The Fox network wrested the rights to European soccer’s premiere club competition, the Champions League from ESPN last year. ESPN, which only televised one or two (of the eight or more played during the main stage) of the games each match day had really not done much in the way of promoting the sport or the competition. Fox has been showing most of the matches either live or same day delay on its Fox Soccer Channel. This has been a godsend for football freaks like yours truly.
But Fox has really upped the ante with its marketing of the game by announcing yesterday that the Champions League Final, to be played for the first time ever on a Saturday, May 22 will be broadcast live, not on Fox Soccer Channel, not on FX but on the mothership, Fox Network. That raises the potential viewing audience from the paltry 60 million or so of FSC to the over 115 million that have access to Fox. Very cool.
For what its worth, I’m hoping for a rematch of last year’s final, Barcelona v. Manchester United.
