Whisper it quietly but BT Sport isn't actually that bad. They talk about as much shit as Sky do, but at least they don't dress it up as a professional show. They know they're basically the Talksport of TV. Something endearing about an organisation that knows it's shit compared to one that doesn't.

Not sure CL games were a big deal from Sky's perspective. The league has always been their bread and butter.

Boooooo!

I don't care that much about the quality of the coverage, usually I only turn in for the match anyway, though I do enjoy Sky's pre & post match analysis far more than BT's cringy gimmicks, it's like ITV when they won coverage of the Premier League highlights, that retarded van parked outside the stadium with Andy Townsend inside

What I do care about is the extra £12 a month. Unless they release an Xbox app I'll need to watch this shit on the laptop via their app.

otfgoon wrote:

I don't care that much about the quality of the coverage, usually I only turn in for the match anyway, though I do enjoy Sky's pre & post match analysis far more than BT's cringy gimmicks, it's like ITV when they won coverage of the Premier League highlights, that retarded van parked outside the stadium with Andy Townsend inside

What I do care about is the extra £12 a month. Unless they release an Xbox app I'll need to watch this shit on the laptop via their app.

HDMI connection bruv. Or an s-video one for older laptops.

I usually use a VDI connection but it's too much effort, the sounds always out of sync too.

Mentioned on the news that this deal "shouldn't" affect Irish TV broadcasting of UCL.
Not exactly a certainty though.

i'm surprised that even just a few games being shown on terrestrial tv was able to last this long in britain. over here quite a bit of american football, basketball, baseball games are shown on terrestrial and if not basic cable. but the difference here is that american football and basketball have timeouts (that the teams call) and tv timeouts built in. baseball has breaks and the middle and end of innings. so the networks can make their money back by selling ads.

i've watched games on itv and they've actually had commercial breaks during matches and you miss shit. WTF.

bt should get better talent with their improved live football offerings. if they flip it on sky when the premier league rights are up for renewal and they control 4 of 6 packages there is no reason for gary neville to be working at sky. he'd just switch to BT because they would be showing the most premier league games and all of the european games.

y va marquer wrote:

Mentioned on the news that this deal "shouldn't" affect Irish TV broadcasting of UCL.
Not exactly a certainty though.

I bet you the Irish press haven't a fucking clue how RTE and TV3s deals work. Aren't TV3 tied into ITVs deal?

Meatwad wrote:

bt should get better talent with their improved live football offerings.

I don't think that'll happen. What they've shown so far is that they have original ideas. Most people think Gary Neville is a good pundit but he wasn't poached from anywhere else. What Sky have done with Neville and Carragher is take young players who understand what its like to be a player now. Also 2 players synonymous with 2 of the biggest teams in the league. BT got Michael Owen from that generation, a player no clubs supporters like and a guy who cares more about horse racing than football.

I want to see one of these stations throw a non footballer/manager in there. Get a journalist or a blogger on. Someone with a fresh perspective.

I haven't given up yet on being head hunted for that position, qs.

Any day now.

qs! wrote:

y va marquer wrote:

Mentioned on the news that this deal "shouldn't" affect Irish TV broadcasting of UCL.
Not exactly a certainty though.

I bet you the Irish press haven't a fucking clue how RTE and TV3s deals work. Aren't TV3 tied into ITVs deal?

Think so.
ITV are going to set up their own Irish Channel in 2015 (not sure of date) so that would have been the end of TV3 rights anyway.

True enough. Still I don't see us getting 2 nights of terrestrial CL after this deal. Maybe RTE could both nights but they're already pulling back on football with them dropping the prem highlights.

qs! wrote:

I want to see one of these stations throw a non footballer/manager in there. Get a journalist or a blogger on. Someone with a fresh perspective.

That's a brilliant idea. Never thought of that. If they could get someone from the broadsheets that would be great.

I reckon your man from Zonal Marking would be brilliant for someone. Or when they're hiring for the CL get Honnigstein, Sid Lowe, etc on and have them depending what nations are showing.

BT have Honigstein Laurens and Horncastle on Sunday nights for the European coverage they pop up on other stuff too. Their European coverage is top class tbh and way better than the PL crew.

I really like Sky's CL coverage. Will BT have interactive like Sky so all the games get shown? It better not mean that they only choose certain games and Arsenal games aren't picked up.

Horncastle is awful. I don't know Laurens.

I'm sure interactive is part of the deal for that money.

qs! wrote:

I want to see one of these stations throw a non footballer/manager in there. Get a journalist or a blogger on. Someone with a fresh perspective.

Michael Cox would be great actually. Don't know if he's always right, but he talks about tactics with both detail and a tendency to avoid received wisdom.

BT Sport need to employ a pundit team worthy of getting this CL deal.

I would switch off if I turned on the tv and saw the likes of Owen and David James. They need CL winners and managers.

The benchmark Sky have set is very high.

This is high from Sky?

Only Redknapp who's not worth listening too. Souness, Ballack, Neville all on the CL shows too.

Ballacks pretty shit. I actually think Souness is a great pundit.

In general as pundits I prefer listening to ex-managers than ex-footballers

That's because you can't be a successful manager without being able to talk or think.

(Now waiting for a counterexample.)

"I don't write. I couldn't even fill a team sheet in. I can't work a computer, I don't know what an email is, I spell like a 2-year-old, I have never sent a fax and I've never even sent a text message."

(None of those quotes are made up! )

he does that to build his image of simple guy we can all relate to. the anti-Wenger.
meanwhile, at home, Harry's tweeting and instragramming it up with Daisy by his side

qs! wrote:

Ballacks pretty shit. I actually think Souness is a great pundit.

No.

I think his deriding comments on Arsenal's "tippy tappy" football when we were riding high in the league was bullshit. We don't play that anymore. He bigged up City and Chelsea saying they were the two best teams in the league after Chelsea's fluke win against City. Yet if we had the start they had against the same teams we would be written off immediately.

You'd have been hard pushed to find a pundit in the last few weeks who was putting our chances ahead of those 2. Every week its a big joke on MOTD "Can Arsenal win the title" "No" titter titter. Not much better on Sky, ITV, etc Everyone is still writing us off.

I like Souness as a pundit too for the same reason I like most of Sky's pundits, they're all interesting except maybe Redknapp.

Hansen used to be ok in that sense (despite being a tit) but these days he seems as sedated as his colleagues at the BBC. Biggest collection of dullards I've ever seen. Keown is pretty good, he can do better.

BT are the worst of the lot though, look like they've got out of their way to hire the few ex pro's who probably don't watch any football in their spare time. They're all flakey as hell too.

Souness is better when he's on Irish tv and he allowed say what he wants, even get technical about pros and cons of different set ups or just have a laugh. BBC is sickening to watch, it's like a scene from that Hannibal tv show. All 3 lads valiumed half to death so they can't get of the sofa. Brains half scouped out from behind and all they can do is mutter one of about 4 football phrases as there forced to watch stoke against Bolton against there will.

The only pundits I like are Neville and Dixon, the rest are boring and/or idiots.

Don't like Neville on commentary and I don't see why Sky stick him there when you have Jamie Redknapp, of all people, front and centre every week.

and i mean paul i mean merson i mean is the biggest i mean eediat going i mean.

Used to like Souness but over last few months i've noticed he chats a load of bollocks. Can't remember many examples but there was one recently (probably August) where his main point was "what does Ramsey actually do" because he said he wasn't defensive and he doesn't score goals.

Captain wrote:

Don't like Neville on commentary

Me neither

Keown is my favourite. So intelligent and insightful.