For the last decade and a half Fox Soccer has been the voice of the Barclays Premier League in this country and that ended on Sunday. It's going to be sad not to have the EPL on FSC. While FSC has made it's mistakes over the years if it was not for them the EPL would not have the footprint that it has in this country.
Its been three months Fox unveiled Gus Johnson as its voice of soccer and it has come with mixed reviews. Some say he is ok, while other say he is terrible. I think that I sit somewhere in the middle between disaster and good start.
Here is my question, is the issue with Gus Johnson tied to the fact that most American soccer fans are Euro Snobs and I include my self in that.
First it was ESPN.com screwing up now it's Fox Soccer. During the Spurs Newcastle game, FSC said
that Emmanuel Adebayor was coming on to replace Gylfi Sigurosson. Small problem Adebayor is still a
Manchester City player even though he spent last season on loan at Spurs. I know it's the first
week of the season but this can't happen.
Having become both the first Welsh club to attain and then retain Premier League status over the
past 12 months, Swansea are celebrating their centenary year with a new kit that reflects the swell
of national pride that has accompanied their success with Adidas stitching together an uber-Welsh
new away strip for the Swans to wear as of next season.
Fox Soccer has been promoting this Sunday Premier League games as "Epic Sunday,'' for once this is
not over hype. The doubleheader of Manchester City vs. Spurs and Manchester United vs. Arsenal will
go a long way toward telling us who will be lifting the trophy in May.
A City win in the early game and a Arsenal win in the late game could all but end the title race.
More then a week ago, Fox tried something new and they were rewarded for it. After showing the
Manchester United vs. Chelsea game live on FSC, the network decided to show the game on their
regular Fox stations after the local NFL was over.
In Philly it was during the 1 p.m., while in other cities it was the 4 p.
On Wednesday February 13, 2013, Gus Johnson made his Fox Soccer Channel debut by doing the play-by-play in the network's broadcast of the Champions League match between Real Madrid and Manchester United. The match ended in a 1-1 draw and on the whole, I think Gus Johnson did a good job on the broadcast.
If you were looking to catch the game last night and couldn't find it on FSC or ESPN, you weren't
alone. As we mentioned earlier, all US home qualifiers got bought up by BeinSport which is
available on several cable providers, and part of a sports package usually, so it's not quite
pay-per-view like we get stuck with for away games at Guatemala.
When it was announced that the 4th Round 2012 Lamar Hunt US Open Cup match between the Seattle
Sounders and Cal FC would be carried by FOX Soccer the assumption was that Eric Wynalda's presence
was a large reason for it. This can be confirmed as true, but there's a bit more to the story. Via
an email exchange with FOX Soccer's Vice President of Programming and Acquisitions Joshua Glassel
Sounder at Heart asked about the interest of FSC in the Open Cup and specifically the early round
game.
Can Thierry Henry and the Red Bulls rebound against Portland? (Getty Images)
The weekend slate is finally here, it is Friday and that means it is Soccer Night In America.
Okay, I have to admit I have trouble typing that without a little bit of a laugh. For one that show
title will only last a year since FSC or Fox Soccer since MLS is moving to NBC next season.
I know a secondary Major League Soccer television package is not a big deal, but for NBC/Comcast it
shows that they are ready to get involved in all sports.
On Tuesday Major League Soccer announced games will be televised by NBC's networks starting next
season, doubling the number of homes that dozens of games will be available in.
It's obviously too early to say just how huge this is for MLS, but it's clearly a step in the
right direction. Fox Soccer never treated MLS like a property they really wanted, and NBC seems
ready to really put some energy into making this work. It also can't be bad that NBC Sports Network
-- which is currently called Versus -- is more widely available than FSC, and usually does not
require a special subscription.
More than 60 teams compete in the United Soccer Leagues Premier Development League to win a title.
Saturday, those championship dreams were realized by a team from the Pacific Northwest. The Kitsap
SC Pumas, from nearby Seattle, won its first PDL title. The magic happened for them in front of a
national audience watching on Fox Soccer Channel.
Whichever history making side advances from Tuesday's match at Starfire (on FSC) they will then
go on a road trip. Both the Seattle Sounders and Cal FC would face the winner of the Minnesota
Stars at San Jose Earthquakes game. That quarterfinal match would be on June 26th. There is an
oddity in the announcement as the Earthquakes would not be hosting at Buck Shaw, but instead at
Kezar Stadium.
The MLS Cup Playoffs are under way with New York the first team to advance out of the newly
minted Wildcard round. The first playoff match was televised on FSC. However, with the
Colorado/Columbus match not scheduled to be televised nationally, MLS smartly made the match
available to all fans via the website.
Just as a recap, the announced roster for this match against Honduras (Sat. 8th at 5pm CST on FSC
and Univision) and Ecuador (Mon. 11th at 6pm CST on ESPN2):GOALKEEPERS (3): Bill Hamid
(D.C.United), Tim Howard (Everton), Nick Rimando (Real Salt Lake)DEFENDERS (7): Carlos Bocanegra
(Rangers), Timmy Chandler (Nürnberg), Steve Cherundolo (Hannover 96), Oguchi Onyewu (Sporting
Lisbon), Michael
Frankly none of Saturday's games are all that compelling, but if you must:
FA Cup Semifinal, Liverpool vs Everton (7:30amET; FSC & Fox Deportes): A
Merseyside derby at Wembley. Liverpool have been in rotten form, while Everton have been coming on
strong.
Bundesliga, Schalke 04 vs Borussia Dortmund (9:30amET; GolTV): The Ruhr derby
or, in the German, the Revierderby is the biggest rivalry in Germany.
Here we are again with your all of your weekend action. Once again, the schedule is a little light,
but there are some potentially great matches to be played, just as there always are.
There is one matchup this weekend featuring a pair of WCR Top 25 Clubs. As fate would have it, it's
not being televised, but it will be available on your computer on ESPN3.
It's a good thing that this weekend is surrounded by two weeks of great matches coming from the
UEFA Champions League, Europa League and Copa Libertadores because this weekend's action is crap.
You know how much I enjoy telling you about all of the great matches coming up every weekend.
Most attention and eyes will turn to Spurs-ManUtd today, but it's also quite a derby day. Â A
triple-header of hotly contested derbies with long histories, and turns out all of them are
consquential to the standings in their respective leagues:
Tyne-Wear Derby:Â Newcastle vs. Sunderland (7amET, FSP): #6 in the Premier League hosts #8.
Lots of matches on being broadcast in the United States this weekend, though I have to admit that
there aren't a lot of great matches. There is only one featuring a pair of clubs in the current WCR
Top 25 and that is coming out of Italy on Saturday when current Serie A leader Juventus hosts
Udinese on Saturday.
This weekend should be a great one for football but in a less traditional way. There are no
Manchester United/Chelsea or Barcelona/Real Madrid matches going on but there are some matches in
other countries that might be considered the local equivalent at the moment. The three in
particular that I will have my eye on are Porto/Benfica on Friday, Shakhtar Donetsk/Dynamo Kyiv on
Saturday and Twente/Ajax, also on Saturday.
Unlike last weekend, this weekend is just chock full of potentially exciting matches all up and
down the schedule. In fact, Roma at Inter Milan and Bayern Munich at Schalke 04 are just a pair of
matches that highlight the list of matches that didn't even qualify for the Top Five Matches of the
Week list.
Fortunately, now that the strikes are over, we finally have a full slate of action in world
football, featuring the return of the Italian Serie A to the television stage. At this point, for
the first time in a long time, all of the major domestic leagues in the world are in action at the
same time.
It's an extremely light weekend on television this week in the United States, unless you count
ESPN3 (which isn't really television) because it's mostly international action and most of those
matches are going on at the same time (Friday, 2:45 EDT). Therefore, we are foregoing our Top Five
Matches of the Weekend until next week while we work on the Monthly International Rankings and
watch a little international football.
First it looked like the Spanish clubs weren't going to play, but now they are. And then it looked
like the Italian clubs were going to play, but not maybe they'll go on strike. It's really
difficult to tell what's going on from one day to another, but we're going ahead as if everybody is
playing this weekend because that's the way I like it.
I know soccer in the United States is not at the level of other sports but the least Comcast could do is get the names of the teams playing right. On Sunday, Comcast put on their guide Manchester United vs. Tottenham. Small problem it was not United playing but rather their arch rivals Manchester City.
The recent release of the designs for the new Philadelphia Union home and away kits got me
thinking about the evolution of the kit designs of other teams in Philadelphia soccer history.
Today, the regular release of new jerseys is an important part of the marketing of a professional
team, not to mention a lucrative source of revenue.
Time to start the annual end of the year process of lists. Over the next couple of weeks we'll
review end of the year of posts and some of the top business stories of the year. Â We thought it
makes sense to start by looking back a year to the end of 2010 at some of the top business stories
from that year.
Hello all, to either tomorrow's or later today's, depending where you live, Carling Cup tie
between Arsenal and Bolton. Don't forget to catch Homey's Preview. Broadcasting info is shaky, the
only tv station that carries CC games in the US, FSC, is showing Aldershot-Manches16er United.
Hopefully a stream will be available.
As we do every so often, here is a quick look at some of the promotional efforts going on around
Major League Soccer. We'll start in Colorado, where the Rapids are hosting the nationally
televised Friday night game on FSC. For that match, the Rapids are continuing their"Lads Night
Out" promotion that was so popular last year.
