38 Games! http://www.foxsportsworld.com/named/FSW/Soccer/MLS/showPage MLS on Fox Sports World - 2004 Schedule Date Home Visitor Kickoff (ET) Regular season Apr. 3 Los Angeles New England 10 p.m. Apr. 10 Los Angeles D.C. United 10 p.m. Apr. 17 New England San Jose 7.30 p.m. Apr. 24 Colorado San Jose 9 p.m. May 1 New England Los Angeles 7.30 p.m. May 8 D.C. United Columbus 7.30 p.m. May 15 MetroStars Chicago 7.30 p.m. May 22 San Jose Los Angeles 10 p.m. May 29 New England D.C. United 7.30 p.m. Jun. 5 MetroStars Dallas 7.30 p.m. Jun. 12 D.C. United Colorado 7.30 p.m. Jun. 19 Chicago San Jose 8.30 p.m. Jun. 26 New England MetroStars 7.30 p.m. Jul. 3 Columbus Chicago 7.30 p.m. Jul. 10 Los Angeles Colorado 10 p.m. Jul. 17 D.C. United Los Angeles 7.30 p.m. Jul. 24 All-Star Break - no match Jul. 31 New England San Jose 7.30 p.m. Aug. 7 San Jose D.C. United 10 p.m. Aug. 14 D.C. United New England 7.30 p.m. Aug. 21 San Jose Dallas 10 p.m. Aug. 28 Dallas Chicago 8.30 p.m. Sep. 4 Columbus Los Angeles 7.30 p.m. Sep. 11 Los Angeles San Jose 10 p.m. Sep. 18 D.C. United Chicago 7.30 p.m. Sep. 25 San Jose Los Angeles 10 p.m. Oct. 2 New England Dallas 7.30 p.m. Oct. 9 D.C. United New England 7.30 p.m. Oct. 16 New England Chicago 7.30 p.m. Postseason Oct. 22-24 Conference Semifinals - 4 games Oct. 29-31 Conference Semifinals - 4 games Nov. 5-7 Conference Finals - 2 games
The 2004 Wizards are now the most shafted team in the history of nationally broadcast NTSC MLS games. One espn2 game and no FSW games. I don't know about you, but none of the bars in my area is about to cater to my desire to watch the Wizards on HDnet, and I certainly can't afford the equipment myself. Mother********ers
Andy, I agree. MLS is gonna look stupid having their 2004 champions on national tv one time this year.
      I sorta know how you feel - last season, the Earthquakes had a regular-season grand total of one appearance on FSW... and it was an away game.       Even with the Western Conference Final broadcast, the Quakes only had two FSW appearances total (three appearances if the SJ-LA Western Conference Semifinal rebroadcast is counted). -G
Or better yet, support a real team like Columbus Crew, who you can see 3 times on FSW, plus two or thee times in the playoffs.
I've got the shootout package, what I can't afford is HDnet. And if you recall, HDnet games are not downsampled to NTSC for the Direct Kick package.
Speaking of the Shootout package, I had it the last two years with Comcast Digital. I've switched back to Dish because I didn't want to re-mortgage my house to be able to afford Comcast, and because I missed all the soccer from around the world on Dish. However, even though I think I read from a Big Soccer poster that the Shootout package (renamed this year) was already available for purchase, Dish is still advertising "Shootout" and saying that it will be available when the season starts. Who is right, the poster or Dish?
But since HDnet doesn't have contractual exclusivity on any broadcasts, any games that are exclusively on HDnet is because neither team chose to pay for the airtime on standard definition TV to show the game, which Direct Kick could then pick up. Your beef is with a very small number of games which are (a) on HDnet and (b) are not shown anywhere else. The Burn were caught in this once last season, a home game against Kansas City. The Wizards didn't set up a SD broadcast of the game, so it was on HDnet only. If every team in the league were to ensure that all road games were covered either by ABC/ESPN or a local TV deal, then this would never be an issue. Every single game would be either on ABC/ESPN or Direct Kick. But that's not the case. Most teams are usually missing two or three road games from their TV package.
That being said, I can certainly empathize with Wizards fans because the Burn, year in and year out, usually get screwed on national telecasts, even if it's not to the degree that the Wizards get screwed.
Will FSW really telecast eight semi-final and both conference final matches? That would be something. I really thought the highlight last year were the semi-final doubleheaders something like six straight hours of MLS coverage. And as much as I love FSW, I do hope that ESPN2 covers a playoff match each weekend. Not holding my breath. A few thoughts: The FSW coverage is really the best test of how home-match television coverage does or does not affect attendance. For the most part, nationally televised matches have been on during the afternoon, but FSW matches are right in the sweet spot on Saturday night. Finally, the Wizards and Burn whiners remind me of myself carrying on about the Shootout and HDTV.
According to that schedule, FSW will have all playoff matches except MLS Cup, which will be on ABC. It would have been nice for ESPN to pick up one or two of the games, but this format (FSW televises all 10 playoff games) is better than the old, pre 2003 format of ESPN covering one playoff game.
Thanks for that. While FSW is all good - I do dislike MLS disappearing from Disney for three-plus weeks. Then the MLS Cup suddenly appears virtually unannounced to the public-at-large.
am I on crack or wern't all the games that were on HDnet on FSW too? And if they were, wouldn't that mean you don't have any reason to get HDnet Andy.
No, you're on crack. The April 10 game is the only game that appears both on HDNet and FSW according to the schedules released to date.
maybe you're just on blow. in any case, at least some of the HDnet games will be on Direct Kick, but like El Jefe said, those that have no local package broadcast, won't be.
FSW used HDNet feeds time to time last season. Annoying as hell at times since the ball was not on camera at times.
ESPN2 Sun. Oct. 24 MLS Cup Playoff Conference Semifinal 5:00 p.m. Sun. Oct. 31 MLS Cup Playoff Conference Semifinal 5:00 p.m. ABC Sun. November 14 MLS Cup 2004 3:30 p.m.
If I recall, that only happened once. DC at Chicago, and since FSW was pirating HDnet's feed and didn't want Balboa and Davis calling the game, they piped in the background sound from a Chicago Fire home game to add ambiance. Very surreal.
Well, that's encouraging - only a two week gap. Could it be that FSW and ESPN2 would both carry the same match?
I thought I remembered them either putting Chicago crowd noise under a game at Columbus or vice-versa. Is this the game you're thinking of? Or did it happen twice? Somehow my memory has it as it was a game in Columbus, but you could clearly hear Section 8 and the Fire's PA announcer at Crew Stadium. Maybe it happened another time. And I would think it unlikely that FSW and ESPN2 would carry the same playoff match.