As those supporters who live abroad may have noticed this season there have been substantial changes made to the way matches have been shown live outside the UK, and not all of them have been in the best interests of Sunderlands foreign legions.
At the start of this footballing year US based fox sports sold much of their Rights regarding live matches to Irish based Setanta sports, a move which not only brought a return to the bad old days of ‘pay on the gate’ for matches being shown live at bars but that also meant that fans were required to cough up around 10 dollars to see matches that were, up until the end of last season, free (Champions league and Internationals, as well as Cup games are still the ususal bar-based fee).
Now the one good thing Setanta sports has brought with all of this, is the infamous ‘Pub channel’ that you may remember I talked about breifly last year- mainly because this, their newest channel, shows 1st division… sorry championship matches (Those interested in what live matches are being shown on this channel should look at the setanta website under the north american section, under the Pub channel headings).
One such match is the Leeds-Sunderland Game this friday at 5pm.
A few of you will notice some discrepency in the times, mainly because Setanta’s pub channel likes to show odd sports at odd times as well as publishing them both live and almost live (which can mean a delay of anything from a couple of minutes to a few hours). As usual, despite this matches ‘almost live’ status, those in New York will be at the football bar ‘Nevada smiths’ on 11th st and 3rd ave, for others in the states the game should be available at various bars discretion.