uefa champs. lge. on sky/itv

Those are for UK rights not USA. It has nothing to do with ESPNs coverage. Although I'm very envious of them. They will get to see 14 CL matches a week. Wow.

 

Are the US rights up for bid now as well?

Does anybody have any info on this?

 

From SoccerTV.com:

I'd expect them to renew it.

 

Just because they have the rights to all the games, don't assume that they will show them. ITV has the rights this year, but they have only been showing the games that involve English teams. They have only offered one game per match day on ITV (which everyone in England can get). The other games have been on other ITV channels (such as ITV News), which are not carried on every system. ESPN actually seems to show more games then anyone (8 games per match day in Latin America).

 

This American mindset of

"you have the rights in the U.S., why do you only show 1 game?"

is really astounding, or ignorant. Why does the "rights to show games" == "rights to show any # games" is beyond me.

TV5 USA has the rights to French league in the U.S. They only show 1 game per week. Yet no one has ever question "why doesn't TV5 show more games even if they have the rights?"

RAI Intl. has the rights to show Serie A worldwide. They only show 1 game live and 1 delayed. Yet I've never heard of complaints that "why doesn't RAI Intl. show more games in their worldwide distribution?"

The answer is simple. You show 1 game, you pay for the rights of 1 game. You want 5 games, you pay for the rights of 5 games. I have never heard of a TV contract of a league that give you an "all-you-can-eat buffet" style telecast -- a right holder can televise whatever # games they like.

Back on Champions League in the U.K. The now defunct OnDigital used to show all games of a match day. Some of the games this week will be delayed until Sunday or Monday of the next week, i.e. before the beginning of the next match day. Now that OnDigital (ITV Digital) is dead, I guess the ITV telecast isn't as extensive as ESPN Latin America.

But, there are so many in-the-clear ethnic channels on KU band over the European Sky, I guess you can get lots of games with a Ku dish in the U.K. in a team's native language, i.e. receive Italian telecast on Milan, Juv and Roma in the U.K...

 

I thought ITV was dead or was that just the ITV Digital part that sponsors the Nationwide Divisions.

 

ITV Digital is dead but ITV is still around with its two channels (ITV1 & ITV2)

Sky will show all the games being played, probably using its interactive service.