Squealy, ESPN is about as close to "terrestial" with actually being "over the air" as it gets. espn2 isn't far behind. A far larger portion of the United States gets ESPN and espn2 than get Univision. Only a small portion get Telefutura. This will be the fourth consecutive World Cup finals where every game is broadcast in English on the ABC/ESPN family of channels. It is the second or third in a row where every game is broadcast live, and the first where every game will be shown live in HD. Additionally, most days will have one of the day's games repeated in prime time. My personal experiences has been that there is far more soccer available for basic cable viewers in the United States than in England. Because of the variety of interests and markets, we get live games from seemingly every major professional league, and many leagues get extensive coverage. I'm pretty sure that between Univision, Telemundo, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Espanol, and GolTV, every EPL, Mexican League, and Serie A game was shown in the United States last season. Additionally the Bundesliga, La Liga, French League, Dutch League, Brazilian, Argentine, Chilean, and several Central American leagues all get plenty of games. Then there's wall to wall Copa Libertadores coverage, the UEFA Cup and Champions League, the FA Cup, the Kings Cup, even the freakin' Scottish FA Cup. If I wanted to shell out for the Setanta Channel, I'd get even more - including the Coca-Cola Championship. Murdoch's Sky/Fox empire has both Fox Soccer Channel (English) and Fox Sports en Espanol (Spanish) that are both primarily devoted to soccer. And Traffic Sports' GolTV (available with both English and Spanish feeds) is nothing but soccer. Throw in two seperate mainstream Spanish Language media empires (Univision/Galavision/Telefutura and Telemundo/TV Azteca) with both over the air and cable franchises that all show Mexican league and various international competitions. If ESPN Deportes is going to survive, eventually soccer games will start showing there, too. It's really an embarrasment of riches. And I haven't even gotten to the regional stuff that includes an overdose of collegiate soccer. Oliver Tse and SoccerTV does a decent job of tracking most of what's on, but even that site misses stuff. There's just so much of it.
posted by SoccerPhoto at 07:27 PM on February 21, 2006
Free LIVE World Cup telecasts.
Squealy, ESPN is about as close to "terrestial" with actually being "over the air" as it gets. espn2 isn't far behind. A far larger portion of the United States gets ESPN and espn2 than get Univision. Only a small portion get Telefutura. This will be the fourth consecutive World Cup finals where every game is broadcast in English on the ABC/ESPN family of channels. It is the second or third in a row where every game is broadcast live, and the first where every game will be shown live in HD. Additionally, most days will have one of the day's games repeated in prime time. My personal experiences has been that there is far more soccer available for basic cable viewers in the United States than in England. Because of the variety of interests and markets, we get live games from seemingly every major professional league, and many leagues get extensive coverage. I'm pretty sure that between Univision, Telemundo, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Espanol, and GolTV, every EPL, Mexican League, and Serie A game was shown in the United States last season. Additionally the Bundesliga, La Liga, French League, Dutch League, Brazilian, Argentine, Chilean, and several Central American leagues all get plenty of games. Then there's wall to wall Copa Libertadores coverage, the UEFA Cup and Champions League, the FA Cup, the Kings Cup, even the freakin' Scottish FA Cup. If I wanted to shell out for the Setanta Channel, I'd get even more - including the Coca-Cola Championship. Murdoch's Sky/Fox empire has both Fox Soccer Channel (English) and Fox Sports en Espanol (Spanish) that are both primarily devoted to soccer. And Traffic Sports' GolTV (available with both English and Spanish feeds) is nothing but soccer. Throw in two seperate mainstream Spanish Language media empires (Univision/Galavision/Telefutura and Telemundo/TV Azteca) with both over the air and cable franchises that all show Mexican league and various international competitions. If ESPN Deportes is going to survive, eventually soccer games will start showing there, too. It's really an embarrasment of riches. And I haven't even gotten to the regional stuff that includes an overdose of collegiate soccer. Oliver Tse and SoccerTV does a decent job of tracking most of what's on, but even that site misses stuff. There's just so much of it.