English Premier League regular season games and the FA Cup will be shown more extensively in the United States with a new deal signed recently with Fox Sports World. The deal also includes England's 2006 World Cup qualifying matches and the 2008 European Championship. I'm very happy about this deal and glad that people recognize the rapidly increasing market in the U.S. for Euro soccer. Maybe now some people (err.. Rangers00) won't have to be buy 10 different satellites and be trapped in their house all day to catch some Euro teams play live on their set! http://soccernet.espn.go.com/headlinenews?id=301686&cc=5739
No. The article states quite clearly that this only applies to qualifiers for the English team. That is a bit of a plus insofar as all of those have up to now only been available via Setanta.
Oh how wonderful. Now we will have England as $25 PPV. You will note that at that press conference that the FA wants to make England the U.S. fans' number two team. Don't know how they could do that with PPV and the spanish speaking population's love of Mexico. Guess the U.S. national team slides to number three. Yay, right. PPV doesn't creat fan base. FSW will need to show all of the England national team's matches live for any chance to get a major following.
Most of your comment is rubbish. "The spanish-speaking population's love of Mexico"??? Although Mexican decendants account for 60% of the Latin-American population in the U.S., it does not mean someone who speaks Spanish in the United States is from Mexico. And not to mention, there are millions of Latin-Americans in the U.S. who speak Spanish but are proud of being American and they favor the U.S. National team over another national team from their families' background. And only people who live in southern California or southern Texas would really believe that Mexican soccer has a bigger grip in United States than its own product. Get real. They usually tend to think areas like LA, Chicago, Dallas, and NYC = USA. Totally neglecting the little piece of land between LA and New York called America where about 94% of the population lives. Your best bet is that any soccer fan in this area is most likely a USNT fan. I think that clearly without a doubt puts USNT #1. I know in New York and in New England there are large numbers of people who are passionate British and Irish soccer fans, including yourself in Ohio and myself in Florida. Hence, the North American Celtic and Man Utd Supporter Clubs that exist, and what appears to be an annual summer tour of these teams in the ChampionsWorld Tour in USA. So its reasonably understood why the English FA wants to extend their marketing in United States. But USNT will always be #1 without the slighest bit of concern.
Lets see how severely FSW cuts down on coverage of other leagues around the globe before we break out the champagne.