Soccer Shock Coming for True Visions?

[Guest fountainhall]

When True took over the old UBC service exactly five years ago, one of its aims was a rapid expansion into the Thai-language market. A key part of this strategy was winning the rights for a number of European football league matches, including the most coveted of all, the English Premiere League.

 

With a bid estimated to be in the region of Bt. 6 billion, True Visions beat out ESPN-Star which had previously held the rights. It began to market a host of special soccer-related packages, and subscriptions quickly began to rise.

 

Now, however, the EPL rights – along with a host of other European soccer rights – are up for grabs. True’s EPL rights expire in the summer of 2013. The entertainment company GMM Grammy has already nipped in and taken away the German Bundesliga rights, as well as media rights for the 2012 European Football Championships. Another major music company, RS, has got its hands on the broadcast rights for Spain’s La Liga from next season. La Liga is probably the most watched league on True Visions after the EPL. Both companies are expected to compete head to head with True for the next round of bidding for EPL rights which, according to estimates, could be 30% higher than last time.

 

If True loses the rights, its subscriber base will certainly fall – probably dramatically. What effect that will have on programming, goodness only knows. But given the relative dearth of good programming at present, the only certainty seems to be that it won’t get any better.

[Guest buckeroo2]

Well, I am American and we do not understand the popularity of soccer/football. I am very much into sports and enjoy watching most sports programs. I have tried over and over again to watch soccer and hope I can catch soccer fever. But truthfully, I would rather paint my room and watch it dry. I would find that more exciting than soccer. I have True Visions satellite and I subscribe just so I can watch the Grand Slams of tennis when I am in Pattaya and even some golf - yes, even golf holds my interest over soccer.

 

I pay 1500 baht a month for the Gold package and that is about my limit just to be able to watch some tennis and a little golf and have TV reception when Sophon cable is on the fritz.

 

BTW, I am not sure how many True Vision subscribers know it but True Visions allows customers to pay a minimal fee to disconnect their cable if they are away from Thailand for long periods of time. They charge me a 150 baht a month service interruption fee and I can take advantage of this service for a maximum of 6 months a year. I disconnect twice yearly for 3 months at a time. I tell them when I am leaving Thailand and my return date and my service has always been discontinued and started again on the dates I specify. So, I pay 900 baht a year for those 6 months that I am away instead of the 9,000 baht I would have paid had they not offeref this service- Just an FYI.

[Guest fountainhall]

I can understand Americans being baffled by the game of cricket, although it is does have some similarities to baseball, but football is the easiest of games to understand. A team of 11 players attempts to put the ball into an opposing team’s net more times than the opposing team does. That’s it! Two halves with 90 minutes of virtually free-flowing action.

 

Compare that with the main US sports of baseball and American football. I was clueless about baseball, apart from the seeming interminable boredom of constant stop/start/stop/start until I lived in Japan for a while. There was so much baseball on TV – and many of the players were pretty cute (!) – that the more I watched, the more I understood, and the more I found I actually enjoyed it. Yet, at the same time, the more I wondered why on earth the top team in the US wins the “World Series”. It has nothing to do with the "world"! Baseball flourishes in many countries around the world, not least here in Asia in Japan, Korea and Taiwan. The Soccer World Cup, by comparison, is precisely that – a competition for well over a hundred countries. And soccer is indeed the world's most popular sport.

 

With American Football, however, I am amazed that this qualifies as a "sport”. It’s still an endless stop/start/stop/start, but it’s a war! Any game that requires its participants to wear such heavy protective gear, where beating opponents to the ground is a vital part of the action, and where so many former players end up with life-long damage to their bodies - that is no sport in my book. Yet, most of my American friends go bananas about it!

 

I’m perfectly happy to stick to soccer – the proper football!

[Guest thaiworthy]

I hate soccer and I love football. In football, when the offense has the ball, a yard gained is well-earned. In soccer, possession is all willy-nilly and can travel half the field in one kick only to be returned by an opposing player who happens to be in the right place at the right time. For that, they get to run their hearts out.

 

I like the big suits of protective gear in football. This is where all the real men are.

[Guest fountainhall]

a yard gained is well-earned

 

The analogy to trench warfare was perhaps not intentional!

[Guest thaiworthy]

The analogy to trench warfare was perhaps not intentional!

 

Yet I've seen more blood in soccer games than I have in football, and that's just from the fans!

[Rogie]

I lived in Canada for a few years when I was a kid and remember north-American football on TV, I got to know the names of all the Canadian teams but I never became wildly interested. I don't remember baseball on Canadian TV, maybe it's not so popular there as in the States, so I never go to learn the rules and we certainly didn't play it at school. Looking back I would say my favourite team game was Ice Hockey - I probably still have a battered team photo that was my treasured possession as a ten-year old showing the Montreal Canadiens and their star player 'Rocket' Richard. I even remember a guy called Toe Blake, who was the manager I think. That goes to show that the sport(s) you grow up with as a kid makes such an impression on you that years afterwards, even if you haven't been to any games, you still get that funny feeling when the players run on to the field - no wonder guys love to take their sons to 'the game' - they're re-living their youth! After moving to the UK I was still young enough to latch on to cricket and soccer, although my interest in cricket has waned I still support my local soccer team.

[Guest]

Football & soccer are the same thing, or at least they are in 95% of the world.

[Rogie]

Football & soccer are the same thing, or at least they are in 95% of the world.

 

That is so, however when I were a lad, harking back to post #7, almost as soon as i arrived in Britain my grandfather presented me with two booklets, they were the 'Rules of Association Football' and 'The Rules of Rugby Football'. In everyday British speech Association football = 'football' and Rugby football = 'rugby' or 'rugger'.

[Guest thaiworthy]

Football & soccer are the same thing, or at least they are in 95% of the world.

 

How are they the same thing?

[Guest]

How are they the same thing?

Two different names for the same sport.

[Rogie]

Soccer has always, as far back as I remember anyway, been an alternative, but much less commonly used name, for (Association) football in Britain, but if a person uses the word football he almost always means soccer, not rugby.

 

In America, you have your own game called football. Quite rightly you did not take too kindly to another game also called football coming on the scene in what to you was seen as a Johnny-come-lately, consequently the alternative, quite acceptable, word soccer became the norm in north America when referring to the game known in 95% (to use z's figure) of the rest of the world as football.

 

I trust that's crystal clear!

[Guest buckeroo2]

I can understand Americans being baffled by the game of cricket, although it is does have some similarities to baseball, but football is the easiest of games to understand. A team of 11 players attempts to put the ball into an opposing team’s net more times than the opposing team does. That’s it! Two halves with 90 minutes of virtually free-flowing action.

 

 

I did not say I do not understand football/soccer - I said I do understand its popularity. It is quite easy to understand - I just find it incredibly boring. Yes, one team attempts to put the ball into an opposing team's net more times than the opposing team does - 90 minutes of up and down the field and maybe the ball penetrates the opposing team's net once or twice the entire game - a real yawner for me - give me a good chess match - it would be more intriguing and strategy laden.

[Guest fountainhall]

give me a good chess match - it would be more intriguing and strategy laden.

 

Isn't that generally the view taken by most people when witnessing a game whose strategies and subtleties they do not understand? As I with American football, so you will the 'real' football .