Soccer On Dish

So we survived the first day of the EPL season, yes? For those of you who missed it, The Gaffer held a liveblog over at EPL Talk for the first day of the season. I was a part of it for a while, until my son fell and we spent a nice afternoon at the emergency room (he’s OK. no breaks. just sore).

The up-side to my absence is that I got to watch the matches on DVR in the evening, without the thrill of it being live, but also without the in-the-moment craziness. With that, here are my thoughts on the day:

– Hull City was the story of the day. They played hard, the supporters were loud, and the game looked great on TV.

– Fox Soccer Channel’s signal gets worse and worse. I don’t understand it, but I am frustrated by it. I watched at least a few seconds of all every FSC games on different TVs (my 50-inch DLP, a 32-inch tube TV and a 20-inch tube TV), and even on the cheap small TV, their games just look like they’ve been run through a slight Photoshop filter. Meanwhile, Setanta Sports’ broadcast looked better than ever.

– I’m not an FSC basher, and I disagree with my blogmate in that I thought Christian Miles and Warren Barton were quite good for a first-day broadcast. They were leagues better than last season’s atrocity. The difference between FSC and Setanta in tone is one of confidence (Setanta) vs. a need to broaden the audience (FSC). Fox has to sell their network, and there is a move to try to get the network into a lower tier of cable and satellite programming instead of up in the high end. The more polished and professional they seem, the theory goes, the more they deserve big-boy treatment.

– Another Setanta advantage is the lack of halftime commercials. There are some, yes, but much of the halftime break is filled with a personality feature or that soothing Setanta music or — best of all — sideline reports. FSC is hamstrung by its need to pay for itself with halftime ads. It’s a fact of life that the pay service doesn’t have to deal with.

– My one beef with Setanta has always been that they show in-game scores from other grounds. I know that some of this is meant to screw over FSC or whoever they are competing with, and I only noticed one update all day yesterday, but in the days of DVR and watching other games later on “tape,” I hate knowing the scores before I watch the game. I don’t look at soccer Web sites on game days until I have watched every game I want, but I have to hide my eyes on Setanta sometimes, and with little or no warning. If they included a sound like CBS did during the NCAA tournament or like ESPN does with its crawl, I could deal with it. Instead, I have to stay on constant alert. This happened A LOT on the final day of the season, and I hope it happens less this season, but it will always bother me.

– Oh, last thoughts: No way does Liverpool challenge for the title if it plays like that. Spurs either. And Fulham is going to go down. Book it now.

All in all, it was a great first day, even if I didn’t get to enjoy most of it live. Tell me what you thought. And enjoy Man U and Chelsea this morning.

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An earlier post on this blog about FSC moving on DirecTV prompted a comment today:

Tough1 // Aug 9, 2008 at 1:59 am
Could this be a possible lead in for FSC HD? Channel 617 and 617 have been cleared. Maybe there is a football god.

Well, don’t go getting baptized yet.

While HD is coming eventually, it’s safe to say that FSC, which really has three homes — L.A. for admin, Winnipeg for the Report and Europe for most of its content, will have to go through more hoops than a normal network to make the move to HD.

Also, remember that while much of FSC’s matches come from Sky, the timetable for Europe to switch to all digital lasts until 2012.

So while it’s great to watch matches in HD (I actually missed the Community Shield for the U.S. Netherlands match), it’s going to be years, not months, before we get all of our football in high-def.

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This is a quick post to follow up on the NBC soccer channel news. I spent the past 24 hours pretty much watching this channel. And I have three real thoughts: 

– I thought I had gotten Marcelo Balboa out of my life, but nooooo. He just had to be on the U.S.-Japan match, didn’t he? Well, At least he had JP Dellacamara to make him sound less like a dolt.

– The quality of play is decent, but a considerably lower level than the Euro 2008, and the pitches so far are less than stellar. No wonder Brazil couldn’t move the ball against Belgium. They played on the same grass as in my back yard!

– Soccer really needs to be in HD all the time. Every match looks amazing. On the down side, it exposes how bad the fields look when they shoot close-up. Also, it’s painfully obvious that the secondary match announcers are in New York and not China, as they often miss names and plays because it’s obvious they only have two or three monitors to look at. Also, they seem to imply that they ARE in China, but I know that’s not the case. Let’s hope this gets beter quick.

The prelims are always a bit boring, but I was glad to see this channel playing matches all day. In previous Games, there’s no way I would have gotten the Argentina match or the Italy flop-fest victory. So a Bronze medal to NBC for this channel, and if the announcing and matches improve, they have a shot at a gold!

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The Spanish Supercopa, which matches the winner of La Liga against the winner of the Copa del Rey in a home and home series, is heading to FSC for the first time.

The matchup pits Real Madrid against Valencia on Aug. 17 and 24 at 4 p.m. EDT. The first leg is at Valencia, with the return at the Bernabeu.

This is a nice pickup for FSC, as they really could stand to expand beyond England. The Serie A matches last season were a nice addition, and while France isn’t the best in Europe for club matches, it’s always nice to have more.

Considering the battle between Dish Network and GolTV, which owns the rights to La Liga in the U.S., this provides a nice little bonus for those 13 million households.

Now, if only we could get games in HD…

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I got a nice little treat today while surfing the channels on Dish Network. Sure, I don’t have GolTV anymore (although I do now have Fox Sports en Espanol, so it’s not like I’m totally without soccer on channel 407), but now I have 24 hours a day of Olympic soccer.
As part of the 10 billion hours of coverage by the Peacock net here in the U.S., there is a 24-hour soccer channel in HD. It’s ONLY in HD, so if you’re old-school, you’re out of luck. When there isn’t a game live, there are highlights of qualifiers, and Dish says there will be rebroadcasts throughout the day.

The Olympic Soccer channel is on channel 98 or 367, depending on your system. So far, it’s been showing the women’s qualifying rounds, including the U.S. women vs. Norway (yeah, nice result).Over on DirecTV, instead of having dedicated channels for soccer and basketball, they’re putting events, including all gold-medal games, on demand. I don’t know what the timeframe will be for getting a game online, but it should be interesting to watch.
Comcast originally was planning to offer the Olympic Soccer channel to its customers, but it appears that it will only be available to its highest-tier customers. If you know any different, please let me know!
Cable customers, what are you getting for Olympic soccer? Sure, it’s not the Premier League, but it should be fun to watch until the big boys start again next week!
UPDATE: Comcast nationally did sign a deal with NBC, according to a network statement, but it is up to individual Comcast systems to launch the channels. So if you’re not getting Olympic soccer, call your Comcast system! Also, it’s confirmed that Cablevision does NOT have the channels. 

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As of August 1, GolTV - the 24/7 soccer network - has been removed from DISH Network due to a contract dispute.

According to GolTV, “this occurs despite efforts to continue GolTV’s availability to Dish customers.” DISH Network, in retort, inserted this message when you hit the INFO button where GolTV’s channel used to be: “GolTV has removed this channel after asking for unreasonable terms to renew the contract and we’re working to solve the problem.”

In the meantime, DISH Network is offering free previews of both Setanta Sports and Fox Sports Espanol to its customers. However, even if DISH Network customers subscribed to Setanta and Fox Sports Espanol, that won’t replace the void that’s left with GolTV gone because GolTV has exclusive license rights in the United States to La Liga and Bundesliga, as well as many 2010 World Cup qualifiers and this weekend’s Emirates Cup featuring Real Madrid, Hamburg, Juventus and Arsenal.

For DISH Network, the decision to remove GolTV is idiotic. Hopefully this a short-term disagreement between GolTV and DISH Network that will be resolved soon, but the timing couldn’t be worse and soccer fans will want to make a decision soon whether to leave DISH Network before the new seasons begin. My gut instinct says that this issue won’t be resolved soon especially when GolTV tells readers on its homepage that “You can find GolTV on our current distribution partners,” which includes DirecTV.

If you love GolTV, my recommendation would be to simply cancel your DISH Network subscription and move to DirecTV where you get GolTV there instead. If you’re upset about the situtation, vote with your dollars by leaving DISH but don’t forget to send them an e-mail too to let them know why you’re cancelling and moving to their biggest competitor.

DISH Network can be contacted here.

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Setanta Sports North America sent an email to its email subscribers on June 24 regarding NexTV, the newest IPTV network that offers Setanta Sports.

The message reads “Setanta Sports and NexTV would like to assure our customers that we are committed to providing an excellent product paired with excellent service. NexTV is an IPTV platform and is owned by Ethnic Channels Group, a premier ethnic television provider. They are completely unrelated to ITVN. If you are still being billed by ITVN, please notify your credit card company immediately as this is a fraudulent charge. ITVN has been defunct for several months and should not be charging for service.”

Reading between the lines, it sounds like the curse of ITVN has struck again and that it can be inferred that the number of people subscribing to NexTV for Setanta Sports service is much lower than anticipated. This is completely understandable though since so many customers got burned by ITVN because of the credit card charges as well as poor service and reliability.

It’s going to be extremely difficult for IPTV companies to sell Setanta Sports. ITVN has so ruined people’s first impressions of the technology that it’s easy to see why soccer fans would be reluctant to sign up for NexTV.

For those soccer fans in the United States who don’t have DirecTV or DISH Network but who want Setanta Sports, the choices are Verizon FiOS, NexTV, Gek TV and Setanta Broadband. If anything, Setanta is competing with its partners with its Setanta Broadband service. No numbers are publicly available but I wouldn’t be surprised if more people are signing up for Setanta Broadband than Setanta on NexTV and Gek TV combined.

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Fox Soccer Channel (FSC) has announced that it’ll be changing its DirecTV channel number. Instead of channel 613, it’ll be moving to 619 as of June 18.

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In case you didn’t see the story here or elsewhere, Dish Network has dropped WorldSportHD along with the other Voom channels.

This effectively eliminates the only all-HD soccer network until GolTV, FSC and Setanta start going HD some time by 2011. Remember, FSC showing things in HD doesn’t have as much to do with FSC as it does with the number of HD consumers in Europe, and right now, less than 10 percent of England has an HDTV. HD will not be the standard in England until 2012, so unless ESPN gets involved, there is really no rush on that side of the ocean to get everything into HD.

Now, it is heartening to know that ESPN2 will show the Champions League final in HD, but there is currently no plan (that I can find) to show more of it in HD in the U.S.

So lament the loss of La Liga in HD. And prepare yourself for the EPL on ESPN3 in 2010. Well, we can hope, anyway.

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BBC’s Director of Sport Roger Mosey wrote an eye-opening article on the BBC Sport blog this morning. In it, he describes how the ratings for BBC’s Match of The Day (their highlights show, which features Gary Lineker, Alan Hansen and others) has risen this season — and that the ratings for MOTD were much higher than the live broadcast of Wigan against Manchester United.

Living in the States, it’s something we often overlook — how Match of The Day is still an institution in England and how popular highlights shows are in that country.

Still, the article by Mosey reads like sour grapes against SkySports. Sure, BBC has more viewers for Match of the Day than live televised matches, but if you were the BBC, wouldn’t you trade MOTD for the real thing?

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