Friday, June 6, 2008

Euro2008 Television Schedule

For the first time ever, the European Championships will be shown in the US on "regular" TV, as ABC/ESPN purchased the rights. So no need to search out footy pubs that paid for the satellite feeds, and a daily cover charge. For the most part, access to ESPN or ESPN2 is all you'll need.

That's the good news: it can be found in any sportsbar or restaurant.

The extremely bad news appears to be that ESPN's North American broadcast rights are exclusive, and that the matches will not be shown on Univision/Galavision or Telemundo. Instead every match will be on ESPN Deportes. This sucks ass, because their coverage is always 5000x better than Disney's, from the camerawork in the tunnels, to showing the national anthems, to the announcers that are way better, as well as all of the accompanying scenery.

Oh well, can't have it all. Here's the schedule {all times PST}:

Saturday June 7
9.00 a.m. Group A: Switzerland-Czech Republic ESPN Classic
11.45 a.m. Group A: Portugal-Turkey ESPN Classic

Sunday June 8
9.00 a.m. Group B: Austria-Croatia ESPN2
11.45 a.m. Group B: Germany-Poland ESPN2

Monday June 9
9.00 a.m. Group C: Romania-France ESPN2
11.45 a.m. Group C: Netherlands-Italy ESPN2

Tuesday June 10
9.00 a.m. Group D: Spain-Russia ESPN2
11.45 a.m. Group D: Greece-Sweden ESPN2

Wednesday June 11
9.00 a.m. Group A: Czech Republic-Portugal ESPN2
11.45 a.m. Group A: Switzerland-Turkey ESPN2

Thursday June 12
9.00 a.m. Group B: Croatia-Germany ESPN2
11.45 a.m. Group B: Austria-Poland ESPN2

Friday June 13
9.00 a.m. Group C: Italy-Romania ESPN2
11.45 a.m. Group C: Netherlands-France ESPN2

Saturday June 14
9.00 a.m. Group D: Sweden-Spain ESPN2
11.45 a.m. Group D: Greece-Russia ESPN2

Sunday June 15
11.45 a.m. Group A: Switzerland-Portugal ESPN2
11.45 a.m. Group A: Turkey-Czech Republic ESPN Classic

Monday June 16
11.45 a.m. Group B: Poland-Croatia ESPN Classic
11.45 a.m. Group B: Austria-Germany ESPN

Tuesday June 17
11.45 a.m. Group C: Netherlands-Romania ESPN Classic
11.45 a.m. Group C: France-Italy ESPN

Wednesday June 18
11.45 a.m. Group D: Greece-Spain ESPN
11.45 a.m. Group D: Russia-Sweden ESPN2

Thursday June 19
11.45 a.m. Quarterfinal 1: Portugal-Germany ESPN

Friday June 20
11.45 a.m. Quarterfinal 2: Croatia-Turkey ESPN

Saturday June 21
11.45 a.m. Quarterfinal 3: Netherlands-Russia ABC

Sunday June 22
11.45 a.m. Quarterfinal 4: Spain-Italy ESPN

Wednesday June 25
11.45 a.m. Semifinal 1: QF1-QF2 ESPN

Thursday June 26
11.45 a.m. Semifinal 2: QF3-QF4 ESPN2

Sunday June 29
11.45 a.m. Final ABC

So there it is.

{walks off, getting pissed while wondering yet again why he doesn't get ESPN Classic even though he pays Comcast extra each month for something called the 'Digital Sports Tier'...}

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I shouldn't admit this, but I get ESPN classic. I wasn't holding out much hope of seeing any live games this weekend, but it's supposed to be somewhere shy of a million degrees, so maybe I'll be able to get some viewing in after all.

Kanu said...

Then I shouldn't admit that it's been low 60s and sunny with a nice ocean breeze and no humidity whatsoever all week ;)

actually I have a golf outing tomorrow in San Jose, so tomorrow's matches on Classic were to be missed anyways- it's be keeping up on the blackberry browser instead.

It'll be all about 2 hour lunches at the pub for that final set of group matches, though.

Good luck staying cool this weekend DCT.