The opening match of the English Premier League season will now be shown on ESPN2 as part of ESPN's new deal to air EPL matches throughout the year.
The network finalized a deal with Fox Sports International late on Friday for the rights to air English Premier League matches for the upcoming season, including the Chelsea-Hull City match (7:40am). The network officially announced the deal late Friday night.
“The Barclays Premier League is one of the crown jewels of professional sports throughout the world,” said Scott Guglielmino, ESPN's vice president of programming. “We’re pleased to work with Fox Sports International to bring some of the league’s marquee matchups to ESPN2 in our continued efforts to serve soccer fans in the United States.”
The Chelsea-Hull City match was supposed to be the debut of U.S. national team striker Jozy Altidore for Hull, but Altidore revealed late on Friday night via Twitter that he is still sorting out work permit issues and will miss the match.
ESPN had been in lengthy negotiations with Fox Sports International to secure rights to show EPL games on a weekly basis, but the failure to make a deal earlier was putting the airing of the season opener in jeopardy. Saturday's opener will be shown. That possibility was avoided on Friday when the two networks reached an agreement.
Here is the schedule of matches to be shown on ESPN networks through September:
EPL on ESPN2 (through September)
Saturday- Chelsea vs. Hull City (7:40am, ESPN2)
Sat., Aug. 22- Wigan vs. Manchester United (9:55am, ESPN2)
Mon., Aug. 24- Liverpool vs. Aston Villa (2:55pm, ESPN2)
Sat., Aug. 29- Chelsea vs. Burnley (7:40am, ESPN2)
Sat., Sept. 12- Liverpool vs. Burnley (9:55am, ESPN2)
Sat. Sept. 19- Burnley vs. Sunderland (7:40am, ESPN2)
Sat., Sept. 26- Portsmouth vs. Everton (7:40am,ESPN2)
Mon., Sept. 28- Manchester City vs. West Ham (2:55pm, ESPN2)
What do you think of the news? Excited to see this schedule? Will you be up early to see Chelsea-Hull even without Jozy Altidore? Ready to adopt Burnley as your second-favorite EPL team?
Share your thoughts below.
Let just hope they don’t ESPN-ize the broadcasts:
1) Complain about officals 90% of the game
2) 3rd grade humor level jokes
3) Some idiot on the sidelines making obvious statements “they don’t look happy the other team scored”
4)Sports ticker that contains at least 1 Brett Favre thread.
5) Cut in to programing to give you update on different sport I don’t care about.
6) More air-time to Alexi Lalas
uggg
can’t wait for the old Drogba “it was a shot” quote. ESPN lucked into a great opening match
And Drogba scores…
six minutes of extra time? WOW
Now Brown brings Geovanni in…
This is curing my hangover. Full HD for the EPL, along with fantastic audio. FSC suck it! Get with the program.
I hate Stephen Hunt….pikey troll
Too bad no Jozy today. I got up extra early and everything. Guess I shouldn’t have partied so much last night 😉
Jozy’s been back and forth between the US and UK alot in the last 2 weeks, and he probably doesn’t have all of his work permit papers since he only just had his hearing. And, passport control will definitely stop you if you pop in and out of a country in a short period of time. No problems for Jozy, but damn, he needed to be in this game!
I wonder how serious Jozy’s work permit issues are?
Somewhere, maybe here on Ives’ blog, I read he doesn’t meet the int’l games requirement because – like many of the better US players – he was left off the Gold Cup team to get some rest after the Confed Cup.
I’m not all that enthusiastic about him going to a relegation threatened team like Hull. But they looked somewhat enterprising in the early going as huge underdogs at Chelsea. To me, the worse case scenario could be Jozy at Hull resembling Benny Feilhaber at Derby County.
Different players playing different positions for different clubs, I know. But a forward on a team trying to stave off relegation can feel awfully isolated on the field. And if he doesn’t produce quickly he could find himself in the doghouse.
Maybe I’m being overly pessimistic but it’s good to balance some of the “Hooray for Jozy at Hull” optimism.
(SBI-Altidore has already been approved for his work permit. I would bet that the current delay has to do with his ITC (International Transfer Certificate) and or visa.)
wow awesome, FSC get you’re act together and start HD channel in 09 not 10
@Herzog,
First half just finished.
Same here as chris @ 8.40a. I’m in Brooklyn on Time Warner. Where the hell is chelsea v Hull?
Looks like ESPN might want to line up some new sponsors. I am not sure how big the rifle shopping soccer watching crowd is in US. A sporting event from the UK with rifle commercials at half time is full of irony.
This is so fantastic. EPL in HD. I’ll never leave home on Saturday again before 10 in the morning!
THIS IS GRRREEAAAATT!!! FSC may have self-imposed a little pressure on themselves to rush their HD switch. I hope ESPN promotes MLS a little more too. To make our league better, we need them to crank it up!
This is how EPL games are supposed to be watched: in HD… 🙂
WHAT THE HELL? I wake up and turn on the TV to watch Bass Masters (my favorite fishing show) and I get this crap? What is this? A bunch of guys running around on a large grass field? WHY IS THIS ON INSTEAD OF MY FISHING SHOW?
(kidding)
Chelsea equalizes. Drogba!!!! My only gripe is the scrolling scoreboard at the bottom of the screen.
Hull strikes first!!!! Steven Hunt!!!!
🙂 I hate Chelsea
Anyone see that Steven Hunt cross? Jozy would’ve finished that :*
Official game stats are giving Cooper a goal but I watched the goal and he wasn’t even in the play.
The players aren’t blurry…we can make out numbers…the ref doesn’t blend in as a player!
It’s actually in HD…I’m shocked.
THE GAME LOOKS GREAT IN HD…
This is great! EPL in HD!
I stumbled on the ESPN2 HD (??!!) broadcast by accident this morning– didn’t check SBI last night. Had to stop by and confirm what my eyes were seeing. This is FANTASTIC!!!!
HD! HD! No Jozy. Oh well. Game about to kickoff. Already in trouble with my fantasy team, I thought Geovanni was Hull’s talisman and he’s on the bench. My bad for selecting a team with guys I know nothing about.
Paul Mariner, Adrian Healy and Shaka Hislop on the pre-game, not bad. And ESPN is using what sounds like the international feed for this one, not sure about future games.
HD! EPL!HD! EPL!HD! EPL!HD! EPL!HD! EPL!HD! EPL!HD! EPL!HD! EPL!HD! EPL!HD! EPL!
It’s going to be on ESPN360 right? I needs it!
ok haven’t slept yet… debating whether to stay up for Chelsea Hull game w/o Jozy…
btw i hope Jozy reads this thread to see how many peeps are excited to see him play; and how many of us would sleep in if he doesn’t!
I pay a fortune to Dish network for the 200 channel package just for FSC to watch crap,grainy reception-but good english announcers- so yeah, I’m happy about the direction this is heading.
I care more about the PL then the Champions League anyway. Hopefully this grows into a full blown deal that creates a ESPN, soccer only channel.
Burnley?! They look just like West ham
Way for ESPN to step it up and for Fox to Do The Right Thing!
Shame if Jozy can’t play the first game, but will be watching televised games where he does play.
Also interested in Fulham for obvious reasons – the USA’s best midfielder plays for them. And then there’s about 10 more EPL teams worth watching because their football is just so outstanding
Why on earth would you get up at 4 am to maybe see one player play in one game?
So do they basically have all of what used to be the Setanta package?
@lol at some of the people in this thread asking ives for further confimation of this news when he works for ESPN…if anybody got it right its probably IVES
burnley getting some major love!! to bad all we get is our keepers thru the first 5 games and only one of them will prolly play (excluding Friedel since he isnt a national teamer anymore) but hopefully by then spector will be a starter
Hopefully we get a full dose of Fulham, Everton, Hull, West Ham and Villa.
English Premier League 2009 will kick to a flying start on Saturday, August 15, 2009. The fixtures of this exciting forthcoming season have already been announced, and the football fans and fraternity are all set to watch some exciting matches.
http://www.clbuzz.com/epl-2009-schedule-2009-10-english-premier-league-fixtures/
4:40 AM…what a horrible time for us west coasters. Definitely gonna have to do ESPN360. I wish they would replay the match at like 10.
i think it has nothing to do with a work permit but more to do with swine flu from mr donovan…well see if Timmys in net etc etc
they need to move England and Spain to Central Time.. 8am on a sat is BS!!!! 😛
i know this may sound very ungrateful after some really good news, but why not get more of the matches that fsc will not be showing? is it so fsc can keep the competition of espn at bay or did espn just not pursue more than 1 match a week?
danny, probably not up yet because the matches aren’t up for espn2 on espn.tv yet either
Ahh, sorry for the reiteration! I didn’t realize someone had beatem me to the punch!
I hate this. I much prefer Fox Soccer Channel showing 4-5 EPL games a weekend than ESPN showing 1 game each week.
Posted by: DYCSoccer17 | August 14, 2009 at 10:27 PM
FSC still shows games. There are two scheduled for tomorrow, I believe. No need to fret! The only thing this changes is that we get some HD coverage for a change….which DEFINITELY increases my chances of watching some more games this year.
I don’t see the Chel$ea/Hull City match on the ESPN360 line-up. Not up yet, or is ESPN360 out for this bunch of matches?
@ SP – So long as the ESPN deal doesn’t affect FSC’s content, then I am happy (: