Tottenham’s unbelievable 4-4 draw against Arsenal may end up being a modern day classic, one of the best Premier League games in several years. Problem is, if you’re like me and live in the United States, you probably missed it.
Living in the U.S, the only way to catch the game was to make a visit to your local sports pub to watch the game during work hours (the game kicked off at 4pm ET), or watch it or tape it on Setanta Sports. The issue is that unless you have satellite, the hard to find Verizon FIOS or are fortunate to have one of the few cable companies that carries the network, your options of watching the game were severely limited.
Let’s consider the options available to us if you missed the live game:
- Setanta Sports - tape delay. Setanta isn’t available on cable in my area. My area can’t get Verizon FIOS, so my only options are DirecTV and DISH Network. But living in Florida, I refuse to get satellite because the reception keeps going out whenever we have thunderstorms (which are very prevalent).
- Setanta Broadband. I’m a Setanta Broadband customer, but I wasn’t able to watch the game live because I was at work. I wanted to watch it on broadband later that night, but missed the delayed broadcast. Unfortunately the game isn’t yet available on demand through the service, and I won’t hang around waiting for them to add it because it’ll be too late.
- Fox Soccer Broadband. Unfortunately, the game is not available through Fox’s service.
So far, I’m zero for three. The only realistic option is to download the game via BitTorrent and watch it at my leisure. Of course, it’s illegal, but what options do I have? Maybe I can try to watch the highlights of the game, but the only show where I can watch the highlights, legally, is Fox Soccer Report. I’m a big fan of Bobby McMahon, but I missed the show tonight and therefore lost the final opportunity to see the highlights.
Except, of course, I can go the illegal route and load up 101GreatGoals on my browser to see all of the goals.
It’s pretty sad when the most convenient options for watching Premier League matches or game highlights is to do it illegally. Let’s hope that when the next rights for the Premier League are sold that the internet rights for matches and highlights are totally repackaged where fans are able to get quality matches at convenient prices. I’d be willing to pay for the service. Would you?
{ 18 comments… read them below or add one }
i am about to make your dreams comes true….
http://www.myp2p.eu/
i am about to make your dreams come true…
http://www.myp2p.eu/
i am going to make all your dreams come true u silly yank….
http://www.myp2p.eu/
Absolutely unequivocallly yes.
Maybe…
illegal schmeallegal. just do it.
Why was that match not on TV. F-ing ridiculous.
I watched over the internet and had a great quality screen, Spurs Odyssey always has great links to matches available and it costs nothing, I am sick of paying for Sky when all they do is ridicule us!
They should pick the game being shown in the UK as their main game (ie. the Arsenal/Spurs game) because these games are picked for a reason!
I watched it in Minnesota. The pub I watch matches at (http://www.the-local.com) said it was going to be tape delayed until 5 PM CDT. I figured I'd watch the ManUre - Hammers match and go take a long walk around the block during the half as to avoid having the outcome being given away.
But just before 3 PM CDT Setanta Extra starts counting down until the North London Derby, and wound up showing the match, even when it conflicted with their published schedule. After a 60-some minute stretch of abuse from one Gunner who'd had a few too many pints, we few local Spurs fans were the only ones singing at the end.
I have a Mac with no PC emulator, so I'm unable to use MyP2P even if I wanted to…
Cheers,
The Gaffer
The match was live on Setanta Xtra, which is channel 622 on DirecTv. I didn't watch as my Pompey were live on Setanta, but it was live. If you subscribe to Setanta on DirecTv you automatically get Setanta Xtra, which almost always shows a live match on Saturday morning and again when their are several midweek matches.
Here is the MOTD segment for this game:
http://www.101greatgoals.com/videodisplay/1715376/
-Ambrodel
I've sent Setanta Broadband several emails this week because they haven't changed the live or replay times to reflect the fact that the UK and US are only 4 hours behind this week (on the east coast) and won't be back to 5 hours until the weekend.
So for the second time in 3 days (I'm a spurs fan) I've joined the replay on Setanta Broadband 60+ minutes into the match, even though I tuned into the game at 7 p.m. - the time they said it would be shown! So I sent them a 2nd email ridiculing their bad service.
And don't even get me started on Setanta Broadband's *incomplete* archive. Sometimes they won't even post games in the archive footage that they had the rights to show live in the first place! Gaffer, can you explain that one to me??? And why *does* it take so long for them to post games? I told them in my email that I hope ESPN takes over showing EPL games, even if only on ESPN360. For sports coverage, ESPN really is the best. They know what their customers want and how to get it to them.
At least this Saturday's Spurs match is on FSC…
It sucks to be a premiership fan in Canada … only stupid hockey going on here
Yeah I went to a pub but showed up at halftime due to the error in their schedule with regard to daylight savings time. Good thing all the fireworks were in the 2nd half!
Chris: I think the nature of the post is slightly unfair to the networks. Yesterday had a full schedule of Prem action and there was no way to show all of it live. Going into last weekend he Spurs game would have been thought to be a Gunners blow out. Better for each network to focus on a Man U, a Liverpool game, or the Hull City/ Chelsea match up. so, the live coverage or lack thereof should not be subject to a lot of second guessing.
Chris, you may know more about how Setanta Broadband is set up but I would expect they even have to pre-select their games to a small extent and can not change up at the last minute even if there is a great game such as the one yesterday. The real issue for North American fans is that when their is mid-week action we may be tied up with work as I was and many of us were. So, due to location ad luck the best gme is often missed.
go get an fta satellite receiver, havent missed a epl game in over 4 years now(i live in canada), dont feel bad stealing from a big business… they steal from its customers on a daily basis thus the reason they are a big business in the 1st place
fucking behave yourself chuck u lot aint interested unless their wearing crash helmets and
body armour and call a time out every time anything half interesting looks like happening.