FSW is showing, what is effectively, the world club championship live on Sunday morning. FSW Canada is showing a re-run of the Rugby World Cup final from three weeks ago. Does anyone else in Canada think this sucks? Why don't we get this event?
No one wanted to pay Dentsu's asking price for the TV rights in Canada for a match with limited interest (primarily to AC Milan fans and the handful of Boca Juniors fans) that takes place at 5am Toronto time on a Sunday morning. Not Global TV (owner of FOX Sports World Canada). Not TLN (TeleLatino) Not Rogers Sportsnet And of course NOT BCE (CTV/TSN/RDS) Too bad.
So the rights-holder gets $0 for the Canadian rights. How does that make sense? Italian soccer is more popular in Canada than the U.S. Serie A is on analog cable here. Oliver, how does this match fit with your mantra "If it's not EPL or MLS it doesn't sell in the USA"? I think I'll be able to watch the game on a friend's pirate dish. I might get one for myself and cancel my FSW Canada.
Don't be silly. Canadian platform (DBS or cable) is still a great platform to get European soccer. EPL is on SportsNet and FSW Canada, no PPV crap like in the U.S. Serie A on TLN (4 games) has better coverage than GolTV (3 games at most). TSN and TLN has better Champions League coverage than ESPN2. Not to mention BEV is offering a Portugese package that is not generally available in the U.S. (only available on SPT, a Ku-band platform outside of DirecTV/Dish). Until GolTV came along, USA's European soccer coverage is no match to Canada's. If ESPN Deportes can really launch, then it may have a slight edge over Canada.
Don't think TLN would be able to carry the match, especially if the Italian feed is held by RAI. Bother networks are in the middle of a nasty battle at the moment.
FOX Sports Int'l bought the US rights to the match relatively cheap so that it has programming for the FOX Sports en Espanol service. Note that FOX Sports Latin America (seen in Argentina) is also airing the match. FSLA is the primary reason why FOX Sports Int'l bought the rights. Argentine TV production company TyC, which produces programming for FOX Sports Int'l under contract, has a crew in Yokohoma all week to produce news and pre-game programming. FOX Sports World (US) simply came along for the ride. The incremental cost of doing the English-language broadcast is minimal.
This has nothing to do with the TLN vs RAI spat. Japanese marketing agency Dentsu is the company responsible for selling TV rights to the Europe/South America cup. No Canadian broadcaster wanted to buy the rights from Dentsu at Dentsu's asking price.
No, your firing way off the mark. RAI would no doubt be buying the rights to broadcast the game in Italian. If they do have the rights, they would no doubt feed it through RAI International as well. In normal circumstances, TLN would pay a fee for such matches to be broadcast through them. Because of this spat, the only open door left has been shut as well.
Actually, you are overestimating RAI. RAI in Italy doesn't have that much soccer content. The big attractions, i.e. Serie A, Champion League, are snapped up by other channels, namely, Sky, Calcio TV, Italia 1, Canale 5 and La 7. What Italians can get on RAI is no more than 90 minuto highlight show on RAI Uno, and Domenica Sportiva on RAI Due, very much like the Brits could only get MOTD on BBC years ago, and Spaniards can only get Estudio Estadio and Segunda Liga on TVE. Most of the live game broadcasts of the big 4 leagues in Europe are out of terrestrial TV. Most of these national channels do carry the national team, but that's only 5-10 games per year. Neither RAI Uno, Due nor Tre has the Italian rights of Toyota Cup, Canal 5 does. We are lucky that RAI International does have some Serie A, UEFA Cup and Azzurri actions. This is mainly for Italian immigrants overseas. These links give you an idea who broadcasts which games in Italy: http://www.lega-calcio.it/ita/atim_dicembre.shtml#14 http://www.lega-calcio.it/ita/altr_internazionali.shtml#Dicembre In recent months, RAI and TLN are not exactly in love. RAI's attempt to launch RAI Canada has pissed TLN off big-time. At the beginning of the season, there was speculation that RAI would cut off all Italian programming on TLN. They kiss up for now, but I am not sure TLN will televise every game appearing on RAI International. As far as I remember, the Toyota Cup has not been on Canadian TV in the past few years. In the U.S., Univsion has picked it up quite often (if the price is right). It's mainly because of a bigger Hispanic population in the U.S. Back in the 80s when the Cup was first played in Tokyo, I had watched it several times on Univision back in L.A.