N1cky

Better than the American commentators who go on about being 'chicken winged'

cluedweasel

And be very, very, very happy if you never run into Tommy "Onionbag" Smyth.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/blog...us-soccer-espn

Brucky

There are adverts during the game, and they are only inch thick scrollers across the bottom of the screen, and best of all silent!

Quite often there is a built up show before the games on FSC and it's Warren Barton!, sometimes you'll see Steve McManaman and an ex m'boro player too.

flogmad

Can't think of too many famous (and still living) ex Middlesborough players. Gary Pallister or Juninho perhaps? Graeme Souness maybe?

Come on the gooners!

Brucky

I still can't remember who it is! What I love is that the american presenters keep calling it soccer but the ex footie pundits say football.

I was concerned before I went to America last year about the footie coverage, but I was very pleasantly surprised. Especially when I found out that FSC shows an hour of sky sports news about 4 or 5 times a day, which is more than enough

elfman

Robbie Mustoe

Brucky

Thank you!

leviramsey

I would say DirecTV is probably the best option for the football.

If you go for Sports Pack (up to $12.99 extra, but cheaper if you already wanted HBO, Showtime, etc.) then you'll get Fox Soccer Channel (which will show typically 3 live PL games a weekend, a couple more live midweek PL games, many more on tape if you can stay away from the internet and show a couple of games each matchday of the CL (plus football from a ton of other leagues, most notably Italy and MLS)), Gol TV (which focuses on Spain, Germany, and South America), and the Golf Channel (which shows a fair amount of European Tour action as well as the Thursday/Friday action from USPGA events (weekend USPGA is normally on free TV, typically CBS or NBC)). Add $15 a month, and you get Fox Soccer Plus which basically doubles up on the Fox Soccer coverage listed above (plus some rugby). ESPN, which is included in basically every cable or satellite subscription (ESPN's contracts with the TV companies basically require them to make it nearly if not actually impossible to get their service without including ESPN (and then paying ESPN $4/month per subscriber for the privilege)), also shows a PL game every weekend (almost always one featuring Man Utd, Arsenal, Chelsea, or Liverpool) and sometimes even one on Monday afternoon.

The Fox Soccer+Gol TV+Golf Channel combo is available from most cable or satellite companies (they'll call it "digital sports" or something similar), and a lot of those also have Fox Soccer Plus. What DirecTV also gives you is some Sky-esque exclusives, most relevant being the CL matches not picked by Fox Soccer, Fox Soccer Plus, or Fox Sports en Espanol (they also picked up sole-US live rights to the Europa League and extra games from Spain).

For the CL and EL games, DirecTV gives the option of getting eight games onscreen at the same time (you pick the commentary interactively):

kimilseung

I just looked up where you are going, and I see it is Tampa Bay, don't forget about live footy. F.C. Tampa Bay is in the NASL (US second tier league) got an average crowd of 3,800 last year. Nothing beats life games. And the team is full of European Superstars like Scotsman Graham Tatters, who shined with Elgin City and Irishman Jonny Steele, who was on Wolves books, he was so good they protected him from injury and thus never played a game. Joking aside live games are good, I am spoilt in Seattle the last few seasons with an MLS team but before that I used to go to see Seattle in the USL (USL and NASL are kind of the same thing) If you can get over any US soccer prejudices then it can be fun.

flogmad

Thanks, that makes good sense.

flogmad

Completely co-incidentally, our nearest football league team at the moment is Elgin in the Scottish league. I'm not sure you could call Graham Tatters (sorry Graham) a 'European superstar' but I get your drift.

uknobby

Yeah Direct TV i think has the best all round coverage and BTW Barcelona are playing pre season games in the USA this year I believe around end of JUly beginning of Aug. They have 2 big games scheduled against AC Milan and Man Utd.

The United match is scheduled for July 30 in Landover, Md., with the game against Milan on Aug. 3 in Miami. The tour will conclude in Arlington, Texas, on Aug. 6 with Barcelona taking on America.

TimberHut

I'm just glad that I'll get to see Saints on the TV in a couple of weeks time. OK so they had to draw ###### Man Utd to get shown but I'll take it.

It's the late Sat game in the UK so 12.15pm ET which is way, way better than having a 7am KO. Plenty of time to guzzle a few pre-match beers. Bring it on!

Duncan Roberts

Unquestionably it is, especially as they have quite a few exclusive Champions League and Europa League games. But, to get the channels for the Premier League you have to pay a significant amount extra. Since I switched to DirecTV I've been very happy and it hands down beats cable for quality and features, at least for me. Plus, according to a news report, where I live has the second most snowfall each year and our reception has only gone out once for more than a few seconds and that was only about 5 minutes and during a huge thunder storm. When we had cable there would be picture problems almost on a daily basis.

If anyone signs up for DirecTV and wants to get a $100 credit (over 10 months), I'm happy to refer!

Dan B

DirecTV in Florida sucks. Every time there is a storm (almost everyday between June and October) the service is dropped due to Thor.

I did have DirecTV for Setanta (I'm coming from a Rugby/Cricket public school boy toff toff toff direction, here), but it sucked most of the time anyway. I now have Time Warner with FSP. It is okay, but some of the games are delayed by days.

Most of the time I use www.myp2p.eu I get to watch most of the Aviva games, and also watched The Ashes live from some Indian channel that way.