I am hearing rumors that they may be revert back to P-P-V. Anyone have the latest? I hope someone like ESPN+ swoops in at the last second or something.
I hope Bein shows them but I have not heard anything about that. And we probably would have known by now with some sort of promo, especially on the Spanish language channel.
Outfit called FITE has the rights (to most matches but not all) and they do PPV exclusively. As I understand it,the rights are sold by individual countries (home teams) so its going to be what is professional known as a cluster********. Here is a link to FITE advertising the matches they have. Note that there is no update of dates (officially pushed back to October 8th for the 1st round of matches as of now): https://www.fite.tv/p/south-american-world-cup-qualifiers-qatar-2022/ If the matches do indeed remain as PPV events, I believe we will see beINSports swoop in and show the the matches on their channels 48 hours after kickoff. Matches not being shown by FITE could easily end up on beINSports LIVE but wouldn't be surprised to see ESPN+ enter the game. SA www.soccertvblog.com
That must be a typo. I saw another listing for 90 dollars for 4 matches on a FIFA day. So I assume it is going to ne 25 dollars per match.
That is still f-ing ridiculous. I doubt many people will pay that, what with the availability of pirate Internet streams, etc. This is not 1993. Normally, people would go to a bar or restaurant and pay the cover, but that is not possible for the indefinite future with Covid. These dudes should sell the rights to BEIN or whoever the highest broadcast bidder is. PPV would be a huge miscalculation in this climate.
“Buying this bundle you can watch all: Round 1 SAWCQ: Paraguay vs Peru SAWCQ: Uruguay vs Chile SAWCQ: Colombia vs Venezuela SAWCQ: Argentina vs Ecuador SAWCQ: Brazil vs Bolivia Round 2: SAWCQ: Bolivia vs Argentina SAWCQ: Ecuador vs Uruguay SAWCQ: Chile vs Colombia SAWCQ: Peru vs Brazil At a great price of only $189.99!” Price is certainly not great. FITE is a streaming service so this is for steaming only. The might do well with wrestling and MMA but this has the makings of an all our disaster. They are selling replays of the Turkish Cup Final for 10 dollars. What? Who is their right mind will lay that much for a replay?
Good God, those people are on crack. Can't see many people biting for this at price especially during a pandemic. Hopefully, ESPN+ or BeIN swoop in and grab the games...
A lot of South Americans living in the USA, who are the biggest target audience here, have those pirate IPTV boxes and will get the games that way. Most soccer fans who are not from a CONMEBOL country are not going to bite on PPV at any price. These FITE guys need to understand that.
I don't know. I have seen Peru and El Salvador friendly matches advertised for 25-30 bucks over the last few cycles. And that is just friendlies, so clearly there is a market for it. I personally would not buy matches for that price but there is a sucker born every minute.
I wonder how many actual purchases there were of those PPV games. And how many of those purchases were by bars/restaurants. I think these guys are in for an unpleasant surprise in the new reality.
I remember '94 Univision had some games but most games were closed circuit in bars. 1998 was all closed circuit in bars. I think the same for 2002. By 2006 I think jumptv (or something) had games on streaming for like $10-15 each, although streaming was not quite there yet (understatement). For 2010 I recall having to purchase games on PPV (at least in my case on Comcast in SD) for $30 each. It's been great having BeIN for the last two cycles. Beyond the COVID-19 reality which makes it impossible, you'd not think that in 2020 you'd have to go to a Latin bar to watch football. I don't even know where they are in the Bay Area as the last time I had to go to one, I was living in Los Angeles, and had to commute quite a long way from my home to the bar.
The one thing that these FITE guys got right is selling the games in a package, because there are some games that nobody in the USA would buy. Like Uruguay v. Bolivia. Paraguay v. Bolivia, etc. But their prices are magnitudes too high. A FIFA window with two rounds of games should be something like USD $10 for the package, if they really want to sell them.
Damn, these seems like bad news. Am still hoping that the reason we haven't heard BeIN or ESPN step up is because the schedule is still TBD. Once CONMEBOL confirms a starting date for their qualifiers hopefully one of these two networks will scoop-up the rights(?),
Yeah. What I dislike most about these PPV operations is that they are usually short-timers who come in like robber barons to try to extort the maximum possible from fans, acting in the most greedy way, typically they then fail, and get out, leaving everyone as losers. The PPV guys lose money because they charge too much, the few fans that pay lose their money because they paid too much, and most fans don't pay but lose the chance to see the games. It really is a lose-lose proposition for the PPV guys and the fans. Soccer is not analogous to boxing for PPV purposes.
I am not sure what is going on with "FITE" because you cannot even purchase the PPV CONMEBOL games on the website. They all say "sold out." I wonder if they figured out that this was not a good idea and are trying to resell the rights. Hopefully so. Also, did anyone notice that most of these guys running FITE are from Bulgaria? Nothing against Bulgaria, but that seems odd.
They just did not update their schedule due to the pandemic uncertainty. It does seem very unprofessional though. Hopefully a Network purchases it away from them but I am not sure it will happen.
That might be right about the update. But, if they were sure they were going forward with their PPV plan, why not start raking in the $? Also, last week, CONMEBOL confirmed the dates for October. Of course, that might change. It probably will change. I still hope BEIN gets these back. They did a terrific job, especially in Spanish, with pre-game, post-game, split-screen simultaneous games, all games on CONNECT, etc.
If you look closely at the FITE games listed on their website, it seems they have (had?) the first two rounds that were to be played in September (already postponed from March). Those games have been pushed back to 2021. As of now, the two rounds in October 2020 are going forward. But those are different games, and FITE is not advertising them on its website. So, this situation is not clear at the moment. Anybody have more info? It is probably a complete mess.
livesoccertv.com says that FITE just has CONMEBOL rounds 1 and 2, which have been pushed back to 2021 (or maybe even 2022, it is not clear). And it says Spanish language commentary. So, are English language rights separate? If so, who has those? Here is what livesoccertv.com has on their website: Channels licensed to broadcast World Cup Qualifying in United States FIFA.com » Seasons 2019-2021 FIFA and CAF have reached an agreement to have 2022 World Cup Qualifying games from the African region streamed live on FIFA's official website, for free. Live streams of matches selected by FIFA will be available to watch internationally. FITE » Seasons 2020-2022 FITE has secured the rights to air live 2022 World Cup Qualifying matches from the South American region, with Spanish commentary. Their package of games includes fixtures from Round 1 and 2. YouTube » Seasons 2019-2021 Following a deal between FIFA and CAF, African qualifying matches for the 2022 World Cup will be streamed live on FIFA's official YouTube channel, for free. Whereas not all games may be streamed, those that are selected will be available to watch internationally.
FITE now has rounds 1 and 2 listed for October 31 and November 1 on their website, but you still cannot purchase them (for anybody that would shell out that absurd $). And they have the games listed that were to be played in March 2020. Are those even the correct dates? I thought that it was October 8-13. And are the March 2020 games the ones that are scheduled? I had read that the March 2020 and September 2020 games were pushed back to next year and that CONMEBOL was starting with the games originally scheduled for October 2020. But all of this will probably change again.