XXXXX Doesn't Show Enough Soccer!

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

One day does not make a decent study. Try a Saturday in the fall when they show college football from noon to (sometimes) past midnight.

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

It is a good relationship. The game is all over TV...as long as you look for it. I agree that the policy about sticking with a live event has burned ESPN many times, but I'd rather miss the first five minutes than have a game cut out at the 80th minute for golf.

You're right. ESPN is an "everything" channel. It's not a speciality channel, nor is it intended to be one. They show what makes money. Right now, that isn't soccer. Many times, they may buy a package. What they WANT to show gets ESPN, ESPN2, and maybe ABC. The extras? ESPN3, Deportes, and maybe ESPNU.

As for the WNBA? That comes with the NBA package, doesn't it? Last I heard, I thought ESPN was forced to buy the WNBA.

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

I think Gordon Ramsey would provide better football insight than Piers since Ramsey was good enough to be a trialist for Rangers.

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

I am grateful that ESPN shows a game early on Saturday and occasionally Monday afternoon. They do fine. They did fine with the World Cup and Women's World Cup.

They push a lot of games to ESPN3 I think. Now it is only an issue for me because my ISP isn't a provider. Secondarily, I am not all that crazy about watching games on my lap top. I know I can get a cable and hook it up to my tv. But, will I get a picture as good as my hd tv can produce?

Second thing, they could show more Monday afternoon games. How many times can you see NFL live? They showed Primetime on Monday afternoons as well. It was a good show on Sunday night. Monday afternoon. If you haven't seen NFL highlights by then. You haven't been trying.

I remember there was a game they could have shown but put on ESPN3 because of the start of college basketball. OK. I get that. Then the game is Mempis vs. Belmont. Really?
If it had been Duke/Michigan I get that. Can't miss that Mempis/Belmont tilt? I wonder who won? Does anybody care?

The other games I wished they would have put on were the EURO playoffs. I believe that there was a USMNT game one of those days. So I get that. But I would have thought they would have been a good promos for the EUROS this summer.

ESPN does OK. Can they do better. Sure.
I wonder who watches the talking head shows during the day? Do people really DVR those?

A live event, I can see setting the VCR or DVR. Sports Nation?

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

The reason Wynalda was on the Everton/Fulham game is because the game evidently was not picked for international distribution. So they couldn't get the feed from Input Media.

Fox wanted to show the game for obvious reasons. Picked up the feed from Everton TV - received permission from the FA to show it in the US only.

The Everton announcers feed could not be shown until 12:01 AM GMT due to contractual obligations I guess.

Or, so I have read.

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

the US national teams had seven matches last month;

uswnt vs dominican republic
usmnt vs venezuela
uswnt vs guatemala
uswnt vs mexico
usmnt vs panama
uswnt vs costa rica
uswnt vs canada

how many of those 7 matches did one of the espn channels show? NONE.they cant show 7 soccer matches in a single month,but they can show more than 7 basketball matches in a single day.thats what's really sad.no one is saying espn should be pro-soccer 24/7,but if you can show more games of one sport in a day than games of another sport in a month,it shouldnt be so hard to understand why some fans of soccer think espn sucks

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

Reminder:

ESPN, Inc. earns 90% of its operating profit in the U.S. from just one show:

SportsCenter

SportsCenter now airs on an ESPN, Inc. TV network in the U.S. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. SportsCenter is ALWAYS available on either ESPN, ESPN2, or ESPNEWS.

Every live event program on ESPN or ESPN2 has the objective of pulling viewers into watching SportsCenter, either after the event, or DURING THE EVENT itself if the game were to turn into a blowout.

Because re-airs of any event other than college football does NOT pull viewers into SportsCenter, ESPN, Inc. would rather air SportsCenter instead of event re-airs. Those who need to watch events after they have occurred can do so via ESPN3.com

==

The 3 event products that ESPN, Inc. absolutely has to have in the U.S. are:

NFL (ESPN, Inc. pays more for Monday night football than Comcast/NBC does for Sunday Night Football)

"BCS" College Football (ESPN, Inc. ganged up with FOX to keep the PAC 12 Conference away from Comcast/NBC.)

"Power 6" College Basketball (Big East, B1G, ACC, SEC, XII, PAC)

Everything else is expendable, especially soccer.

Starting 2015, ESPN, Inc. will have ZERO need to air any soccer in the U.S. (MLS and US Soccer will probably be on NBC Sports Network and Telemundo starting 2015, wth Tier 2 televised games on a new MLS-owned TV network. Neither ESPN, Inc., FOX, nor Univision will need MLS starting 2015.)

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

Two words: MTV It went from a Music Video Channel to Channel filled with Reality TV. It doesn't make sense, but there must be a financial reason that is driving TV channels to abandon their initial vision. Though ESPN started out as a channel that couldn't afford many sporting events so they might be returning to their old ways.

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

Yep. On almost every live event, I see "SportsCenter, now airing on ESPN____" on the bottom scroll, as well as in the lower right corner. Kind of funny, considering that just a few years ago, the last segment of PTI would air DURING SportsCenter, in order to boost ratings for that show.

 

Re: More of why ESPN sucks and Fox Soccer doesn't

Hard to tell. They could always raise rates and pray the TV providers didn't cancel ESPN (and all the other Disney-owned channels that come with), although that didn't work too good for Dish Network.

If Comcast, DirecTV, whoever, dropped all ESPN networks, then the viewers would certainly revolt.

My guess is that the ESPN Networks basically have the TV providers (and the viewers) hostage.

 

This is now the thread where all threads that have something to do with, x network sucks because they don't show x will end up.

 

I'll just pretend I didn't read that. But since you have correctly pointed out this thread isn't about soccer, it's done.