ESPN2 to air only Tues UCL matches

I would expect for ESPN2 to show mostly Ajax matches because of American John O'Brien

 

As long as they show two matches toward the end of the competition as they did last year, it's ok by me.

 

Champions League Coverage in the U.S.

Does anyone know if it will be possible to watch any of the four English club's Champions League matches in the U.S.? A couple of years ago at an English Pub in San Diego I was able to watch a few of Manchester United's Champions League matches that were not shown on ESPN2. I think they were shown on Setanta and the Pub charged something like $7 admission. Will Setanta be showing any of the Champions League matches on PPV this year?

 

I may be wrong here

But i seem to remember reading somewhere on the UEFA site that the TV audience in America would have to watch only Spanish teams as ESPN had rights to show those teams only.

 

Setanta Sport did not show any Champions League games last year. However, I talked to someone at Setanta about a week ago, and they were going to try and make a deal with ESPN and TEAM to show some of the games this year. I'm sure the games will be listed at soccertv.com if Setanta are able to work out a deal.

 

Hi Oliver

 

Ah, your loss would be my gain.
Not that the Spaniards are bad by any means, quite the contrary in fact, it's just that i would have more of a "my team" feeling about the EPL teams.

 

Team prohibited ESPN from sub-licensing the CL games to other carriers starting last season. That's why Setanta carried some CL games from EPL in 2000-01, but no more in 2001-02.

ESPN2 indeed got the ESPN International feed, which is geared towards Spanish and Italian teams. You would be hard pressed to find a match NOT involving a Spanish or Italian team.

 

What REALLY pisses me off is that FSN Chicago just started showing one EPL game a week...ON TUESDAY AFTERNOON. What kind of ignorance are we working with here when the only two channels who show international soccer matches on basic cable decide to show them on the same day at around the same time

 

CL on Setanta

Thanks for posting this. I really hope that Setanta is able to show at least a few of the matches involving the EPL clubs. The English Pub that I went to was packed for some of the CL matches even though there was an admission charge.

 

You're now 2 for 2, as the ESPN schedule now has Deportivo/Milan for 24 September.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/tvlistings/scheduleSport?date=20020924&network=18&sport=SO

To be honest, though, this is 8 more matches than I expected to see from the first round, given that they cut back from what they said they'd show in the course of the early rounds last season.

I wonder on what match day someone will post a thread saying "ESPN To Show Wednesday Match" because they don't hear the commentator say, "for our international viewers only."

 

Well, it seems like ESPN in Latin America cut its Champions League coverage too.

This is what they covered in the past:

Tuesday - 3 games on ESPN LA
Wednesday - 3 games on ESPN LA
Friday - 1 game on ESPN LA
Saturday - 1 game on ESPN LA
Sunday - 1 game on ESPN DOS
Monday - 1 game on ESPN DOS

So on each matchday in the 1st phase, they show 10 games, 2 live, 4 same-day delay, 4 others delayed for a few days.

This year, the coverage becomes

Tuesday - 3 games on ESPN LA, 1 game on ESPN DOS
Wednesday - games on ESPN LA, 1 game on ESPN DOS
Thursday - ESPN DOS game replayed on ESPN LA
Friday - ESPN DOS game replayed on ESPN LA

As it turns out, the coverage becomes 4 games live, 4 games same-day delay, a total of 8 games.

I think this year's coverage has 2 fewer games, but it's better. How many people would watch a CL game on 5/6-day delay on ESPN DOS when the scores are long known?

 

How many people in the US have ESPN LA and ESPN DOS?

 

Someone else would have to give an authorative answer to this question, but I was under the impression that ESPN made it impossible (or at least very difficult) to get these entities in the US, largely because of the rights issues concerning US leagues that they show on these networks. I believe that other US networks have the US rights to NBA and NFL games (and probably some MLB games as well) that ESPN shows abroad.

 

Thanks, that's what I figured.

I'd rather watch the home legs but it looks like good news for us, huh Spartak?

 

Amen to that.

Hopefully sometime in the future I'll be attending them in person. I'm seriously looking into moving abroad. You're not originally from Italy are you?

 

Help me out here guys. I'm a little lost. Are these matches you guys are mentioning gonna be on ESPN in the US? Or only on those ESPN channels I've never heard of like ESPN DOS?