). You do not have to have Setanta Extra to view the 3rd Choice Match. Globecast, ITVN, and Dish Network now all have Setanta Sports USA, but not Setanta Extra, so they always show the 3rd choice match delayed on the regular channel. On August 11th, the 3rd choice match is probably Arsenal, so we are not talking about trivial relegation candidate matches. I mean "complete" for one week, not the whole season...
Nooooooooooo.... Setanta USA (regular DTV, Dish, etc channel) will not be showing the Championship match live at 12:05 EST? Is that match only going to be live on Setanta Broadband (already listed there)?
Click here to send a note to your cable company requesting the addition of Setanta Sports to the channel lineup. These guys need to hear from us in mass. I'll put a post out on the main board as well.
Hm, thats news to me. Since when does Dish have Setanta? I have Dish and I'm forced to get that ITVN thing to get this channel alone, which sucks because its pretty much a glorified computer feed.
It cannot be listed there yet, as the schedule only goes through August 10th, as I type this. (And I was only referring to last year's scheduling, which varied from week to week.)
Okay, the first matchday listings: Saturday, August 11- 7:45 am (Setanta) England: Sunderland v. Tottenham (L) 9:55 am (Setanta) England: Bolton v. Newcastle (L) 10:00 am (FSC) England: West Ham v. Manchester City (L) 12:10 pm (FSC) England: Aston Villa v. Liverpool (L) 2:30 pm (FSC) England: Derby v. Portsmouth (SDD) 2:30 pm (Setanta) England: Everton v. Wigan (SDD) Sunday, August 12- 8:30 am (Setanta) England: Chelsea v. Birmingham (L) 11:00 am (FSC) England: Manchester United v. Reading (L) The non-TV game for Saturday is Middlesbrough v. Blackburn. Curiously, Sunday's 7 am Arsenal-Fulham game is also not listed, but probably will be shown on Xtra when Setanta figures out they have the rights to show the game. Personally, I cannot understand what the big debate is about. Coverage of the BPL in the US is better than it has ever been. If you want to see (almost) all the BPL games you want to see, get both stations. Before Setanta got the rights to show games, FSC showed two live games on Saturday (7:45 am and 12:15 pm) and two tape-delayed matches (Sat at 3pm on a five-hour delay, and Sunday at 1pm on a 4 1/2 hour delay). The only other live matches you could watch were when the EPL scheduled weekday matches on FSC or weekends on PPV for the bargain price of $29.95 for the two games. Now you get four live games on Saturday (five if you get Setanta Xtra), plus two live games on Sunday. Most leagues where there is extensive coverage are carried by more than one channel these days...MLS carries up to four national games per week on four different networks (ESPN2, HDNet, FSC, TeleFutura), while the Mexican League can be seen on all three Univision stations (including TeleFutura and Galavision), Azteca America (an how many of you can get that station?), and Fox Sports Espanol. To use an American domestic league as a further example, an NFL fan now can watch his sport on no less than five stations: CBS, FOX, NBA, ESPN, and NFL Network.
They post their broadband schedules further in advance. Anyhoo - looks like they'll be showing a stupid rugby friendly live in place of the Championship match, then the taped Premiership match. God I hate rugby
First of all, no one other than you call it "BPL". It's "EPL". I even have an account at Barclays Bank, but still don't call it that. Second, the only two matches I'm interested in watching the first weekend are Middlesbrough-Blackburn, and Arsenal-Fulham. So, I guess I'll have to get up at dawn, and see if there are any Chinese feeds on the Internet. $15 per month more and nothing has changed - still can't see sleep in on Saturday and Sunday. Everton-Wigan ??
Is this pretty much confirmed? Any chance of getting Setanta to do an Xtra-Xtra? It also seems that 7am Sunday starts would anger the publicans. Thanks, Peter
Yes I do, that's why I am grumpy - I can't use the DVR if none of the USA channels will carry the two matches I want to see...
If you want to be a pedant, it's just The Premier League, with the competition called The Premiership. Or if you want to use the formal and advertisers lingo, it's the FA Barclays Premier League. You won't see any references to English Premier League or the cringe worthy Americanized "EPL" anywhere in England. I think that term was actually invented by Lionel Bienvenue
Brilliant Idea: Bring my second DirecTV HD receiver downstairs and hook it up to the second input of my 40" HD set and do PIP with FSC and Setanta while DVR records match on Setanta Xtra. FSC + Setanta USA + GolTV + HDNet + DirectKick = Soccer Saturday 7:30am-Midnight
The reason I referred to it as BPL is that is the official name of the league is now: Barclay's Premier League (formerly Barclay's English Premier League), so call it whatever you prefer, but prepare to hear it from the announcers during the coming season (unless you avoid hearing it by exclusively watching matches with Chinese commentary ). It is disappointing when your favorite club is not shown, but that probability, while small with all the games available on tv, is higher for those clubs with smaller followings. And this will not change even if one believes that the fans of the bigger clubs are not pure fans like those who root for the smaller teams, or they are 'fair weather' fans, or any other attitude that makes one think that their team is more deserving to be on. Those who follow the league as a whole, and not just the results of one or two clubs, will find several of the matches shown each week to be of interest. The reason the Everton match was chosen over the Middlesbrough-Blackburn contest might have been that Everton is the only one of the four teams in the two matches in question that is playing in Europe this coming season, or perhaps it is Setanta's apparent preference for teams from Liverpool. It could even be to showcase Team USA's number one goalkeeper. Only the Setanta programmer knows for sure.