I hate to break it to you, but I can almost asure you that the ratings for a Champions League match will be higher than ratings for a streetball show would be!! This is a complete disgrace in my book. I can't figure out why ESPN would be doing this, especially since they have a contractual obligation to show the matches for the Champions League as well. This is total crap and screwed my plans for the afternoon for sure!! GRRRRR, well at least it will be on nice and late at night again like some of the MLS matches have been.
But what was the chance that all four series would start in either the Mountain or Pacific time zones, especially a month ago?
I wonder if they are in violation of the broadcast contract that requires one live match per match week. Maybe they are covered by selling live matches to Setanta.
I just got out of class to see basketball players with names like "Dribbling Machine" and "The Headache". Thanks ESPN for messing up my afternoon.
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-I'd like to see all these contract stipulations that Disney is breaking. Where do you guys get your copies of the contracts? -Did it again? When did this happen for CL before? -They times are not known ahead of time. Depending where teams finish, there could have been games at 4ish, 7ish and 11ish today. -FSW is interested? Given that I see people bitching about all kinds of things for their MLS coverage, what's make you think they'll be so perfect? -If anyone can back up the boast that Streetball gets better ratings than CL, I'd like to see it. Remember, CL gets WUSA-type ratings.
Not necessarily true; I remember in past years being pissed off when the CL on ESPN2 was suspended for 5-10-15 minutes to show the Braves/Twins or some such, clinching. The baseball was on ESPN, yet the ESPN honchos felt it necessary to show the clinching and the celebrations, not only on ESPN, but on ESPN2 at exactly the same time. Y'know....... All inane celebrations all the time.
Fixed. And you are all idiots for thinking that ESPN is screwing you, being unfaithful to the spirit of some negotiated contract, or making a bad business decision.
You and me both, I had been looking forward to watching the match before I headed to soccer practice, but instead I see what is probably a replay or something of guys that are just on TV because they love to showboat but aren't good enough at real basketball to make money playing professionally.
...but hey...at least there's a Freddy Adu story on the front page of ESPN.com right now... for the record...I have the choice of all 8 CL matches Live right now....not watching any of them
FSW wouldn't be perfect, but considering how they cover other leagues I would imagine we would at least get a couple of live matches a week plus a highlights show. Isn't that a big improvement over ESPN even if we have to listen to Mad Max call the matches?
Let's look at it this way, then. TV is driven by ratings and sponsor interest. Who's on TV more, hoops or soccer? And people are idiots when every decision is personalized. "Thanks for ruining my day." Get the hell over yourself. The decision is pretty understandable. The timing and execution of the decision show pretty poor judgement. I pity that some people are so intent on making the world think like them that they can't see the difference.
You're assuming FSW can afford the fees. Even if they could, you're assuming (erroneously) that enough people get FSW to make it worthwhile. "Almost"? Why don't you just admit that you can't prove it and you're just making a wild, uneducated guess?
I clicked on the Champions League and it's going nowhere - appears to be looping. Hopefully because we're all so pleased with the coverage.
We all had better things to do than bitch--we wanted to watch football and some of us interupted our busy days to do so. We all know we are a minority audience and we are getting screwed, but we can still bitch about it or write angry letters or something. No offense, but don't you have something better to do than respond to all of us? Was Streetball the scheduled ESPN show that got moved due to Baseball, because then I'd understand, sort of. But why does another "filler show" get priority over live sports? Where can we find ratings reports? Contract information? I want answers!
It's an attempt to destroy soccer in the US. MLB is intimidated b/c they know their product sucks, and is quite boring. Yes that's exactly what it is.
First thing--no, they didn't know this would be the first day of the playoffs months ago. They didn't know it until Sunday, probably. Two-- "using a lame excuse to screw you out of a game"?? Yea, ESPN buys the rights to something, and then tried everything in their power to NOT show it. I like soccer more, but these playoff series are going to be huge. Regardless, even a Expos / Pirates lineup would be shown before a CL match. Get over it. We're in America.
Maybe I just don't get it, but according to my Directv guide the Baseball games are both on ESPN and not ESPN2. I don't understand why they are not showing this game live.
I agree that the timing was bad. They knew on Saturday night that there wouldn't be any one-game playoffs. It's just the sense of entitlement on these boards that pisses me off. And it's bad when someone like Beau, who I really respect, goes along by framing it in terms of the spirit of an agreement.
Presumably Disney made the switch so that they can show the start of the 4pm ET baseball game on ESPN2 if the 1pm game runs long. Maybe it's just as well they moved CL because we would all be pissed off if they broke into the CL match to show baseball. I remember they broke into a match for a Michael Jordan news conference a few years ago.