Manu/Chelsea+2004/50 Season Programming

Everything's up in the air at this point.

The EPL and Bundesliga schedules haven't been set in terms of start times, so FSW has no idea what matches they or PPV will have. That should come sometime in July for EPL, while Bundesliga telecasts are usually decided a couple of weeks in advance.

No word on whether French League will return, depends on what IMG/TWI charges.

As for UEFA Cup, it depends on which marketing agencies they get games from and how the teams covered by those agencies do. Setanta Sport should have Celtic and Rangers home matches and others provided by Sportfive, FSW will probably get games from Mediapro (Spanish teams) and Octagon CSI (English teams). FSW will have the final, in any event.

Champions League qualifiers will probably end up with Setanta Sport, who will show most of the English-language Champions League coverage this season and would have no qualms paying up to acquire some qualifiers from the various marketing agencies, especially those involving Man U and Liverpool.

 

The deal between TWI and FSI for Ligue 1 should have been completed by now.

The available time slots for Ligue 1 on FOX Sports World are Saturdays at 2pm ET and/or Sundays at 5pm ET.

The only product that FSI will drop for 2004-2005 is Dutch Eredivisie, which moves over to ESPN Deportes on Sundays at 12noon ET (re-air at 5:30pm ET).

With the exception of the 13 UEFA CL games on ESPN2, UEFA CL (starting with match day 1 through the final) will be on the Setanta Channel (in English) and ESPN Deportes (in Spanish) for each of the next 2 seasons. ESPN2 will only have one semifinal series instead of both, with the other series airing on the Setanta Channel.

(ESPN is stuck with having to air UEFA CL on ESPN2 in the US because ESPN Deportes currently does not reach enough homes to satisfy a UEFA contract stipulation.)

 

I'm not really worried about the status of matches aired this season. I think chelsea Vs. Man U to open is brilliant!! I don't mind French football (even tho I think the French have no backbone). As far as the dutch league; I think FSW should get rid of Serie A and the dutch league and bring in some Asian league games; maybe some k-league and some J-league games.
...or even some La legia games. (real madrid)


.....oh yea, GO CHELSEA!!!!!!!!

 

FSW already does not show Serie A.

 

Serie A and La Liga are controlled by Gol TV so FSW has nothing to do with them.

What I find funny is that I seen an ad this morning on FSW and they said they were still showing Eredivisie. Obviously, someone there forgot to pull that ad.

 

here is the expected epl week 1 schedule for fsw/ppv

sat 7:45 am Tottenham-Liverpool fsw
sat 10:00am Norwich-Crystal Palace Pay Per View
sat 12:15pm Middlesbrough-Newcastle fsw
sat 2:30pm (possible time slot) Man City-Fulham fsw (tape delayed)
sun 11am Chelsea-Manchester United Pay Per View
sun 2pm Everton-Arsenal fsw (tape delayed)

all times et

 

Hopefully it's "and" instead of "or". Hard to follow a league (especially one which doesn't get a ton of coverage in English language sites) with only one game a week.

It would also be nice for FSW to air the Sunday 9:00 game live. They air the Saturday 7:30 game right before the 10:00 PPV slot so I don't see why they can't air a 9:00 game right before the 11:00 PPV slot.

And Man U v Chelsea is definitely on PPV.

 

The schedule is showing a third Saturday game on delay at 3:00 Eastern. I don't think its a repeat of either early game since it says "Premier League D", usually "D" on the FSW schedule means delayed but not repeated.

Edited: Just re-read Sixer 1's post....so that must be the game at 3:00. Wow...very impressive, if they keep this # and quality of games up for the entire season then I'll be a very happy man.

 

Only bad thing about a 3:00 game is that the second half will conflict with Kansas City vs. San Jose on ESPN2. I'd rather see Manchester City - Fulham start at 2:05/2:10 or so, that way it's over by 4:00 (they could obviously shorten half time if need be).

 

I don't think they will be shortening half time so that they can make it easier for their competitor to get viewers. Obviously, ESPN2 start times aren't the biggest priority for FSW.....nor should it be.

 

You may be right, though last season it seemed they tended to stick rugby in that slot. And they do air MLS of course. I'd personally rather they not, but I'm not in charge of scheduling. I know for me I'd never watch a 3:00 game if I'm going to switch it off at halftime, whereas if they had it at 2:10 and I could avoid the result for 2 hours I likely would watch.

 

It sounds great to me. Two live and one tape delayed games is enough, especially once the NFL season starts. Has anyone any information on the live radio streams of the BBC. It was announced by the BBC in June that they would stream over the internet the EPL games. The internet broadcasts are great for those Monday and midweek games so you can listen at work.

 

lou, the internet radio broadcasts on the beeb will only be available to those in the UK.

 

I'd like to know where you got this information. Presently, the only non-subscription feeds that are blocked out on a country-by-country basis is Yahoo's Soccer Pass. The BBC has never blocked out webcasts to those outside of England when they have aired matches online.

There was talk about it back in another thread but that was by the people from World Soccer Weekly who were afraid that it would hurt their over-the-air broadcasts which by the way they have said on one of their shows this past week that have yet to renew for the coming season.

If the BBC were given the internet rights by the Premier League you can bet they are worldwide. The BBC would not want to pay a big amount and then spend even more on technology to block non-England computers. The BBC wants to be the world's broadcaster of the Premiership just the way Sky has taken control of television rights.

 

I have heard it could be blocked, but I am not well informed how it can be done. I listen to the BBC all day and we do know certain events are not broadcasted at all over the net. The old BBC World Service helped me to really follow the EPL and develop my love of the game and did it miss when the service to North America was stopped. Unitl the NA service was stopped you could get live radio broadcasts of the EPL. Given that the BBC broadcasts one game with frequent updates from around the EPL and numerous other breaks to live coverage and news and other sports,their coverage doesn't really hurt play by play from a specific game.

 

We'll see what happens. You can still subscribe to your favorite team's radio stream, no matter where you live. It sometimes comes as a package with delayed video highlights.

 

Here's the article discussing the radio coverage, and the online coverage.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/3777341.stm

From my understanding, it will be available online, to anyone. In the past, the web broadcast of Five Live has simply been blocked. Perhaps we will be able to hear the matches after all.

 

Does anyone know about canadian rights to champions league games?

 

25 games each season on TSN and RDS, with additional games on TLN.

 

Please speak for yourself.

Man Utd will still be without Rio, Mourinho will still be trying to get a clue about the EPL (which his comments to date indicate he has yet to find), as will all his new players, who won't actually become a team until 2006 at the earliest. After excusing the lame performance on Saturday due to "tiredness", he's now going to send those tired players to the hot USA for a grueling tour.

In any event, the ManUtd-Chelsea match will tell us zip about the season to come (and August usually doesn't do that anyway).

I'm predicting 6th for Chelsea (mostly because Terry, Duff, Lampard and Gudjonsen will still be in the squad). ManUtd is much more difficult to predict, Ferguson usually knows what he is doing, but every indication is that he is also planning for 2006 - he certainly has not obtained any new players in the last 6 months that address his squad weaknesses (but neither has Newcastle or Liverpool, for that matter).

I look for Birmingham to be one of the surprise contenders - Bruce has created a solid defense, and is now adding quality attacking Premiership players like Izzet and Melchiot (the latter, while technically a defender, is one of the best at coming forward effectively).

If there is anything that 2003-2004 revealed, it is that players - no matter how well they have done in other leagues, don't do well in the Premiership their first season (or even two).

Even in Baseball - where almost all established superstars have already played in the same league, a huge outlay of cash and big names does not guarantee success (when was the last time that the Dodgers were in the World Series).

 

I think you've all got this first match all wrong. We'll probably end up with boring, defensive 0 - 0 draw. Isn't that what always happens to hyped-up matches?