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ESPN360.com lands Serie A and Coppa Italia deals

Kaka_the_associated_press

Italian soccer fans, heaven will soon be a click away.

ESPN360.com, the broadband network for ESPN, has reached a deal that will add Serie A and Coppa Italia to its lineup. ESPN.360.com has secured exclusive broadband rights in the United States in a deal that will allow the site to broadcast four Serie A matches per weekend for the remainder of the current season.

The site will also offer exclusive coverage of the remaining Coppa Italia matches this season as well as all Coppa Italia matches the next two seasons.

The two deals add Italian soccer to a lineup that already includes the UEFA Champions League, Euro 2008, the UEFA Cup and FIFA World Cup, among others tournaments.

Francesco_totti_ap

Comments

  1. Do I have to re-install the 360 software without my firewall turned on? Because I am watching it on AT&T DSL, with a brand new laptop running Windows Vista and it is still a very choppy playback. Nothing like TV. I watched the African Cup on Ghana 2008’s website with great playback but this…

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  2. This made my day! More Milan, more happiness. I forwarded this link 2 my soccer buddies, now we can watch more great games @ the office. And in my eyes it isn’t procrastination, if we lived anywhere else in the world we would get the time to enjoy soccer matches, not 2 mention the days off we should be getting during the world cup. I think it’s fair 4 us to watch some soccer on espn360, or at least this is how I justify it.

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  3. yeeeeeeeeeeeehawwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

    ESPN360 has had Copa Italia for a while and they broadcast the Dubai Cup for team on winter break. It’s a wonderful way to get my fix (since I canceled my Dish) and I can watch whichever parts of the game, whenever I want!!!

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  4. Joamiq,

    Gotcha. Didn’t know you meant ISP wise, I had heard they pulled that bit torrent/p2p stuff before.

    Thanks man.

    -Dan

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  5. This is not surprising to me. I live in South America and ESPN has the exclusive rights to all the Serie A games shown here. They show at least 3 games a weekend and also show la liga matches from spain. Fox sports has the rights to the EPL, so every weekend, i could watch EPL, La Liga or Serie A. ESPN also shows all the champions league games as well, all on basic cable.

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  6. Thats funny,
    I’m from new york and RCN is considered the devil up here. My parents have Verizon on LI and not only is it fast but its crystal clear AND you get so many more channels than you do with cable. Including NFLnetwork. I’m on Timewarner and dont have any problems with it. Questions abotu espn360 though. I’ve heard that, for some reason you cannot subscribe if you are in New York due to some technicality. Is this true?

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  7. ives–

    can you talk a little bit about where you see soccer in the us on tv going within the near future? some posts have already asked i know..but re: hd games for champions league on espn? hd fsc? la liga not on pay tv or at least pay on cable tv? and anything else coming through the grapevine?

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  8. Dannyc,
    Comcast may be the worst ISP when it comes to blocking anything that takes up bandwidth. There have been actual studies done on this: http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20071128-eff-study-reveals-evidence-of-comcasts-bittorrent-interference.html. The FCC has opened an investigation against Comcast for throttling. Their service disruptions don’t just happen with Bittorrent or similar P2P apps (Sopcast, TVANTS, etc.) but with large downloads, streaming videos, even when I’m just copying things from one computer on my family’s network to another. Comcast will actually disable the cable modem so that we have to reboot it to get the internet connection back. It pisses me off. My mother doesn’t pay them $40 a month for them to decide what we can and can’t use our internet connection for. I’ve read reviews of ISPs in my family’s area of Jersey and they area and they are unanimously against Comcast and for Verizon. (I myself live in DC where we have RCN and it works just fine – none of the crap that Comcast pulls, ever.)

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  9. Mike F.,

    There is a way to fix that problem with ESPN360. It only streams all those other games at the same time if you have it set to “Mosaic.” You have to click “Size” and set it to “Large.” Then you will only be streaming the game, and it is a great connection.

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  10. I’d echo Chris’ question on whether or not this will affect the rights that FSC has for Italian soccer.

    I don’t have the time anymore to watch all the matches that I’d like to, but it seems as though leagues like the Eredivisie and Ligue One no longer have broadcast homes, so I’d love to see those leagues get picked up by ESPN.

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  11. The possibilities for this are endless. Sopcast has nothing on ESPN360 (or Setanta Broadband) quality. We could eventually see EVERY game like this. I just wish they’d allow true fullscreen without workarounds. They insist on having a window around the video. I use the “zoom” function intended for those with poor eyesight to JUST see the game.

    I have a video hookup from my computer to my television, and it’s just like watching television. To be honest, FSC and Gol’s intercontinental feeds are dodgy anyway.

    I was, however, kind of disappointed with their production of whatever match they carried this past weekend. It was clearly the RAI International feed, which is fine, but with the english announcer speaking OVER the Italian one. Hmm…

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  12. Can I assume this has no impact on FSC broadcasting Serie A or GolTV broadcasting the Italian Cup matches? This only affects the internet rights to these matches, not the broadcast rights?

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  13. This is actually bad news for big Serie A fans if this deal is exclusive… For a fee, we were already getting our fix from another website (i won’t mention the name because I don’t want to seem like a shill) which has smooth streams and fairly good customer service for a first year site. I watched a ton of matches on it in the fall. I know they run your columns Ives, so I’m going to watch my tongue, but ESPN360 is absolutely brutal. It used to be ok before they redid the format a few months ago and decided that you absolutely had to have a zillion events streaming at once, even if some of them are college hoops game from like 2 days ago. Its very slow and very choppy. Watching Inter/Ajax from Dubai was miserable. If the two sites can co-exist, one for the hardcore serie a fan who wants to pay, and espn for the casual fan who wants some exposure to the league then its a great deal but if espn360 is going to be the only place in the US to watch these games, its terrible news for fans of calcio…

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  14. I wouldn’t be shocked to see ESPN make a play for Checketts-owned Gol TV in the next 5 years.

    It makes too much sense for them to blow-out their rights agreements with MLS, USSF, UEFA and FIFA.

    They also have a substantial library of ESPN Classic type soccer programs that only play on the International division right now.

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  15. This is AWESOME news!

    Now I have another procrastination option while I am at work. I will definitely be watching the Inter-Juventus Coppa Italia game tomorrow on ESPN360!

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  16. That is pretty cool news. I am in the process of getting my family to switch from the absolutely terrible and useless Comcast to Verizon. I don’t watch much Serie A but hopefully I’ll be able to watch some of the “can’t miss” games more easily with this.

    Oh, and this is totally off topic but I have to say: GLORY GLORY TOTTENHAM HOTSPUR

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  17. Awesome! too bad I don’t have Verizon or AT&T dsl right now 🙁 Consider yourselves lucky to be able to watch the Inter/Juve game tomorrow.

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