Starting today, the Premier League added a watermark in the bottom right corner of many of its TV and Internet broadcasts (see above example).

Adding the Premier League logo is certainly a move by the league to protect its copyright and prevent pubs in the United Kingdom from using its footage without permission. The move follows a High Court hearing this week where both sides believed they had won. The Premier League released a statement, which read:

“It is clear that the law gives us the right to prevent the unauthorised use of our copyrights in pubs and clubs when they are communicated to the public without our authority.

“We will now resume actions against publicans who are using European Economic Area foreign satellite systems to show Premier League football on their premises unlawfully and without our authority.”

Presumably the Premier League will take action against British pubs who are, in their eyes, illegally showing live broadcasts of Premier League matches that are beamed to the pubs from European transmissions via decoder cards.

Could this mean the end for British pubs showing live Premier League matches that are not being shown by Sky Sports or ESPN? We will have to wait and see, but the Premier League is certainly taking steps to head in that direction.

We all know that Premier League football is far more than the 90 minutes our favorite team plays each weekend. Throughout the week there’s plenty of programming, on television, the Internet and radio, to keep us informed and entertained about our passion. But what if, for a minute, you could pick and choose your dream entertainment guide to the Premier League.

Ignoring the constraints that prevent you from making that dream come true now, what shows would you watch or listen to? Would you watch Match Of The Day and Football Focus? Would you watch Sky Sports throughout the day? Would you listen to match commentaries of Premier League games via BBC Radio Five Live? Imagine, for a minute, the impossible.

With that in mind, I need your help to build what a dream-come-true entertainment guide to the Premier League would look like. I’ve created a calendar and I’ve filled in my recommendations of must-see TV and must-listen radio and/or podcasts. But please feel free to add, edit or delete as necessary. Anything goes as long as it’s not a web page (i.e. don’t list The Guardian or EPL Talk, but you can list specific podcasts and what time they’re usually released). You can include videos, podcasts, TV shows, radio debates, etc.  Whatever you find entertaining and think that fellow soccer fans would appreciate.

The key is to expand the possibilities and add the best-of-the-best even if it’s from a different country than where you live. My goal here is to determine what is the best bits of Premier League-related news and entertainment from around the world, no matter what the barriers are.

So click on the button below to access the interactive calendar. All times are eastern (GMT -5).

You can access the calendar via this text link.

Any questions? Post them below in the comments section.

FOX winning the TV rights for the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup tournaments is, in a strange way, a victory for the Premier League. FOX Soccer has built its soccer empire on the success it has achieved with U.S. coverage of the Premier League. That strong foundation helped build FOX Soccer into what it is today, and two years ago helped them acquire the coverage of the UEFA Champions League.

Some soccer fans have been throwing their toys out of the pram as if the ‘FOX Acquires World Cup TV rights’ story is the end of the world. But the real pain point and the reason that many of them are defensive is because they’ve lost their security blanket. When ESPN paid $100 million for the rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cup, part of the deal was to also cover USMNT and MLS games. Now that ESPN has lost out to FOX, the sweet deal for MLS being lumped in with U.S. Soccer and the World Cup — thereby artificially inflating the value of MLS TV rights — is no more. Now that this MLS season has ended, FOX won’t be covering Major League Soccer. And MLS and U.S. Soccer is now out in the open, and will justly receive whatever TV rights dollar amount the market can bear.

When the current TV rights deal for Major League Soccer expires at the end of 2014, who will be interested in bidding for the rights if the carrot on the stick of World Cup coverage is no longer an incentive? FOX won’t be interested in bidding for MLS given the amount of money they’ve spent on TV rights for the World Cup plus the appalling TV ratings FOX Soccer received for its coverage of MLS. Will ESPN even be interested if there’s no World Cup TV coverage as an incentive to secure a MLS deal? So perhaps NBC and ESPN will bid against each other for the rights instead, or work out a shared deal? The bottom line is that the next two years are critical for Major League Soccer. The top division in the United States needs to produce impressive TV ratings on its own merits on both NBC and ESPN. It needs to prove that it deserves to earn as much as it can without being padded with coverage of the US men’s national team.

Not surprisingly, many MLS apologists are down on FOX Soccer even before FOX won the bid for the World Cup TV rights. They argue that FOX did a poor job of promoting America’s top league. While this is a fair argument, FOX has in the past 12 months significantly improved its presentation and coverage of the league, but TV ratings were still poor. Rather than blame the inferior quality of the MLS product on the field, MLS bloggers prefer to make FOX the scapegoat instead.

It’s time to stop hating on FOX Soccer. Instead it’s time to give them the benefit of the doubt and hope that they make the right decisions moving forward to improve their coverage. Many readers who rave about how incredible ESPN’s coverage is seem to forget how woeful the 2006 World Cup broadcast was by ESPN and ABC (and forget how many Monday 3pm games have been showing up on ESPN3.com instead of ESPN2 recently). In the span of four years, ESPN’s coverage went from laughable to simply stunning. FOX has seven years and a giant head start. The next few years will be interesting times indeed for soccer fans in the United States, and FOX needs to be congratulated for making a significant investment in the sport of soccer. Without them, the soccer viewing landscape in this country would look completely different.

Outside of the TV coverage of the actual matches themselves, what are the things that you can’t live without when it comes to following the Premier League?

For example, what TV shows, radio shows, websites, phone apps, plug-ins, or anything else do you use that are the most important to you — whether they’re legal or illegal? These could be things that help enrich the experience of following or watching your favorite Premier League club. And they don’t have to be things that are in the country where you live. They can be anything worldwide.

Please list your list in the comments section below. The information will be helpful for a project I’m working on, and I want to thank you in advance for taking 30 seconds to share your feedback.

I realize that what I will suggest will border on being sacrilegious in the eyes of English football traditionalists, but here goes: The weekend Premier League football schedule needs to change.

Let me explain.

This past weekend’s matches in the Premier League were very entertaining (except for the Sunderland against Fulham game). But the shame of it all was that we soccer fans didn’t get to enjoy the common experience of watching the same games at the same time. Most of us probably watched Norwich against Arsenal, Swansea versus Manchester United, Chelsea against Liverpool, and may watch Aston Villa against Tottenham Hotspur. Out of the 10am ET games on Saturday, I would guess that the vast majority of TV soccer viewers watched Manchester City against Newcastle. Right?

So that means that the majority of viewers missed watching these games live: Stoke against QPR, West Brom vs Bolton, Wigan versus Blackburn, Sunderland against Fulham, and Everton v Wolves. Those were five games that were largely overlooked by most soccer fans because it’s difficult to watch more than one game at one time.

The shame is that, out of all of the games from this past weekend (other than Chelsea against Liverpool), the two most entertaining ones were Wigan against Blackburn and Stoke City versus Queens Park Rangers.

So here’s my recommendation. Why not spread the Premier League matches out over the weekend to allow TV viewers from around the world the chance to see more Premier League games, thus increasing TV ratings and helping promote the Premier League? Traditionalists will argue that the 3pm GMT kick-off time is done for a reason, to allow football supporters in the United Kingdom to utilize transport (either public or their own) to attend matches (home and away). But the reality is that the three o’clock kick-off is no longer a norm in the Premier League. That ship has sailed long ago.

Taking this past weekend’s matches as an example, here’s how I would have liked to see the matches shown on television:

Friday, November 18:

• Wigan v Blackburn, 8pm GMT

Alfred Lord Tennyson wrote “Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all”. Spanish fans echoed similar sentiments following their recent 1-0 loss to England in an international friendly. It was a brave defensive display by England’s somewhat makeshift lineup missing the likes of Wayne Rooney, Steven Gerrard, Jack Wilshere and Ashley Young. When you read that list of absentees, the lack of potency in England’s attack becomes clear. But Capello clearly played to the strengths of the personnel available. They were compact, stubborn, and very disciplined against the Spanish world beaters who were predictably dominant in possession but lacked real creativity in the final third. England got their chance and took it resulting in a somewhat surprising win.

International breaks have been largely uninspiring and, though this match will quickly fade from memory, it has sparked considerable debate. Many in the English and Spanish press have greatly criticized Capello’s tactics as being ultra conservative and unadventurous. Certain Spanish pundits proudly stood behind their squad stating ‘we would rather play beautiful football and lose, than play as defensively as England did and win’. Make no mistake. This was a friendly. But there was no shortage of reaction. The debate has become philosophical in nature.

Who defines what is ‘football’? Perhaps the Spanish are the current writers of history as they are the most recent victors on the world and European stages. Therefore, Spain and Barcelona’s slick passing, intricate, possession based style rules the day. Though I would argue that Barcelona’s defensive tenacity from top to bottom is their biggest difference maker.

I often hear pundits use the phrase ‘they’re a good footballing side’. Of course, I understand their opinion. They are referring to teams that keep the ball on the floor and try to pass their way through opponents using technical ability. But that phrase has always struck me as a strange one. For example, every team in the Premier League has earned the right to play at that level regardless of their style. Each team takes to that green pitch and plays on the same stage. The manager uses the tools at his disposal and comes up with a strategy to beat the opposition. If Barcelona’s personnel were not so technically gifted, they would play a different way.

Is it not the diversity of footballing styles that makes the game so interesting? If every team played the same way, would it not become predictable? Fortunately teams are made up of individuals with differing talents based on physique, training, footballing background and culture. I think that is one of the reasons why the Barclays Premier League is so attractive to viewers. There are so many different styles of play. Even recent Premier League history is filled with successful teams of differing styles: the free flowing attack of Arsenal’s Invincibles, the impregnable rock that was Mourinho’s Chelsea, the counter-attacking dominance of Ferguson’s Man United with Cristiano Ronaldo.

Many people would like to see Barcelona play at Stoke City’s Britannia on a cold, wet Tuesday night… well except for Stoke. Though this is often said in jest, it speaks to the curiosity of viewers and pundits in the clashing of styles, environments, and cultures within the game. So I do not reject the ‘Lord Tennyson’ view of football as it is an opinion. But for me, it is the differing philosophies that make the game great.

I invite you to share your opinions on some of your favorite teams of the past and their unique footballing philosophies.

Something happened this past weekend that made my day.

I decided to take a long walk Saturday. It was a beautiful day in South Florida. A picture-perfect day. Blue skies, 76 degrees fahrenheit and a cool breeze. It felt so good to get out and walk for about an hour through a quiet, wooded neighborhood.

The hidden truth about living in South Florida is that it’s too hot to be out for long periods of time for six out of the 12 months (May through October are usually obscenely hot and humid). So on such a wondrous day in November, I was surprised to see only five people on my one hour stroll. Three of them were dog walkers, while the only people who were outside walking for pure pleasure were a young boy and his grandmother.

On my way home, I stopped in a Super Target store to pick up a few items for dinner. And suddenly I realized where everyone was. On my walk, it was a ghost town. Inside Target, there were large crowds of people, walking aimlessly around the store. If you want to find America, go shopping.

What made my day though was what happened when I turned down one of the aisles and saw a complete stranger wearing a Manchester United shirt. Where you live, seeing a Premier League football shirt may be a common occurrence. But where I live, in suburbia (outside West Palm Beach), it’s a rarity. I can see one if I go to my local park filled with soccer fields, or if I go to a local soccer game. But I hardly ever (if ever) see one while shopping.

The bloke wearing the Manchester United shirt didn’t notice I was staring at his shirt as I walked past him, but I wanted to look on the back of his shirt to see if there was a name plastered below his shoulders. And there was. Rooney. I smiled and blurted out “Rooney, Rooney” to him. He turned and gave me an awkward “Ahh, yeah.”

While I’m not a Manchester United supporter, seeing a complete stranger wearing a Manchester United shirt in a large store where Americana shopped was a beautiful sight to see. It tells me (not scientifically) that Premier League football is creeping into America’s mainstream. Slowly, but surely, the invasion is happening.

Talk to any football fan and chances are, they can painfully recall a weekend ruined by a bad refereeing decision. And for supporters of Premier League sides, the pain is that much greater.

Thanks to the TV cameras present at every EPL game, fans get to relive the nightmare decision through slow-motion action replays which reveal just how badly the ref got it wrong. Yet in an age when fans and pundits alike can judge refereeing decisions in high definition from several different angles, our match officials continue to have to rely on their own eyesight to get it right first time.

As ESPN commentator and former Arsenal player Stewart Robson, defending a contentious decision in the recent Serie A match between Inter Milan and Juventus, pointed out: “The referee only gets one look at it, whereas we get three or four.” The television camera has become the referee’s enemy, when it could be their friend. Isn’t it time we used instant replay to help them out?

Video-review systems already work well in other sports. In rugby union, the on-field referee can call on the video referee to confirm whether a try should be awarded, while in American football, coaches can challenge a decision if they think the referee has made a mistake.

If ever a match highlighted how video referees could benefit the Premier League, it was Wolverhampton Wanderers’ 2-1 home defeat to Newcastle United last month. Wolves fans won’t need reminding that their team was denied a goal and a penalty by two refereeing decisions confirmed as errors by TV replays.

The first bad decision was made by referee Mark Halsey, who ruled that Steven Taylor’s foul on Jamie O’Hara had been made outside the area, when replays showed it had been committed inside the area. Wolves manager Mick McCarthy said of the referee’s decision to award the penalty: “I spoke to Mark and he said he didn’t want to guess.”

If a video-review system had been in operation, Halsey wouldn’t have had to guess – he simply could have simply referred the decision to the video referee, who would have clearly seen that the foul happened inside the area and instructed Halsey to award a penalty.

The second mistake was made by the assistant referee who ruled that Wolves midfielder Adam Hammill’s cross had gone behind for a goal-kick before it was headed back for Kevin Doyle to score. With a challenge system in place, McCarthy could have signalled to the fourth official that he wished to contest the decision. The video referee would have then reviewed the incident, seen that the ball was still in play and instructed Halsey to reverse his original decision and award the goal.

The video evidence for both incidents was conclusive; the reviews could have been completed in a matter of minutes. And two terrible decisions which almost certainly cost Wolves the game would have been averted.

Admittedly, there are doubts over whether video review would work as well in football as it does in more stop-start sports. A game of American football stops after every play, while a rugby union match is punctuated by scrums, lineouts and penalty kicks. Would video reviews ruin football’s unique flow?

There’s a danger they would. Officials might have to add on umpteen minutes of stoppage time to allow for video reviews or pause the game clock while reviews take place. Sky Sports and ESPN might welcome the opportunity for extra ad breaks and sponsorship (I can hear it now: “Video Referee Review, in association with Vision Express and Lasik Eye Surgery”), but I’m not sure players and supporters would.

Yet provided they’re introduced in the right way, video referees could help football rather than hinder it. Bear in mind that contentious decisions disrupt matches anyway, with incensed players surrounding the referee to protest, further delaying the game.

I see video reviews being restricted to game-changing incidents such as goals, penalties and red cards. I would also limit the number of challenges a team can make to one or two per game to prevent managers (yes, that’s you, Neil Warnock) stopping the game every five minutes to challenge even single contentious decision. If a challenge system proves too disruptive, video reviews could be restricted to use by referees only, like in rugby union.

Of course, video replays aren’t always conclusive. Sometimes, the view from TV cameras is obscured or a decision is open to interpretation. But whenever that’s the case then, as they say in the NFL, “the ruling on the field stands.”

Whatever the potential pitfalls, surely a trial of a video-review system is long overdue, perhaps at an under-21 tournament or in some senior international friendlies.

I wouldn’t, however, expect a trial to happen any time soon. Although we’re likely to see goal-line technology introduced in the Premier League in the next few years, football’s global governing body seems as reluctant as ever to introduce video referees.

In June last year, in response to renewed calls for video referees to be introduced following Thierry Henry’s infamous handball against the Republic of Ireland in a crucial World Cup qualifying match in November 2009, FIFA president Sepp Blatter said: “The basis of our game is one referee – whether you play in youth competition, amateur competition or at the highest level.”

Yet FIFA contradicted its “one referee fits all” argument when it gave its blessing to UEFA’s trial of an extra official behind each goal in last season’s Europa League matches. UEFA extended the trial to Champions League games this season, even though doubts have been raised over whether the extra officials have made much of a difference. Why deploy two extra pairs of human eyes when video cameras are already pitch-side, waiting to be used?

Here’s hoping FIFA has a change of heart over the use of instant replay soon. Because trying to convince ourselves that refereeing decisions even themselves out over the course of the season never, ever works.

TV viewing audience numbers for Premier League matches on U.S. television have come a long in four years. From 19,000 viewers in 2008 for one game to more than 1.6 million for a recent Premier League match. Along the way, the league has continued to grow in popularity in the United States for various reasons.

To illustrate how the viewing numbers have increased over time, I’ve created an interactive timeline (see above) that you can scroll left and right to see a pretty comprehensive review of TV viewing audience numbers for the past four years.

Have fun playing with the timeline.

And if you happen to have TV viewing figures prior to 2008, feel free to add them to the timeline above (sign up for a free account with Dipity and edit the timeline).

The EPPP (Elite Player Performance Plan) is about to set in and is due to drastically change the way youth players are developed in England.  The changes will begin in the 2012-2013 season and it will mean that academies are set up in a four tier system and it will also see every club gain funding for at least four years, with amounts differing depending on the level of the club’s academy. However this could have serious effects on both Football League and Premier League clubs, with Premier League clubs allowed to pay considerably less for youth players. It could also affect the England team, with the possibility that now due to lower prices the Premier League teams will buy more English youth players rather than one from abroad.

Clubs from the Football League did vote the changes through with 46 members voting in favour of it. However this was probably largely due to the fact that the Premier League threatened to cut its £5.3 million of funding to the Football League clubs for their youth development. It seems that due to the threat of losing this funding that Football League clubs voted it through, showing that in essence the Premier League is blackmailing them. Peterborough Chairman Barry Fry certainly thought so telling the BBC “What frightens me is that a lot of clubs will pull out of having a youth system altogether.”

When a Premier League team buys a youngster from the lower leagues at the moments the transfer fee is decided by tribunal but with the new rules being brought in, they will now only have to pay compensation for the player based on a sliding scale of age thus not really factoring in the talent or experience of the player they are buying. For example Chelsea recently bought the 14 year old Oluwaseyi Ojo from MK dons for £1.5 million, but if that transfer would’ve gone through after the rule changes then Chelsea could buy him for under £150,000.

Premier League clubs will of course buy more English youngsters but it isn’t that likely that they will actually play. Due to the high stakes of the Premier League and the financial pressure and incentive it brings as we see at the moment, it is not always the case that managers blood youngsters effectively because of the threat of relegation or them losing their top four place for example. We have seen the likes of Everton and Arsenal, although most of their youngsters were not English, bring youngsters through well but just not enough clubs do it. Even with the chance to bring in young players from the Football League more cheaply I still don’t think that many of the” bigger” clubs will have the guts to let young talent come to the fore. If the money in the Premier League wasn’t so important then maybe we would see more home-grown youngsters being fielded. What are the odds a large majority of players bought under this system will be loaned back to clubs in the Football League?

It will almost certainly not benefit Football League clubs as some really depend on the money they get from selling their talented youth players. In the case of Watford and Crystal Palace, bringing through youth players and being able to sell them has played a large role in keeping the two clubs afloat.  The lack of money for the players could also lead to many clubs having to drop their youth setup which won’t help anyone. These Football League clubs will not have enough players coming through and this could lead to the youth setup being completely centred towards the Premier League. Now, of course this could have a positive effect as training players at Premier League clubs could make them better and give them more confidence but yet again who knows how many will go onto play for the first team and how many will find themselves at lower league clubs.

Now of course the Premier League has to stop bringing in as many foreign youngsters but this system is going to disadvantage the 72 other professional clubs in England. It would mean that some clubs who have the money to spend on the players, who have had no history of youth development, will be able to source the best young players.  A better way would to be paying money to the Premier League or higher tariffs on foreign players under 21 being brought in. Then if Premier League clubs did decide to pay the higher price of bringing in someone from abroad then the extra money could go to the Premier League to distribute between the Football League clubs to use on youth development. The major problem in sight for an idea like this is the EU who will probably put a stop to this.

Lastly many in the Premier League are saying that this system will benefit the England team which is still a major bone of contention.  The argument is that due to the lower compensation players will be snapped up by better teams and be able to reach their full potential. However I don’t think it will have a major impact on the England team. Players who have proven quality, and are the ones likely to go on to play for England are often bought by higher placed clubs anyway, due to the impressive scouting network.

If a Premier League wants a young English player who will be able to play for them in the near future then they can easily do it. Lowering the compensation will just make it cheaper for them in my opinion. And if players are not snapped up by Premier League clubs initially, they will later. Take Ashley Young as an example, who was in the Watford youth academy. After impressive performances and being given the freedom to play, they are bought and if these footballers are good enough they will go on to play for England. It would be better to change the way we train the players physically and mentally to improve the England team.

The centre of excellence in Burton is a huge step forward but players need to develop a love for the game which some of them don’t have due to the pressures of training and how it sometimes takes over their life. If we can fully utilise this centre of excellence and instil a nationwide style of play for the national team from a young age then it is likely England can move forward, with players moving up the England age groups with a team spirit and cohesion that will benefit English football in the long run.