News: Soccer on TV: 2016-17 Season

I think the author is unfamiliar with La Liga scheduling. The author is making assumptions based on La Liga's opening weekend schedule which has been similar every year. Because of the hot climate, in Italy and Spain, in August, they try to have more late games, and the schedule looks weird for the first couple of rounds, and then it goes back to normal after the first international break in September. It's been like that every year. Just look at last year. Come September early games will be back and everyone in Asia will be happy.

 

Yeah, unfortunately those early afternoon matches will return in September and beyond. But the assumption about fewer overlapping matches is probably correct. Last year's scheduling never did make sense to me with those small overlaps.

 

http://worldsoccertalk.com/2016/07/...-kickoffs-offer-epl-alternative-asian-market/

 

I'm happy the start times will be earlier. With the latest weekend start time in Spain now being 2:30 P.M. Eastern, some other top leagues will now have games starting later than that. The latest start time in Serie A is 2:45 P.M. Eastern, the latest start time in Ligue 1 in 3:00 P.M. Eastern, and I think Portugal also has late starts although I don't know details about them.

 

EFL Championship confirmed on beIN for 16-17. Fulham-Newcastle on beIN Sports schedule Friday, Aug 5th.

 

Why is that a good though? It means there will be more overlap with games from other leagues in Europe (England mainly). Not to mention, the sheer inconvenience of a 7:00a ET/4:00a PT kick-off compared to mid-afternoon.

Often that early kickoff in England is a big game too. Remains to be seen whether the early La Liga games will regularly feature top teams though.

 

Overlapping issues are so"2015".
With the Dish Hopper 3 and "SportsBar" mode I can watch 4 matches at the same time and record up to 16 sporting events simultaneously.

 

Sure, watching the games isn't an issue. But all other things being equal (which they are) I'd rather watch a match live than taped. Also my Attention Deficit Disorder isn't so bad that Man Utd v Man City/ Pep v Mou (which happens to be the first Saturday where this overlap will occur) isn't enough to entertain me by itself.

 

Just keep in mind guys that this is all being done for the Asian market. Big planet. 24 time zones. Can't please everybody....

SA
www.soccertvblog.com

 

I rarely watch La Liga. I root for Atletico Madrid because they have the best chance at winning outside of Barcelona and Real Madrid, but if the gap between second and third was 20 points, I would care even less than I do now. I might watch La Liga a little more now that I get BeIN n. Any start time of 12:00 P.M. or later on a Saturday is competing with NCAA Football and/or Basketball for a majority of the weekends La Liga plays. On Sundays, La Liga competes with the NFL. The Premier League goes the whole weekend with only one game that conflicts with sports played in the United States. The last Sunday Premier League game ends when the NFL starts. Thinking only about Americans, I don't know if La Liga would do better competing against the Premier League or competing against other American sports, but there's competition either way. In February and March, in between the Super Bowl and the start of MLB, Sunday afternoons are relatively empty unless you're a big fan of NCAA Women's Basketball, NASCAR, golf, or something less popular than the big four American professional leagues. If people in the United States were all the people that mattered, I would recommend La Liga play later start times on Sundays in February and March than during the rest of the season.

 

Which is funny because just a year or two ago La Liga's president said that he wants the league to be bigger than the Premier in the US. Now I guess they're shifting that aim to Asia while making some of their matches less convenient for Americans. Not that US kickoff times are really a primary concern for the league, or a big deal at all. But it does show how all over the place La Liga can be organizationally. And their inability to nail down a solid fixture list is a big reason why they can't compete with the Premier League.

 

Also stadium attendances seem higher for the early kick-offs. That's the case for Barca at least (not sure about others). Personally I always prefer night matches. Better lighting, better ambiance. And no shadow lines running across the field which TV cameras can't cope with.
Then again it gets dark around 16h00 in Europe in winter so there will always be night games.

 

This article is 4 years old but read the number of viewers LaLiga gets in China for the early kickoffs!!

http://afootballreport.com/post/12650635206/what-are-the-implications-of-early-la-liga

I don't think LaLiga has to think twice about which market to concentrate on....



SA
www.soccertvblog.com

 

^ Although rarely do the popular clubs play in that early Sunday time slot. It might be a totally different story with the early Saturday time slot though. With 5 La Liga teams playing in the Champions League, those that have a CL fixture on the following Tuesday may be fighting for that early Saturday kick-off.

 

Good point. And perhaps no wonder that the first official early Saturday match on the 10th of September is between Celta de Vigo and Atletico Madrid. Atletico taking part in the CL the following Tuesday or Wednesday. But the President of LFP already announced that Barca and Real will not feature in this new time slot. That means we can expect a lot of appearances by Atletico, Sevilla and likely Villareal, who need a qualifying round to enter the main competition.

SA
www.soccertvblog.com

 

Same time as Man Utd-Man City. Good look with that in Asia and elsewhere

 

Facebook.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/08/02/ccls-group-stage-games-be-streamed-live-english-facebook

 

I'm seeing a few preseason games on CBS SN. They will show Werder-Chelsea tomorrow and Mainz-Liverpool later. Also see Porto-Villareal there. Is this a sign of things to come? I never thought I would see big soccer teams on CBS in my lifetime.

 

They also had some youth tournament in Valencia the last few weeks along with Spurs-Inter last Friday.
Maybe they are finally going to join the bandwagon.

 

They're a couple of decades late to the party but looks like they finally realized that there are alternatives to"World's Strongest Man" reruns out there I wonder if they might pick up one of those secondary leagues?

 

I didn't put it on but apparently Univisión Deportes had an Eredivisie match on today: confirm?

 

Yup - they usually show PSV games because there's a Mexican international on the team

 

Univision Deportes also showed Sparta v Ajax today, albeit on delay at 10am. Yestedray they showed Utrecht v PSV, live I believe.

 

I hope that Fox not renewing CONCACAF CL will lead to some Copa Sudamericana games on FS+ but assume that won't happen since the channel will be used for UEFA Champions League repeats (in SD for those of us who have DTV).

 

Some early thoughts on the new graphics used on the world feeds this season:

- The EFL (Championship) improves over last year's fairly sterile-looking graphics. My only quibble with them is that when we go past 90 minutes into time added on they change the clock color from white to red on a fairly dark blue background which makes it hard to read.

- Ligue 1. I liked the Ligue 1 graphics from before, although they were a drab gray. The new ones are a bit snazzier but all the yellow (the league logo and the score) is a bit much. Also they continue to have the entire team name in the score bug (today it was AS Monaco-EA Guingamp) which makes it longer than it needs to be; perhaps they feel the need to do this since many of the French teams aren't as well known by their abbreviations.

Will be interesting to see what the EPL does tomorrow; they've used pretty much the same scheme for several years now, with only some subtle color changes and a reduction in size of the score bug as of the early 2014-15 season.

Next weekend we see if La Liga changes and in two weeks, the Bundesliga and Serie A.