How It All Started
When I signed up with FIOS last June 2008, I thought I was in heaven. Comcast had driven me to despair and I knew they couldn’t offer me all the channels I wanted. All I had to do was first find the time, then sit back and press the buttons. As I searched through FIOS it got even better as I came across the mysterious ESPN360.com broadband service of live games in all sports, not just soccer. Then I found ESPN Deportes.
It was summer time and I enjoyed watching my first ever live games from Brazil via Gol TV. The Copa Libertadores was reaching it’s climax on Fox Sports en Espanol (FSE) and Fox Soccer Channel (FSC) had plenty of games on in addition to live sports news from the UK.
What more could I want? That was easily answered when August came around and the new seasons started in Europe and South America. Soccer Listings!
However, this was easier said than done and as with anything to do with soccer in this country the F-word immediately appeared – F as in Fragmented. Soccer appeared to be on the TV everywhere, including a boat load of Hispanic stations, but nowhere was it listed in its entirety.
So welcome to SoccerwhatsonTV.com or SWOTV.
The great news is that there's Soccer on the TV 24/7 365 days a year (nearly 24 hours a day). There's live soccer most days, but not all.
In a nutshell here is where you can expect to regularly find soccer on TV:
ABC / ESPN / ESPN2 / ESPN Deportes / Fox Soccer Channel / Fox Sports en Espanol / Gol Tv / Telemundo / Univision / Telefutura / Galavision. Setanta and MLS Direct Kick are two additional premium services available for soccer fans (not available to all depending on how you receive your TV signal).
I have included three online services that compliment programming supplied by the sports providers listed above. This broadband programming is not included with TV listings but in a separate "Online" listing:
1) ESPN360.com
2) Setanta i (Setanta's broadband service)
3) Match Center (MLS' Direct Kick broadband service)
Fully realizing that not everybody has all channels, or is necessarily interested in all available soccer, listings are summarized five different ways:
1) Date / Time - chronological listing of all games
2) Channel - summary of games by TV channel
3) Competition - summary of games by competition
4) Online - chronological listings for ESPN360.com, MLS Match Center (MLS Direct Pass broadband service) and Setanta i broadband service.
5) Channel Guide - daily summary of matches** by TV provider for three days on a hourly basis by channel (does not include online).
** Includes listings of all programming for Gol TV & FSC for that day.
Friday September 4, 2009
Ad randomizer
