RIP EPL on Setanta?

Now that the Carling Cup fixture has been canceled, Stoke vs Fulham will now be LIVE on Setanta US. Check their guide at SetantaUS.com

From the site:

2:40 pm Live BPL Stoke City v Fulham
Live Barclays Premier League action as Stoke and Fulham go head to head. This programme replaces the Carling Cup Semi-Final 1st Leg: Blackburn Rovers v Aston Villa which was postponed due to snow.

 

Well that good news also brings a dilemma. Do we cut out of work early only to find out they cancelled our match too?

 

Carling Cup matches canceled but Stoke v. Fulham still on according to CNNSI.

 

Who knew the "transfer window" would be more interesting for tv so far than actual player movement? The latest developments:

Max Bretos has left FSC for ESPN.

Shane O'Rourke, head of Setanta's North America operations, has left to startup his own company, Premium Sports (whatever that is).

And while not Prem related, this one took me by surprise. Spike Lee has accepted an invite to join the board of directors of the US committee that is bidding to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022. Apparantly Mookie is a season ticket holder for Inter Milan. Hmmm, Murinho, Lee, and FFC24.....I'm seeing a commonality here. And no, they're not all Anarchists (I don't think). :lol:

 

You dont watch the Lifetime channel?

Go figger! I watch the LMN.... how better to satisfy my inner woman!

Downside: Shows how I could'a got a lot more action as a single male, if I'd just exercised my Alpha-male manipulative urges.

 

YEEEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!

Wow that sucks. For ESPN.

 

Fox Soccer Plus?

 

'Plus' being the keyword pointing to subscription channel. so basically no change except possible additional footy programming. That'll piss off the Rugby fans. Yawn.

 

They have a press release on the FSC's website announcing Fox Soccer Plus. It will begin March 1st.

 

Will Super Sunday Plus now be on FSC Plus?

(please, please, please say yes...)

 

From the LA Times:

NEW YORK (AP) — Fox will announce Tuesday that it is launching its second all-soccer network in the United States on March 1.

The new network, called Fox Soccer Plus, will televise matches of the European Champions League, England's Premier League, the English Football Association Cup and the Italian Serie A.

Fox Soccer Channel began operation in 1997 and changed its name to FSC five years ago.

"As America's interest in the world's game is increasing, the launch of Fox Soccer Plus will complement and enhance our current programming on Fox Soccer Channel," new FSC general manager David Nathanson said.

The new network will draw content from Setanta USA, whose sublicenses with Fox are expiring, a person familiar with the negotiations said Monday, speaking on condition of anonymity because that detail won't be included in the announcement.

Fox, a division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp, is negotiating with cable carriers to determine what tiers the new network will be placed on. The new network will be broadcast in high definition; Fox also has been preparing to start high definition telecasts of FSC.

Fox has been televising the Premier League in the U.S. since 1998 and sublicenses some of the games to Setanta USA and ESPN2, which is televising 48 matches this season.

Also Monday, FSC said it was hiring Andy Gray of News Corp.'s Sky Sports in Britain for its studio show during this year's World Cup. Gray, a former Scotland national team player, worked for ESPN's U.S. coverage of the 2008 European Championship.

Richard Keys of Sky Sports also will be a part of FSC's World Cup coverage.

 

http://www.epltalk.com/fox-soccer-plus-scheduled-to-launch-march-1-2010/14760

This doesn't look updated as none of the providers show as FS+ carriers in San Antonio at this time. But fwiw, http://foxsoccerplus.channelfinder.net/start.asp

 

Not available on DirecTV for me either. I have submitted my request though. Hopefully enough customers will do the same.

 

I'd have to imagine they're ironing out distribution deals now. I'm guessing DrectTV, at least, will be on board for the launch.

 

I would love to be excited about this news but right now can only be happy about the HD potential. We have benefited from Setanta having the rights to Fulham most weeks and actually airing them Live quite often. However, this I believe was largely due to the Xtra channel they have on DirecTV. I worry that FSC Plus simply means we will get a Big 4 HD and Big 4 SD match every Saturday.

 

RIP Setanta

Setanta goes dark in the US on Feb. 28.

Depending on how Fox Soccer Plus is offered, pubs across the nation just lost a lot of business.

 

FSC in it's current incarnation shows 4-5 EPL matches on Saturday/Sunday. So if you double the number of channels, you get 8-10 matches, which is almost all of them. Granted, the number of "live" matches will decrease, but probably by only 1-2/wk.

And that's if they don't sell more of the rights (of which Fox owns all of them in NA). There's rumor that ESPN would like more and that Versus is wanting in on the action. Since those two are already established with HD, this could well be an improvement for us stateside.

But for now, there are a lot of unknowns.

 

I don't see pubs being that hurt; most of their business is to watch the games in a pub with their friends (and enemies); those who only go to watch games on Setanta don't represent a significiant percentage of their business.

 

I went to the DirecTV website and submitted my plea that they pick up Fox Soccer Plus on March 1. I received a personal e-mail in reply, but it was completely non-committal. The customer service rep who replied simply said she would pass my note along to the programming managers.