Comments on: ESPN Deserves Praise For Excellent Champions League Coverage

By: tampasoccer

tampasoccer — Fri, 23 May 2008 15:56:41 +0000

Setanta got the coverage from the Sky Sports feed. Martin Tylor, Andy Gray were play-by-play, the pre-game, half-time and post-game were sensational: pure quality. There isn’t really a better crew than Tylor-Gray: just superb.
That said, ESPN’s coverage was OK: after all, this is America, not England…

By: Mookie

Mookie — Fri, 23 May 2008 14:16:49 +0000

Smith is so-so, gets calls correct but sometimes speaks a little bit too much.

Derek Rae is fantastic, one problem with him. Stop saying “Rooney for United” or “Malouda for Chelsea”.

GLORY GLORY MAN UNITED!!!

Oh yeah, and kudos to ESPN, great coverage, no annoying graphics at the top of the screen, I may be able to watch Euro 08 without desperately looking for an online feed.

Hey guys, it could be worse. We could be in England listening to David Pleat call Frank Lampard, Frank Redknapp.

By: patrick

patrick — Fri, 23 May 2008 13:03:48 +0000

They don’t rebroadcast the superbowl, and if they did it would be cut to fit a time slot.

I understand not everyone can take time off work to watch live, but of all the issues with ESPN we should give them a free pass on the rebroadcast.

Anybody know what happened to Hemel’s own Andy Houlihan on FSC? He just faded away from the network and is still listed on the site. any info would be great.

By: Johnathan Staring

Johnathan Staring — Fri, 23 May 2008 12:37:59 +0000

Actually Lou, the ESPN2 replay from all I gathered on Wednesday was not scheduled but it was thrown together at the very last second (very similar to the replay for the Istanbul Final).

That aside, anyone who bitches about cutting time ON A REPLAY is only crying over spilled milk as far as I’m concerned. With TIVO, Slingboxes, and even a good old fashion VCRs (or hell the Setanta Sports replay), there were plenty of opportunities to watch this game live. If you didn’t, sorry but that’s your fault.

Call me a prick, call me an a-hole quite frankly I don’t care. I’ve been called worst before and I’m sure I will in the future. It was YOUR stupidity you didn’t catch the entire match, not ESPN’s. Get over yourselves.

By: eplnfl

eplnfl — Fri, 23 May 2008 11:54:05 +0000

Dear Tim:

It was only one of the scheduled replays of the game. A game that was in the books and a known result. What is the normal audience in America for a replay. Try next to nothing. ESPN to their credit was trying to give something to the soccer fan by the first replay. They realized the game was a classic, had great interest and they were trying to promote the sport. A thanks would be in order.

This very discussion shows the progress the sport has made. 5 years ago we would have been lucky to see it live and replayed once. Some people will continue to knock the production unless it has the initials BBC attached to it. BTW, I heard the numbers for ESPN were great.