England PLAYING tonight!!!

[Mydnight Rose]

Tonight is the first England non-friendly game (i'm on about football/soccer here people ;D) of the World Cup qualifiers. However, I am unable to watch the game because the BBC no longer has the rights to England away games...Setanta Sports do...and you have to pay extra for that channel...we already pay extra for Sky Sports to watch Arsenal...but now Setanta have some of Arsenal's games too!!!

I don't mind having to pay extra for club football as it is selective onto which team you (you as in the public) want to watch, but I believe that any English/GB teams that play should be available to view by everybody. Sport, after all is all about social inclusion (which is why our government bangs on about making it available to all communities) but who wants to play sports that aren't shown on TV? If exposure to sports helps bring comunities together, why make people pay extra to watch it?

...ANY THOUGHTS? (Tee hee long rant.)

[jay]

Sept 5, 2008 22:50:29 GMT -8 Mydnight Rose said:

I believe that any English/GB teams that play should be available to view by everybody.

...ANY THOUGHTS? (Tee hee long rant.)

Money talks, not people. If it was commercially viable to broadcast to all people what they wanted, it would be done.

[Mydnight Rose]

It is commercially viable to play England footie games (this is England we are talking about, it's our home sport, it's what we are about). The reason why it's not on the BBC is because the BBC could not afford to outbid Setanta Sports...The BBC is funded by the public of Britain, and couldn't bid any higher.

[jay]

Sept 5, 2008 22:57:56 GMT -8 Mydnight Rose said:

It is commercially viable to play England footie games (this is England we are talking about, it's our home sport, it's what we are about). The reason why it's not on the BBC is because the BBC could not afford to outbid Setanta Sports...The BBC is funded by the public of Britain, and couldn't bid any higher.

Exactly, more money is to be made by only showing games people want to those who can pay.

Ergo, more commercially viable not to broadcast to everyone.

[Mydnight Rose]

The whole idea of the BBC is to broadcast what the public want though...

[Renegade]

its kind of hard to go along with the idea of pride in a national team when you can't even watch them on TV.

[Assassin]

Sept 5, 2008 23:53:19 GMT -8 Renegade said:

its kind of hard to go along with the idea of pride in a national team when you can't even watch them on TV.

My thoughts exactly.

First of all we had to pay to watch our national team play our national sport on Sky Sports, which was bad enough but we grudgingly coughed up the monthly subscription fees, and now we're supposed to spend even more to watch either the away competitive games or the home friendlies which is utterly ridiculous. It is indeed difficult to take pride in the national football team when it's extremely expensive to even watch them play... and usually perform badly.

[pawl]

Just to rub it in, I think I get Setanta for free. =P

[Shady]

I didn't realise this wasn't on terrestrial tv o.o

All internationals, or at least competitive internationals, should be on terrestrial. This is really frustrating.

[Anselm]

Wales hasn't been on terrestrial for years I get Setanta free too

Internationals should be on terrestrial, it's not like it's club football or Kazakhstan vs Andorra or something.

[Dr Unknown]

Can anyone confirm what time kick off is for me please? Is it 7.45?

[Graham]

Sept 6, 2008 4:20:11 GMT -8 Dr Unknown said:

Can anyone confirm what time kick off is for me please? Is it 7.45?

It's 7pm UK time, i think

[Dr Unknown]

Sept 6, 2008 5:09:14 GMT -8 Graham said:

Sept 6, 2008 4:20:11 GMT -8 Dr Unknown said:

Can anyone confirm what time kick off is for me please? Is it 7.45?

It's 7pm UK time, i think

Thanks for that, going to be a bit of a rush tonight then.