Romanista
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TV Coverage, Season 08-09In recent years, I've spent loads of time in the summer trawling the net for news of the destination of Serie A TV rights for the UK. Does anyone know whether Five is carrying Serie A next year as well? If not, is there any other deal in the offing?
My own preference would now be for Setanta or Eurosport to pick up the rights. This season has shown that a terrestrial channel is simply unable to show the big games live, because they won't disturb their Sunday night schedules for calcio.
It would make sense for Setanta to get the rights back - they have James Richardson on their books, and they need a flagship European league to rival Sky's La Liga coverage. Italy would fit the bill better than the Bundesliga or Championnat. So, fingers crossed.
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Mezz
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The way that Five's coverage has been going (only 15 minutes of build up on a Sunday rather than 30-60, and no highlights show now), I can't see them carrying on past this season.
What with Eurosport and Setanta having all ready covered (and dropped) Serie A within the last few years, I'm not sure they would be too interested in picking up Italian football again anytime soon as the factors which led them to drop their coverage first time around haven't really changed.
What we really need to happen is for Jose Mourinho to take over at either of the Milan clubs, or even Juve, and to get Lampard and/or Terry over there playing. If Sky have one or two big name English players abroad to follow, they'll surely be interested in providing coverage. The exposure that La Liga received from Sky when Owen, Woodgate and eventually Beckham went out there increased notably, and I suspect that only a repeat of this on the peninsula would tempt Sky in to covering Serie A.
From my own experience, a lot of UK football fans still see Serie A as being riddled with corruption and, generally, not a very entertaining league to watch so we may be without live calcio for a while again after this season ends.
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GramercyRiffs
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Sky, the scourge of the match-going football fan.
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Micky
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| Mezz wrote: | | The exposure that La Liga received from Sky when Owen, Woodgate and eventually Beckham went out there increased notably. |
Agreed, although I believe it was McManaman that started it all off, followed then by Beckham then Owen and Woodgate.
I'd like to see some English players play in Serie A, that coupled with hopefully a fairly succesful stint from Trap and Capello hopefully might get some real interest in the league. It's Sky's coverage that we want - not Bravo or 5 amateur rubbish.
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Romanista
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I agree with much of what you say, Mezz, except that Setanta didn't drop its coverage - it claimed (at least) that it was outbid by Five. So I hold out some hope that it could secure Serie A for next season with JR in the hotseat.
I worry that live calcio might disappear, but at the same time I find it hard to believe that football from Holland, Argentina, Germany and France will be shown on various channels, but no calcio. I take your point that British fans have a negative view of Serie A, but broadcasters must know there's a core group of people who got hooked by C4's coverage in the 90s.
Here's hoping, anyway. Perhaps you'll consider creating a sticky at the top of the forum later in the summer for news (or even gossip?) about the destination of the TV rights?
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Žosa
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just do what i'm doing, move to Italy!
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Mezz
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| Romanista wrote: | | Perhaps you'll consider creating a sticky at the top of the forum later in the summer for news (or even gossip?) about the destination of the TV rights? |
No problem, I'll add this to the stickys in about a month's time until the season actually starts and we know if we are/aren't going to be able to watch live games!
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