With news today that Disney has secured the rights to show MLS games in the UK as part of a re-launched ESPN UK, we Canadians now stare down the reality that starting on Aug 8 (when the first game is shown in the UK) you will be able to watch more out of market MLS on the tube over there than you can here.
MLS is officially recognized first division of Canada you know. Yet, other than TFC we're, for the most part, forced to watch the league on illegal web streams. A bit odd, don't you think?
When MLSE secured its licence for GolTV there were noises made about showing out-of-market MLS. Although the station has done a good job of getting more TFC focused programming on the air -- mostly soft feature programming -- we still see no sign of actual games. As the league's footprint grows in this country that needs to change.
Hopefully MLSE can at least get some playoff games on come November. We all understand that sometimes these things take time after all. But by the time next year's season rolls around...
I think it's about time Canadians are able to watch MLS games without having to seek out Spanish language internet feeds.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
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3 comments:
Illegal web streams? Are you for real?
I paid a whopping $20 Canadian for a year's subscription to Match Center TV (find it at the TFC's home page). Gives me live access to almost every single game played by every single MLS team every week, with English commentary. The television situation is different, of course, but this is just as good since you just need a $5 cable to plug your laptop into your TV.
Do more research.
well match centre doesn't show the games on national network, so if you are watching them on justin.tv or athdea (or whatever it is), yes they are illegeal. The US has the Direct Kick channel and they get a lot of the other games, plus ESPN and FOX, however our TV rights of the league are terrible. Maybe in the near future with Montreal and Vancouver we might get more games, but if you think about it, MLB and NBA games aren't really shown on Canadian channels.
Musccsparky>>>Funny how things mirror themselves. The UK get's 2 or 3 EPL games a week and we get the majority!
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