You beat me to the question Zerk. On Directv, it's 29.95 USD. I am going to ask my neighbor from Honduras to split the pay per view cost.
On the USSoccer site http://www.ussoccer.com/Live/WCQ-TV-FAQ/Bars.aspx the show Rita's at 3627 Hillcroft. Never heard of it but it's the only place I can find in Houston.
I've passed by this place before. Looks kinda sketchy. Definitely seems more like it would be a pro-Guatemalan crowd gathering there than a pro-US crowd.
Definitely not going to be pro-USA crowd. I remember "sneaking" into this place to watch US v Mexico back in the late 90's. When I say "sneaking" it was because I am blond haired and blued eyed. I took my hispanic looking filipino friend with me as cover and I wore my cap low down over my head and kept my mouth shut for 2 hours even when we went up 1-0 on El Tri. It was a noontime start on a Sunday and they had two security guards lined up at the front of the place to show the fans they weren't going to put up with any BS. I was literally the only non-Mexico fan there. Ritas was basically worried about the Mexican fans smashing up the place or each other (where have I seen that before)? Good fun.
I've been to worse places, but I am Hispanic. This does not mean that I am down to do it again, though.
Hmm, bet no fights never take place in that parking lot. Westside walks in and says: "Otis, my man!!"
I can't believe in the city of Houston there's no pro-US Soccer place willing to pay for the game feed.
I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that it is very hard to find soccer support in general in the USA.
Exactly. Any such place would be packed. But I don't know how the rights-holder is selling the game. It's obviously a good enough deal for Rita's, but I wonder if they're forcing a tie-in with some other games. Dunno. Concacaf sucks for numerous reasons - even by standards of other sucky confeds (scowling at you, Conmebol). But this situation, which iirc also occurred last cycle, is the one that irks me most. They could set broadcaster requirements for host federations to follow when selling rights. Yes, that would mean that a particular federation may get less money for a particular game, but this situation hurts the game in the region. It's a short-sighted approach.
you know how i'm always going about that our fanbase isn't what it should be here in Houston and we need to get our act together, but instead of it being seen as a constructive comment people think its hatin'. this is one of those instances. look at the cities listed: http://www.ussoccer.com/Live/WCQ-TV-FAQ/Bars.aspx our FO can take slight blame for this too. what a wonderful marketing tie-in that could of been. a lot of peeps around here hate our FO for the wrong reasons (why can't we sign Drogba!) when there are many more right reasons to be displeased with them. *biting tongue*
I have been here to actually watch a game. US Olympic Qualifying in Mexico against Mexico about 8 years ago I think. Let's just say, I was the only white guy in the entire bar and the place was absolutely packed with people watching the match. If I recall correctly it was the Osama chant match It's a dump (or at least it was 8 years ago), but they had a good collection of TV's to watch the match at the time. Likely will be overrun with Guatemala fans though....obviously.
One thing I mentioned to Canetti during a Mi Casa kickoff networking event was that it would be nice if the Dynamo and BBVA could hold some viewing parties at the new stadium and he said that was in the plans ,then went on to pat his back about the England vs USA viewing at Discovery Green during the world cup. As you can see I got a list on why that chump ain't worth a flip.
Yo Ponsa ,I was going to order the match but I can't get anyone at Uverse to confirm that they will carry it.
Rita's is a base hit from Lee H.S. on Hillcroft just south of Richmond, I used to have to go to Rita's all the time in the late 90's to watch qualifying matches from our Americas and Copa Libertadores matches. It will be PACKED with dudes from Honduras and Guatemala, as the owner is Catracho iffin' it's still the same guys, and it is probably more run down then it was in 1999 but I will tell you I never had any problems there and the chelas, beers, were cheap and ice cold. Again, it might be more hooderrific nowadays but they always show footy and boxing. Why the Stadium watch party concept is not christened for this PPV event involving U.S.A. vs Guatemala, where thousands could gather with ease, at night so to avoid the direct Sun, is a shocker.
I read somewhere that the bar or commercial establishment charge for games like this is around $1,000. IF you tried to do a stadium watch party you'd be looking at serious coin to get the license to put it on the video boards. The 2009 Honduras game was handled as closed-circuit only and not on PPV and I think they had a higher charge than that. I do realize I have the $30 option to order it on Comcast, with likely a crappy feed and guys calling the game off of monitors in Miami ("wait Bob, I think the red has just been shown to Cameron . . . maybe it's Cherondolo . . . the lighting is sort of poor . . . . Altidore got the red!!!" ) I'm just choosing not to order it. In 2009 we had no in-home option (although the nice folks at Al Jazeera had their stream of it up). Someone tweeted that in Guatemala it is PPV there as well.
Correct. The bar like establishments have to really punt over the coin. Thus Al-Jazzera stream via interwebs, exactly like what went down for U.S.A. at Honduras in '09, it took Mannie n me just 20 minutes surfing till we found that link from Iraq's version of ESPN, our club can have it's one tech savvy guy or gal link that stream to our giant screen. It is not only doable but a clever way to have our club send to the Guatemal-peor FA "F YOU dingle berries! We got the game for our city's people to enjoy" And by this I mean all the pro U.S. folks and anyone else that wants to watch...talk about cross demographic marketing! I just called our FO and passed this idea on. They said thanks, we'll tell marketing.
I'm looking forward to finding a stream for this one while I have El Salvador v Mexico on the telly. Both are going to be gritty Central American affairs.
You have to pay per your seating capacity. For your average size bar, an mma event will run $2000. Most bars won't even consider having an event like this because you might not break even, much less make a profit. I would'nt want to imagine what a 22000 seat establishment woulf have to pay.
But the FO has numerous bar partnerships, they could of gone halfsies. Or a 3 way arrangement with the FO, partner bar and one of the local SGs. This would of been great project for the Walker End. You see cooperation for the local good of the game is not a bad thing. Ever.