The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Printable Version

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Brekkie - 31-03-2023

Does the blackout apply to streaming explicitly though? Could DAZN get around it by offering the 3pm games via streaming only perhaps in an updated version of the iFollow arrangements.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rdd - 01-04-2023

Didn’t Eleven try to pull that stunt during their short lived stint doing LaLiga, and were told where to go by the FA?

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - NI92 - 02-04-2023

Pien Meulensteen leading the commentary today on Sky Sports for West Ham v Southampton, is this the first time Sky have used a female on a men's Premier League match?

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - TMD_24 - 02-04-2023

(02-04-2023, 02:09 PM)NI92 Wrote:  Pien Meulensteen leading the commentary today on Sky Sports for West Ham v Southampton, is this the first time Sky have used a female on a men's Premier League match?

She did Southampton V Leicester City for Sky on the 4th March.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - NI92 - 02-04-2023

(02-04-2023, 02:12 PM)TMD_24 Wrote:  

(02-04-2023, 02:09 PM)NI92 Wrote:  Pien Meulensteen leading the commentary today on Sky Sports for West Ham v Southampton, is this the first time Sky have used a female on a men's Premier League match?

She did Southampton V Leicester City for Sky on the 4th March.

Thanks, I did watch that match but it was in a bar so never heard the commentary 

I think she is probably the best women lead commentator at the minute although I do like Vicki Sparks too

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - RhysJR - 02-04-2023

Full schedule for the Champions Cup and Challenge Cup Rugby quarter-finals for next weekend confirmed. Like many decisions related to European (and South African) rugby, it is a little bit stupid to have two knockout rounds on consecutive weekends (especially over two continents now) but kudos to the organisers to releasing the full info within quarter of an hour of the final whistle of this weekend' action.

In the Champions Cup, RTÉ will show the only remaining Irish team, Leinster v. Leicester, on Friday night. ITV will show Saracens away to defending champions La Rochelle on Sunday afternoon. This will be ITV's first match of the competition outside the British Isles, so it will be interesting to see if they return to the Ealing studio like in the Six Nations.

In the Challenge Cup, S4C will show Scarlets v. Clermont Auvergne on Friday night - the only FTA match in the UK and Ireland. The graphic from the official Twitter account below (likewise the website) suggests that despite Viaplay showing the bulk of the matches from the pool stages and the round of 16, they will be frozen out of the latter stages of the competition, as BT Sport are listed to show all four ties next weekend. BT showed their first match from the competition this season last night. The broadcast rights for this competition make very little sense.

NB Times in local time, so matches in Italy and France one hour earlier than below in the UK




Other tidbits from this competition...
Exeter v. Montpellier early went to extra time and was good fortune was the ITV FTA match of the round. ITV went off air at 15:20 rather than the scheduled 15:00. BT Sport began showing Saracens v. Ospreys on BT Sport 8 before moving to BT Sport 1 after extra time ended. 

And it was an interesting arrangement on Stormers v. Harlequins from Cape Town yesterday, with BT Sport's Ugo Monye joining SuperSport's Matthew Pearce and Robbi Kempson on commentary onsite, with both broadcasters taking that commentary. Usually BT Sport have taken their own offtube commentary for South African and SuperSport has taken BT Sport/RTÉ/Viaplay etc. commentary for matches in Europe. This practice is the default option on cricket tours so initeresting it was seen in use on the rugby yesterday.


And it has been confirmed the mega-pools of 12 teams have been scrapped for next season, with a more traditional set-up of smaller pools (rumoured to be six groups of four a la the old ERC Heineken Cup) said to triumphantly return. There will be four rounds of pool matches (two in December, two in January), Round of 16 and quarter-finals in late March/April, then semi-finals and finals in May. There are so many reason why this year's format is bad, most notably that it was impossible to explain and understand and teams could qualify for the knockout stages with only one win (there was a mathematical possibility in the Challenge Cup ahead of the final round of the pool stage of one team qualifying without even one win) so it hopefully will be a positive step forward to return to a more traditional format. Here's hoping UEFA see sense and do similar for their equivalent competitions.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rdd - 02-04-2023

That Leinster v Leicester was going to be on the Friday night seems to have been widely known within a short period of Leinster v Ulster finishing which was odd.

The format change (or reversion), if it happens (and it has not be confirmed yet, though the mood noises out of EPCR are good) will be welcomed by most people. Six groups of four does necessitate either three or (more likely) six weeks for the group stages though. I’d prefer a wholesale return to the pre-2014 format which had that set up and the return of the self selecting QF draw.

The Challenge Cup TV rights are just plain odd, but it seems likely that it was a sublicense of rights BT just simply hadn’t the time and space to use to Viaplay and Premier in the circumstances. They are committed to showing 12 Heineken Cup games each week of the group stages without trying to add the Challenge Cup to the mix, particularly since BT got rid of the old dedicated Thursday night window it had, likely because of the clashes with the Europa League.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Brekkie - 03-04-2023

(02-04-2023, 05:26 PM)RhysJR Wrote:  And it has been confirmed the mega-pools of 12 teams have been scrapped for next season, with a more traditional set-up of smaller pools (rumoured to be six groups of four a la the old ERC Heineken Cup) said to triumphantly return. There will be four rounds of pool matches (two in December, two in January), Round of 16 and quarter-finals in late March/April, then semi-finals and finals in May. There are so many reason why this year's format is bad, most notably that it was impossible to explain and understand and teams could qualify for the knockout stages with only one win (there was a mathematical possibility in the Challenge Cup ahead of the final round of the pool stage of one team qualifying without even one win) so it hopefully will be a positive step forward to return to a more traditional format. Here's hoping UEFA see sense and do similar for their equivalent competitions.

That's good news - it just doesn't create any excitement in the group stage at all having these massive groups where not everyone competes.   FIFA did U-turn on the World Cup 2026 group phase plans so a chance UEFA will think again, though with broadcast rights already locked in it may be messy if any change resulted in less games.    I do think with 36 teams that 4 groups of 9, each playing 4 home and 4 away games, would be the compromise solution.


As for the rugby yes back to back knock out rounds make things tricky - and pretty odd considering this is the same sport that held it's World Cup draw three years ahead of the tournament to give teams and fans time to make plans.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - RhysJR - 03-04-2023

Rpeorts last week that Nick Faldo will come out of retirement to join Sky Sports for the Masters this week and likely The Open in the summer.
The Telegarph also reported last week that there was a late possibility of the BBC agreeing a late deal for limited highlights, though it's almost a week later and we haven't heard anything else. So the chances of that materialising are slimmer than ever and this will be the first Masters without FTA coverage in the UK for many a decade.*

*Amen Corner coverage will be free on Sky Sports Golf YouTube channel daily, but nothing covering every whole on a linear FTA outlet

Quote:Ridley will detail any alterations at his traditional press conference on the eve of the tournament. By then it will be clear if the BBC has cut ties with the major that it first broadcast 56 years ago. Telegraph Sport exclusively revealed in January that no agreement had been made between the club and corporation and it is known that BBC TV is not sending over a commentary and presenting team.

However, there is a possibility that an 11th-hour deal could be struck to show highlights via the world feed, perhaps only from the final two rounds. When asked on Tuesday, a BBC spokesperson cryptically replied: “We don’t comment on discussions so we don’t have anything to say whilst they are ongoing.”

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/golf/2023/03/28/sir-nick-faldo-return-sky-sports-studio-year-tearful-masters/ 


Meanwhile, LIV Golf's rating (and relevance) have plumeted yet further for the second round of their season. I believe there was another event this weekend just gone, so it would be interesting to see if a more frequent schedule (a week gap rather than a month gap) could benefit the lowly figures. Otherwise I'm not sure where the event will go if next-to-no-one is watching it or talking about it.

https://golf.com/news/liv-tv-ratings-drop-tucson-hot-mic/ 

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(03-04-2023, 08:30 PM)Brekkie Wrote:  

(02-04-2023, 05:26 PM)RhysJR Wrote:  And it has been confirmed the mega-pools of 12 teams have been scrapped for next season, with a more traditional set-up of smaller pools (rumoured to be six groups of four a la the old ERC Heineken Cup) said to triumphantly return. There will be four rounds of pool matches (two in December, two in January), Round of 16 and quarter-finals in late March/April, then semi-finals and finals in May. There are so many reason why this year's format is bad, most notably that it was impossible to explain and understand and teams could qualify for the knockout stages with only one win (there was a mathematical possibility in the Challenge Cup ahead of the final round of the pool stage of one team qualifying without even one win) so it hopefully will be a positive step forward to return to a more traditional format. Here's hoping UEFA see sense and do similar for their equivalent competitions.

That's good news - it just doesn't create any excitement in the group stage at all having these massive groups where not everyone competes.   FIFA did U-turn on the World Cup 2026 group phase plans so a chance UEFA will think again, though with broadcast rights already locked in it may be messy if any change resulted in less games.    I do think with 36 teams that 4 groups of 9, each playing 4 home and 4 away games, would be the compromise solution.


As for the rugby yes back to back knock out rounds make things tricky - and pretty odd considering this is the same sport that held it's World Cup draw three years ahead of the tournament to give teams and fans time to make plans.

Do think the ship has sailed for 2024 concerning the Champions League format with everything sold already as you said. At least we'll have to endure it with increased profile through BBC highlights and Amazon Prime coverage. If they have any sense, some rowback for 2027 should happen though. 

A personal idea for the Champions Cup knockout stages if we must have back-to-back knockout stage matches would be two legged quarter-finals and ditch the round of 16. The two legged round of 16 was positively recieved last year so I'm a bit surprised there hasn't been any talk of trying to bring it back. Though it does come across as the Champions Cup being the only sporting event around happy to have less matches rather than more, considering there will apprently continue to have four pool stage weekends rather than six there was always pre-COVID.

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RE: The Sport Thread - For stuff not worthy of a thread of its own - Rdd - 03-04-2023

The dates for 23-24 were announced today with four weeks for the pool stages, as in recent years, so seems safe to say we won’t be going back to four team groups next season at any rate.

But this particular TV rights deal is unusually short, only covering this season and next. That does give scope for a format change in 24-25. There has been reports in some media outlets that, at that point, the EPCR, PRL, and URC rights will be bundled together, at the behest of common PRL and URC shareholder CVC. The idea is that the winning broadcaster would become the U.K. and Irish “Home of Rugby” but it would be a mammoth task to take on that on a weekly basis. The URC is a tricky one as it effectively demands all games be broadcast; fans in each country mainly want to see games involving that countries teams.

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