Living in America, it’s a terrible, terrible pain to find good football. It’s pretty easy to watch the World Cup, but anything short of that is impossible to find. Is there any channel or website available in America that airs the 2014 World Cup qualifiers? It doesn’t have to be live (In fact, I prefer it not be) and would be best on-demand. If this channel also airs friendlies or other minor international games, bonus!
Your cable options are Fox Soccer and GolTV. On many cable systems they are an extra, optional service, usually in some type of sports package, but some operators include these channels in their basic service. Check out DirecTV.
My wife has been a huge soccer fan for the last 10 years. At any given moment there are at least 3 soccer games available on our TV (Cox cable in the DC area, we have many “sports packages”) Women’s league, MLS, English premier league, German, Italian and Spanish leagues. Some times, if you watch long enough, one of the teams will even score a goal.
The real pain is finding a Rugby game.
Kicked from Cafe Society to the Game Room.
I imagine it’s even harder to find an Ultimate Frisbee game, since the first American professional league ever just started its opening season this month.
I have TWC, and I with the sports package, I get Fox Soccer Channel and Fox Soccer Plus, both in HD. I added the Spanish package a couple months ago, and I get ESPN Deportes and GolTV (standard def for both), plus Fox Sports Espanol, but that’s the same programming as FSC anyway.
FSC: EPL, Serie A, Champions League, CONCACAF Champions League, misc. intl friendlies
FS+: EPL, Serie A, Champions League, CONCACAF Champions League, misc. intl friendlies, and NPower Championship (2nd division in England), plus 1 Ligue 1 match and 1 Scottish Premier League match per week
ESPN Deportes: La Liga, Bundesliga, some EPL (which is also on ESPN2 in English, 1 match per week, usually), and some Eredivisie (Netherlands), I think
GolTV: La Liga (El Classico this weekend!), Bundesliga, Argentine league, Europa League (the NIT of European soccer)
I can’t ask for much more, other than ESPN-D and GolTV to become available in HD. The sports package and Spanish package are both about $5 each. I get my money’s worth.
If you’re interested in internet streaming, ESPN3 also carries a fair number of matches.
I know you’ve got Cox (and I also know I’m hijacking a soccer thread), but I’ll toss this out there in case another rugby fan didn’t know: DirecTV has a rugby channel of which I wasn’t aware until I stumbled across it while adjusting my favorites. I watched a match (early) the other morning; the commentators are refreshingly honest (“The fact is, the team just isn’t very good”), but I thought it was a ton of fun to watch anyway.
Fox Soccer Plus shows rugby on occasion. Plus also shows (taped) soccer in the morning when I’m getting ready for work, when the main Fox Soccer is running infomercials.
Hey, my nephew plays Ultimate Frisbee for Great Britain!
Sorry for the hijack, but that is the only time in my life I have been able to say that.