iSport | For the Fans, by the Fans

ESPNSTAR currently hold the rights for telecasting the Spanish League live in the country. Lovers of Spanish football are in the middle of a mini-crisis sort of state as ESPNSTAR have not mentioned or given any information about the League on their website or any advertisements on either of their channels. This is frustrating enough for any Madrid, Barcelona or Valencia fan. And add to it the fact that Ten Sports and Zee Sports do not give preference to any Spanish Team matches in the UEFA Champions League. Even if it is Manchester United vs. Steaua Bucharest and a mouthwatering clash of Real Madrid vs. AC Milan, the channels telecast the former match. It is evident that there are more BPL supporters in the country; however with the new Superstar Signing spree of Madrid, and quality additions to Barcelona’s squad, the viewership for the Spanish League has increased to an astronomical extent. Who doesn’t want to watch their favourite players play in the same team? However ESPNSTAR have failed to notice this somehow and have not renewed their contract for the new season, which kicked off last Saturday.              

The reasons could be various. ESPN think that the BPL is more of a marketable brand than La Liga.BPL timings are quite favourable to the Indian audience as compared to post midnight telecasting of La Liga. Since the last few seasons ESPN have been paying Sky Sports for the telecasting rights in India. And Sky Sports have now escalated the sum for media rights to quite an extent for the 2009-10 season. So it seems that ESPN have to pay a galactic fee for this year’s rights, and citing the reasons above are in no mood of doing so as they are already paying quite a sum for the BPL.There is little chance that any of the other channels will take up the rights too.              

The SUBSTITUTES TO VIEWING IT ON TV: Online streaming through channels has been a low quality substitute for those who have a good internet connection. Live text commentary is for those who are surviving on terrible internet connections which barely support streaming. These alternatives compromise greatly on quality and the entire fun of watching your favourite team play vaporizes. So the question to be asked is WHAT CAN BE DONE NOW?

A series of organized efforts from a few influential people on behalf of all the fans could set the pace for an intense battle for viewership problems in this country as every sport besides cricket has been sidelined. La Liga is exciting and every budding footballer in this country would love to see his idols play together. Media coverage from rival sports channels could put pressure on ESPNSTAR forcing them to reassess their plans for this season. It is brilliant to see that Indian football is on the way up however in no way should sports channels reduce the telecasting of International football.

Whatever the issues are, they need to be sorted as soon as possible on a war footing by the current sports channels as non- viewership of the second most viewed game in the country is absolutely unacceptable.