Championship Sunday: 9am: Premier League Mornings 11am: NBC, NBCSN, USA, CNBC, Golf and Peacock. 1pm: Goal Zone 2:30pm: Special 90-minute Goal Zone All on NBCSN, unless otherwise noted. There's no Bravo, no Olympic Channel and I'm sure there's others missing. It seems like they're really pushing Peacock hard. Telemundo and Universo both have games in Spanish.
Now that I think about it, they probably can't. They couldn't do it before Peacock and they probably can't do it now. I'd like to know why, though. They can only do it when there's one game at a time. Hopefully by the time the next season starts, fans will be allowed back, but I doubt we get that until 2021-22.
I think it's an issue at the source in England. I think fans come back sometime in 20-21, but not to start the season.
Depending on tomorrow, six of the games on Sunday could be relevant: Chelsea vs. Wolves for CL and EL Leicester vs. Man United for CL and EL Crystal Palace vs. Tottenham for EL Arsenal vs. Watford for EL and relegation West Ham vs. Aston Villa for relegation Everton vs. Bournemouth for relegation If Watford wins hosting Man City and Aston Villa draw hosting Arsenal, the bottom three will be irrelevant. That's the only combination that will clinch survival for Watford, relegation for Aston Villa and Bournemouth, and have Arsenal keep their chance of moving up to seventh. Arsenal is 5 points behind Tottenham, so Arsenal needs two wins, so a draw will guarantee Arsenal won't be in the top seven, in which case Arsenal could still make the EL by winning the FA Cup. If Arsenal finishes seventh, the EL clubs will be known before the FA Cup Final between Chelsea and Arsenal. Burnley vs. Brighton, Man City vs. Norwich, Newcastle vs. Liverpool, and Southampton vs. Sheffield United won't matter. They could show six games and show all of the relevant ones if they're willing to not show Liverpool and Man City.
I like Aston Villa, who had a great day. Rebecca Lowe said they got out of the relegation for the first time since February. Watford lost 4-0 hosting Man City, who I normally root against, but in this case I was happy, and winning by 4 mattered because goal differential could determine who gets relegated. Aston Villa scored in the 27th minute and won 1-0 hosting Arsenal. Arsenal is in tenth, and their only way to the EL is by winning the FA Cup. My TV's description said Aston Villa entered winless in their last 17 home games against Arsenal. I've seen plenty of head-to-head domination statistics like that when a top club plays another club. Aston Villa has 34 points and improved their goal differential to -26, while Watford fell into the relegation zone with 34 points and -27. Bournemouth has 31 points and -27, and they will survive with a win and losses by Aston Villa and Watford. Bournemouth would win the three-way tiebreaker at -26 or better, Aston Villa would be -27 or worse, and Watford would be -28 or worse. Rebecca Lowe said that if goal differential is tied, goals scored is the next tiebreaker without noting that if there is a three-way tie in points, Bournemouth will have the best goal differential, and goals scored could decide the pretty irrelevant tie for 18th and 19th. Aston Villa goes to West Ham United, Watford goes to Arsenal, and Bournemouth goes to Everton, so Aston Villa has the easiest game. Here are the survival scenarios: Aston Villa needs: 1. A win and Watford wins by 1 more than them or anything worse. Aston Villa has 6 more goals than Watford, so if points and goal differential are tied, Aston Villa will survive or 2. A draw and a Watford draw or loss 3. A loss by 1 or 2, a Watford loss, and a Bournemouth draw or loss 4. A loss by 3 or more, a Watford loss by 1 fewer goal or the same amount or more, and a Bournemouth draw or loss Watford needs: 1. A win and an Aston Villa draw or loss 2. A win by at least 2 more goals than Aston Villa wins by 3. A draw and an Aston Villa loss 4. A loss by at least 2 fewer goals than Aston Villa loses by and a Bournemouth draw or loss Bournemouth needs a win and losses by Aston Villa and Watford. Aston Villa had a span of 2 points in 10 games to fall into the relegation zone, but they have gone win-draw-win in their last three including today. With Arsenal's loss, Tottenham can't fall below seventh. To qualify for the EL, Tottenham needs: 1. A win and a Wolves draw or loss 2. A draw and a Wolves loss 3. Anything on Sunday and Chelsea beats
Best not to post results in a thread like this. Or at least not for 12hrs or so after the result. I came here last night wanting to ask how long a delay nbc imposes on streaming replays after FT. instead I saw the opening line of your post, about Villa, and... instant spoiler. Anyway the answer to my question is that it was almost 3hrs after FT whistle until they made the replay available. Not sure why they take this long... doesn’t ESPN do this faster?
Just thinking about how nice it’d be if The FA cared less about history/tradition and we could watch more than one live match on Sunday. It’s so easy to break up the matches in a way that doesn’t give an advantage to those competing for the same thing. Kickoff Time 1 - Meaningless Burnley v. Brighton Man City v. Norwich City Newcastle v. Liverpool Southampton v. Sheffield Utd. Kickoff Time 2 - Relegation Arsenal v. Watford Everton v. Bournemouth West Ham v. Aston Villa Kickoff Time 3 - CL/EL Chelsea v. Wolves Crystal Palace v. Tottenham Leicester City v. Man Utd. A guy can dream...
Tradition. It’s kind of strange because they break a lot of rules, and it would make sense to change this one, and with no fans at the games, now is the perfect time to do it. Bundesliga is worse with last two rounds all games at the same time. Spain and France play next to the last round simultaneosly but will break up the games in the last round.
I’m watching some Portugal Primeira Liga now and this final round of the season is spread across the weekend just like any other matchday, so the simultaneous kickoff thing must be a league-by-league choice.
Yeah, they already scrapped the traditional UK afternoon blackout for the restart, which certainly ties into the simultaneous kickoff tradition and would only make non-simultaneous kickoffs easier. For the richest, most popular league in the world, the Premier League really is unfriendly to TV viewers in many cases. They really act like fans couldn’t possibly care to watch anything more than their team’s match.
I'm sorry I spoiled the result. It could just be how many employees for how much work NBC uses. It could be that they assume that if a person didn't or couldn't watch live, he or she would be okay with waiting three hours after it ends. I think ESPN makes replays available quickly, and sometimes there are a lot of games on ESPN Plus at the same time such as with NCAA Basketball. The schedule is made before the season with weekends and midweeks without assigning all the games to a date and time within the two to four days. Periodically they decide on dates and times for a set of games. In order to do a breakdown like portugamerifinn proposed, they would have needed to wait until after midweek games to know what games were meaningful, or err on the side of caution and have a meaningless game played at the same time as meaningful games. Now there are no fans, but in a normal season how would you feel if you lived in England and had tickets to your club's last game which was meaningful and the start time was announced only three days in advance? This season there could be a convenient way of making three categories, but in another season there could be a game meaningful for the top and bottom. The big example was Man City's two late goals against QPR to give Man City the 2011-2012 title on goal differential over Man United and give Man City their first title in 44 years. QPR survived with the loss because Bolton played a draw. If QPR lost and Bolton won, QPR would have been relegated. A season could have the the top two in different games to decide the champion, three games relevant for the CL and/or EL, two games relevant for relegation, and three meaningless games. The tradition goes along with Saturday at 3:00 P.M. local being a traditional start time because it's one hour after factories closed when the time was decided. Spain doesn't have one time with many games. Italy used to have at least four games on Sundays at 9:00 A.M. Eastern, but they spread games out more now. Germany has many games on Saturdays at 9:30 A.M. and is most similar to the EPL in terms of start times.
Here are the CL scenarios with clubs listed third, fourth, and fifth in that order: MU beats LC, C wins: MU, C, LC MU draws with LC, C wins: C, MU, LC MU loses to LC, C wins: C, LC, MU MU beats LC, C draws: MU, C, LC MU draws with LC, C draws: MU, C, LC MU loses to LC, C draws: LC, C, MU MU beats LC, C loses: MU, C, LC MU draws with LC, C loses: MU, LC, C MU loses to LC, C loses: LC, MU, C MU is third in five combinations, fourth in two combinations, and fifth in two combinations. C is third in two combinations, fourth in five combinations, and fifth in two combinations. LC is third in two combinations, fourth in two combinations, and fifth in five combinations. Any of them that win will qualify for the CL. MU and LC root against C. If MU wins, C finishes fourth. If MU doesn't win, C can be third, fourth, or fifth. If C only cares about the CL and doesn't consider third to be better than fourth, C should root for MU to win. MU is in third now, so they're the only club that will guarantee third if they win. LC vs. MU will be on Universo, and C vs. Wolves will be on Telemundo.
Arlo White just announced that the big match on NBC is going to be pre-empted for news coverage on John Lewis's memorial service. And that people are welcome to keep watching the game on Peacock. Somehow I don't think a lot of people are going to be so happy to do that.
If there was ever a year to throw tradition out the window it would be this one! I'm a traditionalist, but I'm OK with a little tinkering w/ rules and scheduling given the current circumstances. They should be thinking outside the box for the 20/21 season too, as something tells me it will not proceed "normally"
Ahh, I wonder why they wouldn't have announced that? Oh yeah, they're desperate to route people over to Peacock.
So desperate they won't move the game to a cable network. Golf Channel would be a good option. Arsenal-Watford looks done.
Actually they ended up doing it with minimal impact to the regular program which was LCFC-MUFC. I wasn’t watching this particular game in real time but when I skipped through my recording of it, I saw that During halftime, they showed the coffin on a horse drawn carriage going over the bridge in Selma. Quite a powerful image. And it made me wonder if by any chance they held up that procession until the first half ended. Seems absurd to think that they would but then again…