Friday, March 21, 2008

Oh no! SingTel wins exclusive rights to Champions League and UEFA Cup

I'm beginning to hate ESPN. Really. Last year, they lost to StarHub in the bid for the exclusive rights to broadcast the English Premier League in Singapore and because of that we had no choice but to watch some crappy Football Channel host and guests in the pre and post match shows. Now ESPN has lost out to SingTel for the rights to broadcast the UEFA Champions League games for the 2009 season and onwards. From Channel NewsAsia:
Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SingTel) has won exclusive rights to broadcast UEFA Champions League and UEFA Cup 2009-2012 on its mobile, internet and mio TV platforms.

SingTel also plans to stream UEFA Champions League games both ‘live’ and on-demand on mio TV, and the Internet through the IDEAS portal www.ideas.singtel.com. It will also offer clips on its mobile service.
The first thing I did when I heard the news yesterday was to text my friend who works for ESPN to ask him what's going on. He said SingTel outbid them just like StarHub did for the Premier League. Not again, was my reaction.

StarHub which has been showing UEFA Cup matches did not bid for the combined Champions League and UEFA Cup package. Damn you too StarHub! Why didn't you bid? Now we have to fork out unnecessary money to get SingTel's mio TV's setup box, ADSL modem and subscribe to their sports channel if we want to watch the Champions League in the future. Fark!

I don't know how this could be good for football fans in Singapore. Who the hell would subscribe to mio TV just to catch Champions League? Have you seen the programming on mioTV? They are like crap! And from what I understand, mio TV is only available for residential homes, therefore you won't be able to catch the Champions League games in bars and pubs.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ha! starhub got no money liao. they spend so much to get the premier league and the euro championships already.

Anonymous said...

espn is losing their grip not only in singapore but parts of asia too.

Anonymous said...

Just pray that they won't have many new subscribers to watch the Champions League so they will have no choice but to lease some of the big games to Mediacorp. Then we all can watch for free!

Anonymous said...

Most in Singapore are with Starhub. It's so fucking troublesome to get another setup box.

Anonymous said...

>Have you seen the programming on mioTV? They are like crap!

miotv got aljazeera.

lol

Anonymous said...

Our EPL is going farther and farther away. My condolences are with you all.

After the dust settles, what can we do? Make sure that Starhub lowers down their subscription fees for sports channel!

Anonymous said...

addicted to watching soccer? so you people 'lan lan' need to subscribe to these farking company that will ultimately squeeze dried yr wallet. cancel yr plan with them, time to hold them ransom. let these company suffer financially with less subscription to their sport channel. there is no authority to curb these monopoly. lucky i cut this addiction a few years back . visit the coffeeshop / Pub for soccer, let them pay for the subscription.

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