ESPN may still be reeling from losing the rights to the UEFA Champions League, but that isn't stopping it from building up its collection of soccer offerings.
According to EPL Talk, ESPN has added the English Premier League and will show up to two matches a week, starting next week. The network initially made some waves when it secured rights to EPL games in England, a move that was part of ESPN's plan to launch an ESPN UK channel, but now ESPN appears set to show EPL games here in the United States.
The first of those games? The Aug. 15th clash between Chelsea and Hull City, which happens to be Jozy Altidore's new club. While it remains unclear whether Altidore will have a work permit in time to play in that match, the news of EPL games on ESPN is big for American soccer fans considering many more fans have access to ESPN than to Fox Soccer Channel and Setanta Sports, the two channels that previously showed EPL matches.
ESPN has yet to confirm the deal, but EPL Talk has usually been spot-on when it comes to EPL broadcasting news. (UPDATE-Sources tell me no deal is finalized yet, but that talks are underway. In other words, you might want to hold off on the celebration until something official is announced.)
Here are some more stories to get your day going:
Cunningham leads FC Dallas past Houston
FC Dallas looks to be awakening and striker Jeff Cunningham is helping lead the way.
Fresh from a four-goal performance last week, Cunningham delivered the game-winning goal on Thursday night as FC Dallas posted a 1-0 victory against the Houston Dynamo.
The victory, Dallas' third in five matches, suddenly has Cunningham's club closing in on the teams atop the Western Conference, while it also leaves the Dynamo looking for answers after dropping its third loss in five matches.
For those of you who missed Cunningham's goal, here it is:
DirecTV sets up mun2
For those of you with DirecTV who were wondering how you would be able to watch USA-Mexico next week, the satellite company has taken the guesswork out of the process by moving mun2 to channel 203 a week before the World Cup qualifier.
Telemundo is offering mun2 for free to all cable and satellite providers on Aug. 12 in order to give as many fans access to the USA-Mexico match as possible. DirecTV took the step move the network well in advance so subscribers would be able to find the channel without a problem.
Dempsey and Johnson help Fulham roll
Clint Dempsey and Eddie Johnson both recorded assists to help Fulham cruise to a 3-0 victoryagainst FK Vetra on Thursday.
The victory earned Fulham a LONG trip through Russia to face Amkar after the Europa League Playoff Round draw was held early Friday. Amkar is 4,500 miles from London.
USMNT roster vs. Mexico to be named today
Those of you wondering when the USA roster for the qualifier for Mexico will be named, your wait should end today.
The U.S. national team is expected to reveal its roster for the match at some point today, with Thursday night's Houston-FC Dallas match and Fulham Europa League match causing U.S. coach Bob Bradley to hold off the announcement for one more day.
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What do you think of the news? Excited at the prospects of ESPN showing EPL matches? Think FC Dallas is for real? Happy to see Eddie Johnson contributing for Fulham?
Share your thoughts below.
the comcast sports package in my area at least is only $4.95/month. I would assume it is the same in other regions. That includes FSC, GolTV, NHL Network, NFL Network, Tennis Channel, NBA TV, and Fox College Sports Channels.
From what I’ve seen, it looks like FSC will still have their 4 EPL games, and ESPN will pick up the 2 previously shown on Sentena:
http://www.epltalk.com/us-tv-schedule-for-premier-league-games-aug-through-nov-09/9210
Awesome! That means I’ll get 6 out of the 10 EPL games a week 🙂
Hey folks, Comcast has different channel line-ups and different packages all over the country. If you don’t believe me, why do they ask for you zip code on their website before you do anything? This allows them to taylor what they offer to the demographics of the area, obviously to maximize profits….
Memrook, you’ll need to look online or call comcast.
Off topic but an interesting article in the San Jose Mercury News on Bobby Convey, his poor showing this year and his fallout with an “unamed” national team coach (Bradley?) which he suggests means no call-up no matter how well he plays.
http://www.mercurynews.com/sports/ci_13012362?nclick_check=1
I’m assuming that these games will be streamed live on ESPN360.com right? Please? Anyone?
MemRook: True never thought about how much faster Konchesky is than anyone the US has at leftback which definitely allows Clint a lot of space to roam. At times is as though he is playing just behind the strikers and Konchesky covers the entire left side getting from one touch line to the other in seconds. Boca could never do that, nor could Pearce or Bornstein witht eh same effiecence. Point well made.
Here here, Andy. It’s quickly becoming a major pet peeve of mine for people to start commenting or asking questons on here without even reading the freaking links that would actually answer their questions. It ain’t rocket science folks.
As for the news, I’m stoked, but I do feel for those west coast folks who will have to get up at 4:30 in the morning to get their footy fix. TIVO’s will be busy out there, I guess.
HomeyBoehm…what are you talking about? FSC has been apart of the comcast sports pack for like over 4 years… it only costs 9.95 a month and give you Tennis, Golf, MLB, NHL, NBA, GolTV and FSC… where in the heck are you getting $50 a month?
I can’t tell you how happy this will make me, being able to see EPL games at home would be excellent. Although, watching FSC is one of the only reasons why I go to the gym anymore.
Seriously…. WILL YOU ALL PLEASE READ THE EPL TALK WRITE UP BEFORE YOU NON-CHALANTLY COMMENT…
ESPN will be showing a 7:45AM ET game on Saturday mornings on ESPN 2 likely in HD…
Then they will be showing the 3pm ET Monday game (EPL Monday night football) on ESPN2 as well…
quit being such cynics…
FSC will still show games. They’ll probably pick up whatever ESPN pass over.
Lots of EPL to watch this season.
Paul Westerberg: You can find them left of the dial.
@milkshake of despair:
i have comcast too. Did your message happen to say what channel mun2 is?
Dempsey on the left (with the same impact he has at fulham) won’t work for the US team. If you notice, Dempsey squeezes into the midfield a lot during the run of play, which Roy has allowed him to; they have pretty decent cover at leftback to fill the void when Dempsey does that. We, however, are pretty much weakest at left back, an on-going problem for the US these past couple years. Dempsey could play on the left, but BB wouldn’t let him roam inside as much as he does for Fulham. He would have to stay put more often to help out defensively.
FSC owns all the games, they then sold games to setanta usa.. ESPN bought some of Setantas games. The games on sat morning will be over before college football games start. Seems to be a nice package for ESPN to pick up.
i am so happy. I had to cut FSC two years ago because I wasn’t going to pay an extra $50.00 a month to have one channel that wasn’t even in HD. (With Comcast, at the time, the only way to get FSC was with the digital plus package, and the only real reason we had it was to get FSC.) Yay ESPN, finally living up to your billing of the “sports network”.
Will any games still be on FSC?
Will ESPN get their two games and FSC get some more games?
Anybody in the hampton roads area know if comcast offers mun2? i can’t seem to find it…
Hey, everyone with a question about the ESPN deal, CLICK THE LINK. It’s all right there on EPL Talk’s website. But in case you are still too lazy to do so, FSC still has all of their usual games and ESPN2 picked up the early Saturday game and the Monday afternoon game.
And yes, this is huge news.
If you read the link provided, you’ll see that ESPN purchased rights to early Saturday games and Monday afternoon games. They even have a rumored schedule; with ESPN2, Setanta and FSC we get to see a ridiculous number of EPL games this year. Going to be awesome.
I second the BRILLIANT comment!!!!! ESPN just made my wife very unhappy but my wait to see my Miami Hurricanes play college football on saturdays or my Miami Dolphins on sundays just got more enjoyable. But wait when La Liga starts up then the DVR is going to go nuts cuase I can’t decide which to watch live Canes/Dolphins or recorded. I love my life!!!
Do both ESPN and FSC have rights to show games every weekend????
@ Paul Westerberg
My lord, how many matches do you expect them to show? Perhaps they can show all of the 3pm UK matches in a 6 way split screen?
I would guess they would show the early Staurday and the early Sunday matches with some later matches during non-football season.
Anyone know what channel on Time Warner Cable (Brooklyn) mun2 is?
Phil Schoen will be the lead announcer for Mun2. I honestly think he is the best American talent that covers soccer. Too bad Balboa will be next to him.
Why does Osorio still have a job?
Up to two games????
Um…that’s a little weak. I hope there is a partnership allowing more games to be shown on different networks. When and where will they show the games? NFL programming starts at the butt crack of dawn on Sundays and the same is to be said for College Football on Saturdays. Not to mention all the hunting and fishing programming that would need to be bumped – and that make a ton of cash money in sponsorship/advertising. Maybe they plan on the Monday game being one of the “up to two games a week”. Will the “up to 2 games a week” be the ones that start 7am? I’m suspicious about where tey will find the time slots for these “up to two games a week”.
I need more info before i start getting excited about this.
@ JK…word on the street is Marcelo Balboa will be doing the game… perhaps we should just watch the telemundo feed… :o)
I am very excited about ESPN showing EPL matches. As much as I hate ESPN’S constant self promotion, I do think they will do a good job with the broadcaasts. FSC and ESPN doing EPL. Whose better than us?
Saw the Fulham game yesterday via stream. Dempsey was top class yesterday. he had the assist on the second goal and broke Eddie Johnson into space to set up the third. Announcers were raving. He looks so solid on the left that i wonder if Bradley should consider putting him on that side for US instead of the right.
Eddie Johnson didn’t look out of place either. All signs seem to point to him replacing an outgoing Kamara in the Fulham strikeforce this season.
Prem on ESPN is as they say in England Brilliant!
Probably wouldn’t have wanted to call Dempsey in if he got hurt or something. Of course, maybe EJ’s form of late has caused Bob to Bering him into camp as a speedy option. I don’t really know for sure though.
well if he’s waiting till today bc of possible injuries, charlie plays his first frech league game tomorrow…
maybe he was looking at holden, ching, and ej??
I would guess that these matches would be showed in HD since ESPN will be using the same feeds that supply their UK based channels, and those feeds will have to be HD in order to compete in that market. That’s just a guess but it’s the only thing that makes sense logisitcally, rather than having an entire separate operation for games airing in the states.
I’m all for soccer in HD, FSC in Low-D is eye-poppingly painful. I think their cameras are extra low-D too. Watch normal ESPN then switch to FSC, it is CONSIDERABLY worse.
I think Bob wanted to make sure Clint was not injured and Ching…not sure it has anything to do with Eddie J… but he did well in his 10 min cameo and his pass for the goal was needle through the eye for an easy tap by Andy Johnson…
Clints move on the second goal was sweet, they ITV announcers were all over Clints nuts last night. BBC said he was the star of the match… he really has arrived this summer.
JB: Cause his teammate will be.
I have directv so I’m very happy. I had contacted them last week and they had said that I needed to get a second dish installed to catch the spanish language channels like mun2.
Ives, do you know who will commentate the game on Mun2?
JB- the reason to wait is to see if dempsey gets injured. that being said, though, i wouldn’t be too surprised if johnson does get called in.
Meant to say London is 2224 miles from “Perm” which is where Amkar is from.
AWESOME NEWS! So…you think this will effect ESPN360? I’m getting rid of Dishnetwork in a couple of months (just had a kid, gotta cut the expenses!) but I have 360.
This is awesome. I already get FSC and Gol TV. I wonder which ESPN channel will carry it?
I don’t get too much time to watch EPL but ESPN getting it back is sweet.
Awesome about the ESPN deal…now they just need to make sure they do not have ESPN America announcers and just stick with the Brits that they have hired to be at the matches instead. We are past the stage of dumbing down the coverage for the “new fan”… if he does not understand what the British guys are saying or referring too then he likely wont ever be a football fan anyway…
Ives where did you get your distance? As the crow flies London is only 2224 miles from London… but still long (about 6 hours flight)
Could Eddie Johnson be getting called up to the national team again? Otherwise why wait a day?
How about Mun2 on DISH? I think it’s 800 something. But, because I don’t normally get that channel, I don’t know if I can set the TIVO.
Let’s pray for ESPN HD for the EPL – I’m with Jayboy – this no HD on FSC is really getting frustrating!
Let’s just hope this isn’t the first step to seeing more football matches being preempted by women’s golf or bowling.
effing pumped about ESPN showing EPL games stateside. I think it has to be the right move for them, there’s nothing else they could show at 7:30-11:30 AM that would pull numbers the way these games will.
Ives – Great work as always… Do you know if ESPN will be showing the EPL in HD? I’m reaching the point where non-HD soccer makes my brain hurt!
SWEET! The ESPN deal only helps the growth of the sport in the US. I hope Jim Rome chokes on the news.