In the United States, it didn’t used to be easy to see your favorite English Premier League team each week. Your team might not be shown on broadcast television each week. You might not be able to find your team online either. These challenges however I believe have made me a more dedicated fan of Fulham. Over the past few years I have had to work hard to follow Fulham.

My journey began with the NFL Network and Comcast. I am a diehard fan of the New England Patriots. Several years back Comcast made subscribers purchase the sports and entertainment package to get the NFL Network. That package also included Fox Soccer Channel. I had been a casual fan of the EPL, but nowhere near the fan I am today. I have Comcast to thank for my push into the EPL. The team I grew to follow was Fulham.

My journey of watching Fulham faithfully started in the 2007 season. Fulham were going through a relegation battle. I was completely involved in the week-to-week situation with Fulham. The problem I was having is I could not watch Fulham each week. They were not on FSC each week. At that point I went online and was frustrated by the options.

Websites like ESPNSoccernet.com and Fulhamfc.com became very valuable to me. I started by following gamecasts on my computer. These were updates every couple of minutes of the game action. I kept thinking to myself this is what baseball fans must have felt listening to games on the radio before television. These gamecasts were good, but I still could not watch every game each week.

The next step was listening to the games online through the Fulhamfc.com website. To be honest, listening to the games with the Fulham announcer were very good. It helped me appreciate the experience of being a fan. All of these frustrations just made me want to get into Fulham even more.

Last season I either listened to or followed updates of the Fulham games that were not on Fox Soccer Channel. I was hoping that soon there would be options to watch all of the Fulham games.

This season began with the improvement of options of watching Fulham each week. First, ESPN2 announced they would be covering a game or two each week of the EPL. This was great news and the coverage has been great. I have watched more than a few Fulham games on ESPN2 this season. Fox Soccer Channel also was putting more Fulham matches on their channel.

However, as we progressed into the middle of the 2009/2010 season I still could not watch Fulham each week. That was about to change with the announcement earlier this year that Fox Soccer Channel would be having a sister station called Fox Soccer Plus. This new channel would be showing more EPL games that they took over from Setanta. I thought this was great news. I would finally be able to see the games each week.

Unfortunately for me I have never seen Fox Soccer Plus. When it launched March 1st, my cable provider had not picked up the channel. It still has not picked up the channel. I have emailed and called Comcast several times. Each time they have thanked me for letting them know about my interest. No representative has been able to tell me if or when they will be adding Fox Soccer Plus. Would my journey of watching Fulham each week be delayed again? The answer to this is absolutely not!

Since Fox Soccer Channel and its sister station were taking over the majority of the EPL games they got from Setanta, another site would be changing. Now, many of these matches were going to be on a revamped version of their online channel, FoxSoccer.tv.

Now I have read all of the problems many people have had on Foxsoccer.tv since its re-launch. All I can talk about is my own personal experience. The very first game that was scheduled after March 1st on Foxsoccer.tv with Fulham for some reason never aired. The day of the game it magically disappeared from its schedule. I was disappointed by this, but I was going to check the following week.

That following week I decided to buy a “day pass”. The first five minutes of the Fulham match had no audio. Eventually after the five minutes the audio and video were together. The rest of the match I had no issues with the service. The next week I again bought a “day pass” and had no problems with the service. After the second match I watched I bought a monthly pass. I have watched several games now from Fulham and other teams. For me, Foxsoccer.tv has provided the games I want to watch with very good streams.

Again I know people have had problems with FoxSoccer.tv. As time goes by and they improve their service hopefully these issues that others are having will be less and less. In my opinion, all fans of the EPL should be able to watch every game of their favorite team in America.

Since Fulham are playing in the Europa League how would I watch these matches? Many Europa League matches have been shown on GolTV. The coverage of these matches have been great. I would recommend GolTV for any fan of football.

However, there have been several Europa League games that were not shown on GolTV. I was alerted to a website on a Fulham fans messageboard that would be showing the Europa League matches. This site was UEFA.com. Let me tell you the streams on this site are excellent. For fans having issues with Foxsoccer.tv watching Champions League matches, you should check out UEFA.com. They have a pricing option for watching each game and a price for replays.

I have come a long way since looking at gamecasts each week on the internet. I am now watching Fulham each week on the Internet and broadcast television. I am hopeful that my journey of watching Fulham each week has been fulfilled.

I now need to watch every game because I report on the team as a blogger. My website Cottagers Confidential launched last month. This is a website for fans of Fulham. It is a part of sbnation.com. It is important that I have the most up to date information on Fulham. My readers deserve that type of coverage. Please feel free to check out www.cottagersconfidential.com .

I wanted to write about my personal journey so fans of other teams know they are not alone in there frustrations of watching the EPL every week. In my opinion, the options are growing to watch matches. Let’s hope it gets to the point that every fan of each team can watch their club with no frustrations in the United States.

Russ Goldman is a Fulham blogger who posts regularly on his website www.cottagersconfidential.com . His website is a part of sbnation. This is a network of 250 sports blogs. There are several soccer related sites and many more to be added soon.

If you happen to notice a sense of relief coming from ESPN in the last few days, there is a reason for it.  It’s because, while they are not coming in World Cup numbers, viewers are tuning in to the network’s broadcasts of Euro 2008.

ESPN announced today that, for the 15 Euro 2008 matches shown on ESPN2 through Tuesday, June 17th, the average rating for the tournament is .5, with 521,000 homes tuning in and 655,000 viewers.  Compared to the network average for the same time block (Noon to 5PM eastern) in 2007, this represents a 64% increase in households tuned in to ESPN2 (2007 average of 318,000 homes), a 67% increase in rating, and an 81% increase in viewers (2007 average of 362,000 viewers).  The most watched match of the tournament on ESPN2 was this past Saturday between Sweden and Spain.  The match netted a .9 rating from 831,000 homes and 1.01 million viewers.

In addition to ESPN2, the Spanish-language broadcasts on ESPN Deportes have been averaging an additional 74,000 Hispanic homes per match.  This puts the combined household average of ESPN2 and Deportes for each match at just shy of 600,000 homes.  Interestingly, the most watched match on Deportes so far is the opening-day broadcast of Portugal v Turkey, seen in 123,000 Hispanic homes.

Along with the viewership on TV, ESPN is also getting more eyeballs online.  ESPN’s Soccernet website has averaged over 1 million daily visits during the tournament, an 82 percent increase over the same period during Euro 2004.  The tournament is also contributing to ESPN360′s most watched month online since it’s relaunch in September of last year.

With increased viewership being seen on cable, ESPN will now be hoping for a successful jump to broadcast TV with the Netherlands v Russia quarterfinal this Saturday and the final next Sunday on ABC.  But for now, programmers will be breathing a little easier at the worldwide leader in sports.

ESPN has quietly launched its Euro 2008 site, which features stunning graphics and a very clean cutting edge design.From the opening intro of “This is not the football you think it is,” the web site features a state-of-the-art design that pulls you into the site. Once you’ve viewed the intro, you find yourself on the home page which is remarkably understated in comparison to the intro but still well designed with a clean interface.

Features on the site include:

• Team selector for each country featuring the team roster, national anthem and team news
• History of European Championships
• Downloads such as wallpapers, buddy icons and videos to put on your video iPod
• ESPN’s TV ads for Euro 2008
• Euro 2008-related polls
• A link to the Euro 2008 TV schedule for ESPN
• A link to the ESPN Euro 2008 fantasy game
• Schedule of when the next match will be on TV
• And a countdown clock to the beginning of Euro 2008.

While the design of the site is stunning, what it lacks is meat (i.e. content), an easy to remember URL (try memorizing assets.espn.go.com/espn/euro2008) and, lastly, user generated content. Despite the appealing look and feel of the site, it acts more as a gateway to take users back to ESPN Soccernet. With a little more work, it could have ended up being a destination that visitors would go to more often.

Thanks to EPL Talk reader Neal P for the tip. Feel free to send your news items or tips to me at thegaffer[at]epltalk[dot]com

There are some movers and shakers in the list of the top 10 most visited soccer websites by visitors from the United States, according to Hitwise for the week ending May 17th. Compared to the week ending April 26th, ESPN Soccernet is still number one, but with slightly less overall market share.

Goal.com has jumped from number four to number two, leapfrogging Fox Sports Soccer and Soccer.com who both dropped back.

Dropping off the list is FIFA.com, which has been replaced by the more popular Arsenal.com.

Here’s the complete top 10 as of the week ending May 17, 2008:

1. ESPN Soccernet, 14.46% market share
2. Goal.com, 8.51%
3. Foxsports Soccer, 6.57%
4. Soccer.com, 6.02%
5. uefa.com, 3.94%
6. Manchester United, 3.63%
7. Yahoo! Sports World Soccer, 3.29%
8. Major League Soccer, 3.26%
9. Big Soccer, 2.39%
10. Arsenal.com, 2.37%

Anticipating one question that readers may have based on the comments from an earlier post, The Offside isn’t listed in the top 10. In fact, it’s not listed in the top 150 (EPL Talk is number 142).