Fox Soccer Channel Makes Me Schitzo

For English Premier League matches on TV, all of us in America know that Fox Soccer Channel is our godsend, broadcasting live and tape-delayed Premiership matches that gloriously consume hours of our life each week.

But if you’re an EPL fan who wants to experience the league in real-time, you have a dilemma.

Take, for instance, this weekend’s upcoming matches. If you’re on the East Coast, you’ll watch the 7:30am live derby between Man City and Man U. Easy. And you’ll watch the Blackburn versus Bolton match, which will be live at Noon. And then there’s the tape-delayed match at 3pm between Arsenal and Boro.

However, the majority of EPL matches kick off at 10am. And, if you’re like me, you’re tempted not to follow those results in real-time because you want to watch the Arsenal game without knowing the final result.

So, what do you do from 10am until Noon? Do you resist going online to find out the scores? But what about the 10am clash between Liverpool and Spurs? And don’t you want to agonize (or chuckle) at Newcastle’s demise in their match against Fulham? Plus there are three other matches at that same time that we haven’t mentioned.

Fox’s answer is to show filler from 10am until Noon with an AC Milan classic match. And offer the Liverpool vs Spurs match on Pay-Per-View for $20+.

My solution is two-fold.

First, Fox should create a new two hour show featuring up-to-the-minute scores (except, on purpose, not mentioning the score of the 3pm taped-delayed game). The show can have it’s fair share of advertising breaks, to help FSC pay the bills and make some profit. Plus, the two-hour show can feature FSC pundits discussing the implication of the results, upcoming programming from FSC, and more.

Second, until Fox makes any changes, the best way is to experience it via EPL Talk. It’s the reason I created the web site in the first place… to allow EPL fans to follow the scores and commentary in real-time on the Internet, and allowing fans to chat with one another as the goals go in.

With EPL Talk, you can listen to live commentary from the web site by linking to the streaming Talk Radio broadcast (listed under the What’s On/Radio section of the homepage). You can follow the goals as they go in under the ‘Premiership Results’ section of the homepage. The league table is updated in real-time as every goal hits the net. Plus, you can follow the play-by-play commentary of any live match by clicking on any of the team names under the ‘Premiership Results’ section.

What ideas do you have to improve Fox Soccer Channel? Click on ‘Comments’ below and share your ideas.