EPL Talk - Latest Comments in Setanta Sports Monopolizes U.S. TV Coverage of Premier League Title Race

Re: Setanta Sports Monopolizes U.S. TV Coverage of Premier League Title Race

CFTV — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 07:42:02 -0000

It will be interesting to see how the rights will be sorted out here in the States the next time they come up for bids. If I was FSC I would look to see if I could work out a deal where they split the 7:45am game with Setanta. Or even better ESPN makes a play for that game and one of the 10am games. Since FSC is based on the West Coast I don't think they put as much effort in offering anything of substance that early in the morning where if they were located on the East Coast they would be more apt to put more effort in that time period. I really hope that FSC makes a play either the Dutch League or Scottish League if they don't get the Prem in the 7:45 slot as those 2 leagues kick off games around that time and it sure beats watching informercials when the heartbeat of soccer is beating somewhere around the world...................

Re: Setanta Sports Monopolizes U.S. TV Coverage of Premier League Title Race

tampasoccer — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 11:12:18 -0000

Setanta has the better EPL games. It is that simple. The channel is well worth buying a satellite and paying $15/month. The best investment I have made over the last year or so.

Re: Setanta Sports Monopolizes U.S. TV Coverage of Premier League Title Race

Tim — Tue, 29 Apr 2008 09:51:01 -0000

The only thing I wish FSC had done was kept the 7:45am games, as they used to show them before sharing the rights with Setanta. As, it seems like the early Saturday game tends to be the most high profile game of the weekend.

Re: Setanta Sports Monopolizes U.S. TV Coverage of Premier League Title Race

Jeff Hash — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 21:29:21 -0000

Ontario, if anything, the EPL's situation in the US has improved thanks to Setanta. Before they came along, a number of these matches would have largely ended up on Pay-Per-View (at 15 dollars PER MATCH instead of month). On average, FSC was showing 3-4 matches a weekend with 2 on PPV. Now, it's 4 matches on Setanta (5 with monday matches) and 4 on FSC.

It's not ideal, but overall, I'll take Setanta and FSC now then FSC and PPV before.

Re: Setanta Sports Monopolizes U.S. TV Coverage of Premier League Title Race

Ontario Emperor — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 20:21:58 -0000

I hate when sports leagues sell their souls for the sake of TV revenue. Baseball has ignored the kids by moving to night games, American football is endangering itself by moving more and more to cable (with NFL Network not even available to significant portions of the cable audience), and soccer is hurting itself in the U.S. by having significant games only available on a premium channel.

Oh well, it could be worse. It could be cricket.