UEFA Champions League

[af102]

about to come on fs south. i thought the end of the espn deal and the movement to fsc meant the end of UCL on basic cable, but while flipping through the channels, i noticed, dare i say it, a UCL pregame show on fs south. might i get my hopes up that arsenal and celtic were about to come on? so a quick look at the fs south schedule showed not one, but 2 games on today, arsenal/celtic live at 130 and then a tape delay of the olympiacos game at 7. oh how many tuesday and wednesday afternoons have just improved

 

[KurtRambis4]

are just the playoffs for the group stage...meeh

 

[Liverdawg]

really understand the tv schedules for epl. When are the espn games, etc.? Is the champions league even gonna be on tv?

 

[MSUCostanza]

They are going to actually show more games, I believe, including all the group stage "play-in" games this week and next.

 

[Liverdawg]

Although I would almost rather see fewer games, but in HD on ESPN. FSC is really low quality.

 

[Uncle Leo]

Also, who will provide commentary? Max Bretos from the FSC studio? ...No thanks.

 

[MSUCostanza]

a British feed, sorta like they do for Premier League games, thank God, because I can't stand that dork Max Bretos. I have to admit, I'd rather hear Derek Rae and Tommy "He bulged the ol' onion bag" Smyth, though. The two calling the Arsenal-Celtic game were good, though.

We finally get some HD soccer on ESPN, and they lose the Champions League rights.

 

[Tito Cheeseburger Jr]

It is confusing as hell but I finally figured it out last weekend.

ESPN 2 has the early Saturday kickoff at 6:45 a.m. and Monday afternoon games. On days when there's no early kickoff on Saturday, they get first choice of the 9 a.m. games. There's no early game this weekend, so they're showing the Man U-Wigan game at 9 a.m.

Fox Soccer shows a game live at 9 a.m. Saturday and the live late kickoff on Sundays. It also shows tape delayed matches on Saturday that aren't chosen for live TV, usually the smaller teams like Bolton and Fulham.

Setanta (the a la carte channel that costs $15/month) shows the first choice 9 a.m. Saturday game (so it's usually a Big 4 team) and tape delayed matches the rest of the day. It also shows the early Sunday kickoff.

 

[Liverdawg]

I haven't been able to figure it out myself. As much as I kinda hate ESPN, I wish they would go ahead and buy out Setanta.