calgarysoccernut Posted August 13, 2003 Share Posted August 13, 2003 Full slate of soccer available on TV to Canadian fans this season By Neil Davidson The Canadian Press Once again Canadian fans can look forward to a full menu of soccer as European leagues kick off new seasons. In fact, they can feast on more TV coverage than fans in England. The English Premier League opens this weekend, with the same slate of TV coverage this season as last: two games Saturday on Rogers Sportsnet and two Sunday on Fox Sports World Canada. On Saturday, it's defending champion Manchester United versus Bolton (10 a.m. EDT live) and Arsenal versus Everton and Canadian striker Tomasz Radzinski (12:30 p.m. on tape delay) on Sportsnet. On Sunday, it's two live games: Leeds versus Newcastle (9 a.m. EDT) and Liverpool versus Chelsea (11 a.m. EDT) on Fox Sports World Canada. Fox Sports World Canada also plans to carry a Monday English match with the possibility of a midweek game if available. There is no Monday match next week. Compare that coverage to England, where fans will only be able to see Aston Villa-Portsmouth on Saturday and the same games that are available here on Sunday. And one of those is only on pay-per-view. You can't see any Premier League games on the main English channels: BBC1, BBC2, ITV, Channel 4 and Channel 5. Those stations, known as terrestrial television in Britain, only show some Champions League and UEFA Cup games, plus England matches and some FA Cup games. ITV shows Premier League highlights late on Saturday, repeated Sunday morning. Live games are all on cable Sky TV or pay-per-view. At Rogers Sportsnet, Gerry Dobson and former Canadian international Craig Forrest will continue to anchor Soccercentral at noon EDT Saturday and there is talk of a midweek show as well. Sportsnet has carved out a nice niche for its soccer coverage and ratings have risen. The Manchester United-Blackburn game on April 19, for example, drew an audience of 104,000 despite kicking off at 10 a.m. ET. While overall ratings are modest given the Saturday morning timing, the network says its average combined audience for both games has grown to 80,000 last season from 52,000 in 2000-01. Soccercentral's audience averaged 69,000 last season, up from 46,000 in 2000-01. Those numbers compare to 41,000 for the average Canadian specialty channel for the period 8 a.m. to noon on Saturdays, according to Sportsnet. While there has yet to be an official announcement, look for Rogers Sportsnet and WTSN to show the women's World Cup from the U.S. this fall with Sportsnet carrying the Canadian games. Sportsnet will also air a couple of pre-tournament games: Aug. 31 against Mexico in Edmonton and Sept. 14 against Australia in Kingston, Ont. TSN, which picks up its coverage from ESPN, will continue its coverage of the Champions League this season, carrying at least one game a week. The network's goal is to carry two games a week. TSN also plans a weekly one-hour magazine show that will air in advance of the matches and a 30-minute show highlighting last week's Champions League action. Both are from ESPN. Fox Sports World Canada has had to drop Scottish soccer this season but has added the French league and picked up Dutch action again. There will probably be one French and Dutch game each week, likely shown same day on tape delay. The specialty digital channel had shown Scottish games on tape delay but was forced to drop it this time because the pay TV rights-holder in the United States was not happy with the 48-hour delay in Canada. The German season is already under way, with Fox showing a live match Saturdays at 9:30 a.m. ET. The network also airs a Sunday Bundesliga game on tape delay, going live if there are no English games available. Other Fox soccer properties are games from Argentina and Brazil plus USL and Major League Soccer in North America. Some English FA Cup coverage is again in the works although the UEFA Cup schedule is up in the air. Fox Sports World Canada is also looking at renewing Spanish coverage, given the interest in La Liga with the arrival of David Beckham in Madrid. The network got good some feedback from its recent coverage of Real Madrid's Asian tour, according to Tom Scott, programming supervisor for Global's specialty networks. Fox Sports World Canada has no choice when it comes to announcers, bad news for viewers who are all too tired of loud American announcers trying to sound like they work for Brazilian TV. It's the same with Sportsnet, although it at least offers British announcers. But Sportsnet's Greg Szele notes that the network does not get to pick its games and has no control over announcers giving out the score of the game that is being shown later on tape delay. Sportsnet also hopes to carry some high-profile one-off games from around Europe this season. One game already announced is Beckham's expected La Liga debut against Valencia on Sunday. Check local listings, as some legs of the network will show the game Monday. Sportsnet hopes to repeat its coverage of the English First Division playoffs at the end of this season. Viewers Choice offers some England and FA Cup games on pay-per-view, although the cost is not cheap. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachesl Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 I love the comment about "viewers who are all too tired of loud American announcers trying to sound like they work for Brazilian TV". The international ESPN playbyplayers, even the American ones, are not, but those clowns doing the so-called "Champions World Series" this summer were real bad, stinkers. Not only mispronouncing the non-anglo names with pseudo gusto ("and passes to SAAAAAAVEEEEEEEEOILAAAAA"), using bad accents ("Rawbby Kin from CCuuuunty Curk"), they gave fake nicknames to many stars "Scholesy", "Giggsy", "the Keener").The feeds that were carried from Sky Sports of the promotion playoffs were bad too, greasy Blackpool emcees. I'd rather hear it in Italian and French. At least they aren't payperview. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joe05 Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 I agree Massive Attack, It is good that he didn't mention the French and Italian leagues. I wouldn't want a casual fan tuning in to those matches and being bored out of their skull! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amacpher Posted August 14, 2003 Share Posted August 14, 2003 I dunno. I think some people (not all, i admit) would prefer a league that shows off more soccer skills, like the Italian league, if they're trying to get interested in soccer. I know that's the league that got me into it. The EPL was the first league I started to watch but it got me quickly (after like 2 weeks) asking myself, 'where are all those players are saw dominate the World Cups??' Fortunately then serie A was just kicking-off a new season and my question was answered! Then when I saw that serie A was more than just a 2 team league, there was no going back! quote:Originally posted by Joe05 I agree Massive Attack, It is good that he didn't mention the French and Italian leagues. I wouldn't want a casual fan tuning in to those matches and being bored out of their skull! Andrew, New York City Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cheeta Posted August 15, 2003 Share Posted August 15, 2003 Think they play a game in Italy with a more measured pace. Probably has something to do with that Italian sun. Like my football at full throttle as much as possible. Don't always get that out of England, but certainly more often that not. I'm not old (feel it, but ain't) but how much this world has changed. Was lucky enough as a wee cub to have had friends who had satelite dishs. First generation stuff. Real Tim Burton setup in one case with wires and cables and these electrical box thingys all over the place. But you could get singles from fu'king Africa. Got a lot of football off the BBC, BBCScotland and eventually ITV (?). Even got the matchs taped for me on that miracle machine the Betavision! Honestly can't remember if it was a betavision or not all I do remember is Pol's had this massive tv recorder and no one else did. Like I said, I was real lucky because excepting the odd NASL match and the occasional WCQ or Olympic match on the CBC it wasn't untell I was into my teens that any football got onto TV out here. Sure changed after Mexico86, but TSN was around by then, ESPN, blah, blah, blah. And now, thanks to digital cable, the internet, and a VCR I'm pretty much set every night of the week that I can spare over the winter. Just got to get a better angle at following the SPL. It's just getting harder. Probably better off without it anyway I suppose,,. "Minority of one" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattbin Posted August 16, 2003 Share Posted August 16, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Joe05 I agree Massive Attack, It is good that he didn't mention the French and Italian leagues. I wouldn't want a casual fan tuning in to those matches and being bored out of their skull! Actually I'm often surprised by the excitement of the Italian league--they play with much more determination and heart than the national team seems to. Granted there are few goal-fests, but the passion is evident and the skill level is of course very high. I don't understand why they go from that to the 8-1-1 formation they tend to favour in the international tournaments. I wonder if it's because Italians will not accept their team being blown out, under any circumstances. To come close and lose is tough but bearable. But I can't remember any Italian game that was a complete embarassment, as a result. But now I'm getting off topic. To recap: Italian league = not so bad. YMMV. Allez les Rouges, M@ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
amacpher Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 quote:Originally posted by beachesl I love the comment about "viewers who are all too tired of loud American announcers trying to sound like they work for Brazilian TV". The guy he had at the front of his mind when writing this must have been the one that does the play-by-play for the MLS Saturday afternoon game on ESPN2. Has anyone else heard this guy?? "He shoots, he sccooooooooorrrrres!!!!" Brutal. And he just says the most stupid things! Must have gone to the Bob Cole School of Broadcasting. Andrew, New York City Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaradthescot Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 No SPL?!?!!?[:0] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jaradthescot Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 No SPL?!?!!?[:0] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ault Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Cheeta Was lucky enough as a wee cub to have had friends who had satelite dishs. But you're not of true veteran vintage unless you remember PBS' "Soccer Made in Germany" with Toby Charles from the late 70s / early 80s. A one hour extended highlight package from the feature game of the week. True salvation in a non soccer world at the time. Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bill Ault Posted August 18, 2003 Share Posted August 18, 2003 quote:Originally posted by Cheeta Was lucky enough as a wee cub to have had friends who had satelite dishs. But you're not of true veteran vintage unless you remember PBS' "Soccer Made in Germany" with Toby Charles from the late 70s / early 80s. A one hour extended highlight package from the feature game of the week. True salvation in a non soccer world at the time. Bill Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
beachesl Posted August 19, 2003 Share Posted August 19, 2003 Go back even further to the late 60's and early 70's when the ONLY soccer you could get on TV in Canada was the FA Cup on CBC early on a Saturday morning in May. That was exotic. And it wasn't payperview, which didn't exist at that time. You had to go to a dingy dive in Little Italy to see any Champions Cup game on closed-circuit. I didn't see the 1966 World Cup from England, that was on closed-circuit as well, wasn't it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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