Whoa! In the past, my cable company has shown to like to to charge a little extra for soccer PPVs so I gotta ask, is $25 normal for the FA Cup final?
I guess it being the final, it cost a little more since the semi-final cost me only $15.95 or so. Ahh well, they just better win it, that's all.
I think it was $19.95 last year, IIRC. Wife and kid were away that day so I watched. Too much to do today.
That isn't blacked out? Wow. I'm too cheap and have a WNT game at 1, MLS at 4, 6, 7:30 and 8:30. When I'm watching a 2-year-old (who wanted to go to storytime at 10:30), there's no way I'm paying for a game when I'll pretty much have soccer on the TV most of the day anyway. Imagine if I got FSW.
Not that it helps you much now, but yes, you could listen to it online via BBC's Five Live (as I did). Apparently BBC now has it written into their contracts with the FA permitting webcasts of FA Cup ties... or at least the final.
That's cool. I used to listen to it at work all the time, but don't have the luxury of a state university, Internet2 connection anymore and can't really do much streaming.
To answer the question, I think it is too much to pay, but there must be enough buys of the match last year for them to jack up the prices this time around.
I had went to the FA's website during the week and they listed all of the media outlets in the world that was carrying the game live. Here are some of the listed audience figures: Croatia 1,483,333 Greece 3,475,000 Serbia 1,200,000 Malta 10,295 Czech Repub. 320,000 Australia 4,889,000 Japan 4,783,000 China 160,000,000 Kenya 260,000 Those were just some of the examples. Now for all of North America: USA, Canada, Barbados, Berumda (Drum Please)..............10,000 Thats all per the FA. Why? Well, it's Pay-Per-View and Closed Circuit television from our most beloved TV broadcaster, Setanta. Just goes to show that Setanta is killing world soccer here. Until all of these competitions such as International matches, Celtic and Rangers, and other competitions such as the FA Cup are sold to free over the air broadcasters or cable channels such as FSW that soccer won't get much more promotion. The people selling the rights need to look forward and to sell those rights to the person who would reach the most people. Because, down the road, more exposure gets more people hooked and, therefore, much more revenue from the rights in future years. So until people ignore Setanta during the bid processes we will never see anything more important than the MLS final or the Women's World Cup Final live.
Yeah, I bought it....and it was an awful production. What was up with the lack of a game clock on the screen? Super annoying to say the least. Are all Setanta broadcasts like this, maybe?
Nope Sky - and Setanta removed all their graphics - hence no clock. And it wasnt hard to keep up with the score. At least we got Tyler and Gray + tons of post match.
Well, Sky was sending up a clean video feed, so that video outlets around the world could put their own graphics. Funny thing is Setanta usually leaves graphics in for the league PPV matches.
Because the FA is probably only tabulating PPV buys, and counting a bar's purchase as only one viewer, which would make the count quite erroneous. Uhh, world soccer is doing just fine here. Not getting BCS-size bucks, but it makes a profit, or else Setanta wouldn't have been gobbling up these properties for the last decade. Then it would be up the the cable/satellite/OTA interests to outbid Setanta or ISM. The FA and the EPL are just dealing with the highest bidder. Nothing wrong with that, in fact, it's quite American. I think that's what you wanted to say...
Just cast your minds back about 10 years. No football was available over here. I've heard stories of matches being shown on closed circuit at the Sports Arena or a week later in some movie theater. We've come a long way and to be honest, Setanta taking the financial risk and still being around today is proof that they haven't hurt the sport in the country at all.
I liked it better last year when they offered an FA Cup package for about $50 that got you the PPV game from each round. That seemed like a reasonable (if still expensive) deal. $25 for the final wasn't quite worth it to me especially given the matchup. But hey -- Setanta can charge whatever they want; all we can do is buy it or not buy it.
1) Setanta charges *everyone* at the bar, so I'm sure they're counted. 2) DirecTV joined game during Arsenal lineup. No pregame, crap postgame (surprised they stayed as long as they did), and no graphics. $5 more for this? 3) You could distinctly hear the sound that is played when graphics go on/off. 4) FSW will probably run graphics when they show it Sunday. A question, are all PPV's graphics-free on the EPL package? Thx, Jay!
I had the EPL package on DirecTV...it was a FSW production this year. No halftime or post-match commentary or anything but no complaints at all, otherwise. They are the same as all the other EPL games on FSW. In the past I think it was a Setanta package, tho? On soccertv.com I remember the ad saying that the broadcast would start at 8am EST for pre-game....was this the case? I was only able to watch the immediate replay.
When I was child back in the late sixties and early seventies ABC's Wide World of Sports use to have the FA Cup. It wasn't live or the whole match but we did watch it. Quite exciting for a little kid. My brother and I would go outside afterward and play in the yard pretending we were the different teams. A very lasting memory.
I don't care for the argument about people viewing the matches in bars. There are no English pubs within 50 miles of where I live. The PPV in the bars are only in the big market cities. That does nothing for the rest of us. Personally, I don't care if Setanta is making any money at it or not. I just think that when rights are put up for bid that the seller should look into the future and see if by selling them a certain way will help increase demand down the road. Why not sell something for less now that would get more viewers watching so that maybe they would get even higher bids for that same audience later. The more people that watch, the more interest in the product and the higher price that can be demanded for the rights and the advertising that goes with it. PPV and CCTV reaches a very small audience and can't have much potential considering how much it costs the consumer to buy it. 99 out of 100 consumers probably prefer free over paying extra.
Setanta got the FA Cup pretty much by default. Neither FOX nor ESPN or the Spanish-language networks want the product the the FA Cup had been a money-loser on non-PPV TV in the US. The last time a non-PPV TV network did the FA live in the US was Prime Network in 1995. Prime Network is no longer in business, as it has been absorbed by FOX Sports Net. Many products, including the English FA Cup and the European Championship, will be pay-per-view products in the US for the forseeable future. The viewership of these products are too small to justify the involvement of a non-PPV TV network. International soccer outside the World Cups will always be a niche TV product in the US, with the audience highly fractured to the point where virtually no product other than the ones involving the Mexican National Team and the two big Mexican Clubs (Guadalajara and Club America) can make money on advertising-supported non-PPV TV. The networks already have 9 years worth of soccer TV viewership data since World Cup 1994 to know exactly what products make money and what products do not. The networks aren't in business to "build" audience. They are in business to exploit the available audience for profit.