The Footie Fool

After seeing the viewership numbers for the EPL on Sportsnet last season it can’t be a huge surprise that they didn’t go after the rights a bit harder. The numbers were pitiful.

That said, honestly this is the worst news I have gotten this year. I generally could care less about the Sunday games, if the game was good fine, but the Saturday 3 pack was my Saturday, not just a part of it. I feel awful about this news.

I guess a thanks for the update is in order, but what horrible news.

As an aside, I just watched the Liverpool vs. Hong Kong match yesterday on the Score and if that is the level of coverage we can expect from that station I may not even watch the Sunday games. The coverage broke three times in the first half to update the score in the San Diego / Colorado MLB game. I love baseball, but isn’t the ticker enough of an update for a meaningless west coast game? Tehy never interupt wrestling for updates, so why do it to Liverpool? Easy answer, to screw me.

After charging $30 for the FA cup on PPV, this is the worst thing Canada has done to me in the world of soccer coverage.

I am pretty much gutted and frustrated by how the Score managed to rob Western Canada of Sat EPL soccer. Not sure if Eastern Canada will get any Sat games by the season’s start or not either.

And I am an Arsenal fan (like you) which means the only Gunner game I will get to see is their match against Liverpool on Oct 28. Arsenal games have been on the down in Canada for the last few years, and this year it is going to be hard.
Hopefully some local pubs might show a game or two.

I might have to finally extract that soccer gene out of my system…

Damn — I hadn’t heard about Sportsnet dropping EPL coverage. I didn’t see near as many games as I would’ve liked but still, I tried to catch at least one a week.

I just checked out Setana Broadband and if I can get my eyes to adjust to a two inch screen I might go that way. They claim to have EPL games coming in August.

I can’t handle FSWC since they don’t actually show much soccer (just the soccer report over and over.)

Does GOLTv show many live games during the season? I’ve only ever had the summer previews and there wasn’t too much there for me.

FYI, if you want some more info on the Sportsnet decision to end their Sat morning coverage I blogged about it in April.

Seems such a shame that, just as soccer seems to be on an upswing in Canada our coverage of it on the first tier cable stations is dropping.

I am happy that The Score is picking up the Sunday games. I think those are the marquee matchups. But it’s still going to be difficult to follow a team when you only get a couple of shots to see them each year.

Gah, this really sucks. I guess I’m going to have to upgrade my cable package so that I get the Score at least (even though I generally hate their soccer coverage). I checked the Rogers website and there’s no indication that they’re going to be offering Setanta either. I can always go to the pub and watch, but that gets expensive…even more expensive than getting digital cable would be, and what’s the point of that if they’re not even showing any Premiership games?

Or I suppose I could just download even more games. Way to drive revenue away there, morons.

Go over to the Dobson Blog on http://www.sportsnet.ca there seems to be some talks going on over at RSN ..maybe we will see some footie on Saturday afterall? As an Aston fan I am disappointed not to see the Liverpool match August 11th when it is on in the USA on FSC!

Liverpool Lou, you paid $30 to watch the FA Cup final v. WHam too? I thought I was the only one crazy enough to do that. Good thing it was such a cracking match, and another trophy for the good guys.

I think the people to blame in this whole saga is a combination of the Score, the EPL, and Setanta. The Score, for buying the rights and making it seem that they would be bringing the whole lot of games to Canada (which they can’t anyway, under the terms of their CRTC license, I’m pretty sure); the EPL, for selling out to the highest bidder without doing any legwork in finding out whether the network actually plans to distribute the content they are paying for; and Setanta for playing the opportunist and jumping in to the mix in order to charge die-hard footy fans 14.95 (assuming the channel even gets set up in time) or 11.95 per month for their Broadband coverage (which I may end up being basically forced into here). Especially when a couple of years ago, one could watch FA Cup / UEFA Cup / 3 Epl games on Sportsnet, plus the Sunday game on the Score…and these channels are much more accessible than Setanta, which doesn’t even technically exist as a Canadian channel yet!

And as another person said, the tragedy is that just when the average person, having witnessed the U-20 WC, might be inclined to tune in and become enthralled with the beautiful game, now it’s harder than ever to get one on TV…so I’m pretty disappointed with the sports broadcasting industry in Canada ATM.

There was an article in the Globe and Mail stating that Roders and Bell Express Vu will have Setanta before the start of the season. They also mention that Videotron will have it later on in the year, but when I wrote an email to them I was told that this was not the case.

Looks like I am going to switch to Bell.

I wish I had a bit more background on why Setanta was choosen. It seems to me they don't have quite the international penetration as Fox.

It’s difficult because Setanta is involved. Wherever they go, with their obstructive small-time business model, fans suffer.

You know, even in Ethiopia, one of the poorest nation in the world, you can watch live EPL games. I can’t believe this is happening in Canada. I know that most Canadians enjoy other games like Baseball and Hockey but I am very sure there are some Canadians who love football and so many million immigrants like myself who love the game to death. May be not to death but they enjoy watching it to the say the least. I really hate watching football online but it looks like I don’t have a choice…I think we are doomed. I think this year is going to be very depressing for me.

What are we going to do now? I’m with Liverpool Lou (even if he does support the Red Scouse)-worst news of the year. I’m trying to find a way to get the games and will looking here for help.

well for all liverpool fans out there ..i dont know if any of you know about a place called scallywags in downtown toronto at younge and st.clair…thats my only hope because they usually show all the games…they have a dish and get all us channels..but until now i havent seen any postings for the upcoming games and thats not making me comfortable…but if anything i will let you guys know….they usually have coverage for most games at one time …so fingers crossed that they will be showing the games…”U’ll Never Walk alone”

Does anyone no the status of Fox Sports World Canada’s EPL coverage this year?

If they have lost the sunday night EPL review show it will really be the last nail in their coffin.

This sucks.

This sucks big time!
what’s to look forward to on weekends now!
The only good thing about TV on weekend is off (EPL), I can as well disconnect my cable, not worth paying for anymore. Who cares about baseball or american ‘football’, a bunch of over weight ‘kids’ in tights running like they have a stick between their —.
To all u soccer die hards any clue where to get the games?

I seriously am feeling depressed about this. I feel like crying. It’s my whole saturday. The pub only works in theory because you cant go to the pub to watch live because the games are so early and I always end up finding out the result before I can get to watch the game if I dont see it live. This is Boll*x. I was so excited about Sunderland and Liverpool. Does anyone know a good website that streams games??

Hey, I just found the FREE PREVIEW of SETANTA TV’s coverage of English Premier League (Channel 420 Roger’s Digital). The FREE PREVIEW IS ON TIL SEPTEMBER 10. aaahhhhh relief. I just found out about Sportsnet idiotic move of dropping SUPER SOCCER SATURDAY – it was the only show I watched on their channel – no more you losers!

Well, I always thought Canadian TV was the worst on this continent. Every country (not just the US) down south has better programming than Canada. The only good thing about Canadian TV was the EPL on Saturday.

Now, we have not even that anymore. The solution: First step: Cancel Rogers Sportnet. The rest of their programming is awful anyway. Second step: Cancel Videotron. Third step: Emigrate South where the customer actually still has a choice.

Sadly enough that does not only apply to TV but to basically everything else (Telephone, cellular offerings, cloth, cars, furniture, medical care, etc).

I feel like being back in the Europe of the 70′s and 80′s where the customer was seen as a necessary evil and where the words customer service and offering a choice to the customer did not exist in the vocabulary.

What’s next?

Sportsnet will run 1 Saturday match live weekly.
Setanta Sports just started on Star Choice (Ch.239) this past weekend and they ran a pair of live matches BUT they run a good portion, if not ALL of the other matches throughout the weekend on delay.

Just an update – this is an old post and I am closing comments on it. There have been many developments since this post was written at the end of July.

http://footiefool.com/2007/08/01/my-final-post-on-this-seasons-epl-tv-coverage-in-canada/

http://footiefool.com/2007/08/13/shaw-adds-setanta-to-western-canada-tv-lineup/