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NBC coverage 2017/18


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So WHY have they changed it all? The big plus when NBC took over the Premier League coverage from Fox/ESPN was that it was all available in one nice package. Now we have to pay extra for NBC Sports Gold for online AND have some kind of cable package for when the games are on the actual channels. And since they spread over the Sports cable channel, a news channel (CNBC), the broadcast channel (NBC itself)... we're just back to where we were with Fox et al. What I don't get is if NBC have the rights to all the games (presumably that hasn't changed this year) then just make all 380 available on the streaming platform and we're good, cord-cutters and all. Or keep the model where every game is on cable/satellite on those 'NBC extra' channels. Or both.

 

Anyway, I paid, so i'll see the games ok, but I think the thing about the way it USED to be was that your average American would stumble across it from time to time and the audience would grow due to the high availability. Short sighted?

 

Probably just me moaning. I know, Gao, VVD and all that, far more important stuff going on. There'll probably be a big black spot over the sun next week or something.

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So WHY have they changed it all? The big plus when NBC took over the Premier League coverage from Fox/ESPN was that it was all available in one nice package. Now we have to pay extra for NBC Sports Gold for online AND have some kind of cable package for when the games are on the actual channels. And since they spread over the Sports cable channel, a news channel (CNBC), the broadcast channel (NBC itself)... we're just back to where we were with Fox et al. What I don't get is if NBC have the rights to all the games (presumably that hasn't changed this year) then just make all 380 available on the streaming platform and we're good, cord-cutters and all. Or keep the model where every game is on cable/satellite on those 'NBC extra' channels. Or both.

 

Anyway, I paid, so i'll see the games ok, but I think the thing about the way it USED to be was that your average American would stumble across it from time to time and the audience would grow due to the high availability. Short sighted?

 

Probably just me moaning. I know, Gao, VVD and all that, far more important stuff going on. There'll probably be a big black spot over the sun next week or something.

 

Very short sighted on their part. Your thoughts are replicated by EVERY Premier League fan in the USA. To be able to catch every game you now need a cable/sat subscription and the online NBC Gold app subscription. The price increase was bound to happen sooner or later, and it's not that much extra but it's the way they've done it that ****es me off.

 

Those extra time tv channels worked perfectly. Allowed you to set them up to record (if you want to lay in on the Saturday) and use your cable/sat equipment to view (love my Tivo interface) instead of a glitchy app with lesser quality. Replays go up at about 9:30 am PST, so that's not bad if you aren't up at 7. They should have kept the extra time channels as an alternate way of viewing the games.

 

It wasn't broke at all, but they decided to fix it.

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Well the only reason I had cable was to watch Southampton, so as soon as I figured out that this was going on I cancelled it. I have to work every other Saturday, but I could still stream it at work from NBC, but then the IT department blocked it. And watching replays of Southampton losing last season on a phone screen when I got home had little appeal, so come this season I will not be watching any Southampton games, no cable, no app not paying $50 to watch on a tiny screen. I understand why they did it but I am out.

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I somehow missed this news......b4st4rds. Looks like I will have to pony up 50 large before the weekend.

 

Think that will be the end for me with the cable contract though - the NBC footy deal was the only thing keeping me from cancelling.

 

We went to Sling a while ago and that has most of the channels where we might be featured on a regular game (except main NBC itself), plus I coughed up the 50 last week when I saw this coming. The NBC Sports Gold thing has been ok for cycling and the picture quality was good on Roku for the Saints-Swansea game. But it's still a mess compared to what it was, and is now more about getting money out of the established audience rather than growing a new audience, which is what it was doing pretty successfully, at least until last year.

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We went to Sling a while ago and that has most of the channels where we might be featured on a regular game (except main NBC itself), plus I coughed up the 50 last week when I saw this coming. The NBC Sports Gold thing has been ok for cycling and the picture quality was good on Roku for the Saints-Swansea game. But it's still a mess compared to what it was, and is now more about getting money out of the established audience rather than growing a new audience, which is what it was doing pretty successfully, at least until last year.

 

Quality was messy today and the stream kept stop/starting on my Roku. Ended up plugging my laptop into the TV and it was ok.

 

 

I too can't always get to see the match live. They say that "full event replays of select matches, Premier League shows and more." This seems to indicate that not all matches will be available on delay. Not sure I want to pony up $50 if that's the case.

 

All live matches on the Gold app (so far), have appeared as replays (about 30 mins after final whistle) with no spoilers in the way. (There were 4 today, Saints being one of them)

If you ditch cable/sat then you ditch NBCSports (and the NBC regular app) which will feature Saints pretty much every time we play a top 5 team.

 

 

If anyone is on the fence about purchasing an NBC Sports Gold sub, I would happily split the cost with you for sharing your log in details.

 

Alternatively if you already have it and want to make an easy $25 please let me know.

 

Please PM if you're interested

 

Won't work. The app will only let one login device at a time. Crafty buggers!

 

 

The streaming quality is always worse than watching on TV so I have never understood this big push as the "future"

 

Which is why I wish they'd reinstate the Extra Time channels for people who have purchased the $50.00 subscription.

 

We are now paying more for a service that has gone backwards.

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If anyone is on the fence about purchasing an NBC Sports Gold sub, I would happily split the cost with you for sharing your log in details.

 

Alternatively if you already have it and want to make an easy $25 please let me know.

 

Please PM if you're interested

 

 

Actually, it might work but possibly not if both viewers are watching on the same medium (ie both logged in to a computer)

I tried on two Roku devices simultaneously and it didn't work. But it was ok with Roku and laptop.

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Pretty much agree with what's been said. After paying the $50, and spent several hours trying to find the live stream via NBC Gold on my laptop, from where I would stream the game to my TV, I realised it wasn't possible. So far the smoothest part of my interaction with NBC was requesting a refund. There's no way I'm paying $50 for what is essentially an iphone app that I can't see all of the Saints games on, that we could in the past. There's a great forum on Reddit that lists all the dodgy streams. Watched one of those last week, in better quality than an iphone. COYR. LOVE the new shirt, a throwback to when I first began watching us.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Non-Gold App live coverage for the first time yesterday... totally about Palace of course, we're completely under the radar as usual. I'm finding so far that my measure of "was I right to pay for Gold app AND get Sling TV as well" is based on whether we win or lose (or play well/not play well). So that proves nothing but I'm glad I got to see Lemina play, he's immense, at least against Palace.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Got an email the other day from NBC Gold apologising for the recent shoddiness of their service. It was an invitation to log any grievances, which I did.

 

Got a response offering $10.00 refund on the service (which I will take) or to cancel for a full refund. I'm not going to cancel but am surprised at them offering it so easily. Either they are serious about their pledge to make it a better experience or they are going to be half arsed about it with the attitude that "well, we did offer a full refund"....

 

Let's see how it is for Stoke on Saturday.

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Got an email the other day from NBC Gold apologising for the recent shoddiness of their service. It was an invitation to log any grievances, which I did.

 

Got a response offering $10.00 refund on the service (which I will take) or to cancel for a full refund. I'm not going to cancel but am surprised at them offering it so easily. Either they are serious about their pledge to make it a better experience or they are going to be half arsed about it with the attitude that "well, we did offer a full refund"....

 

Let's see how it is for Stoke on Saturday.

Wow! I didn't get that, at least not yet. Did you do anything in particular to trigger the initial email from them?

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Wow! I didn't get that, at least not yet. Did you do anything in particular to trigger the initial email from them?

 

No, not at all. I had emailed them when the season started to tell them that this whole app thing was a bad idea. Maybe they made a note of it. The email I got on 24th Sept -

 

We experienced intermittent technical issues over the past two weekends on NBC Sports Gold. Like you, we’re major fans of Premier League and our aim is to bring you the best experience possible. We haven’t done that.

 

We are working to resolve the issues. We’ll spare you the specific technical challenges we’ve faced and get right to the point. If you are a subscriber who has been impacted by these technical issues, please contact us at support@nbcsportsgold.com with the words Sat Sept. 23 Issue in the subject line. We will work with you individually to offer the appropriate solution.

 

We apologize for the disruptions and inconvenience, and appreciate your understanding as we continue to look for new ways to bring you the best sports content in the world.

 

The NBC Sports Gold Team

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  • 2 months later...

Haven't missed NBC this season afterall, after reverting back to alternatives methods to watch the games (reddit soccer streams) has been useful when I'm not near a bar. The ease of watching not just Saints games on my phone/ipad or a tv are long gone. Will be interesting to see if NBC's decision has hurt casual viewing of games. In some respects, I'm grateful NBC chose to screw things up in a season when we're not performing well.

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Haven't missed NBC this season afterall, after reverting back to alternatives methods to watch the games (reddit soccer streams) has been useful when I'm not near a bar. The ease of watching not just Saints games on my phone/ipad or a tv are long gone. Will be interesting to see if NBC's decision has hurt casual viewing of games. In some respects, I'm grateful NBC chose to screw things up in a season when we're not performing well.

 

I opted for the NBC Gold package at Thanksgiving (it was on sale) for $49 and it plays through the Amazon Firestick on my regular TV. It's pretty good, just wish the team were.

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Well I got back the cable, we are rarely on the regular TV so have not seen a lot of us this year, however we have been so woeful, not sure that is such a bad thing. However what I have found is that on my package the sports channels are available but not in HD. As there is really nothing I want to watch on TV and my wife wants to watch Judge Judy I will be cancelling again as soon as I get an excuse....

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  • 2 weeks later...

The fact is that if the coverage wasn't covered at all we'd all still be moaning, yet the way it is with only partial coverage and overall complete and total coverage depending on packages, choices, selections and other variants, we are still moaning until the cows do decide to return home. It's NBC yes, and we could argue all day long regarding whether or not NBC does actually cover the football at all, we all know the controversy, but considering Trump's latest comments on the issue it's vitally important we don't just accept what ever deal they throw at us.

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Bad news USA based Saints fans...

 

For the first time this season it looks like we are probably gonna have to listen to the game on Radio Solent. There is no TV or official stream for the Saints v Watford FA Cup game on Saturday.

 

That said - there might be a snide stream around as it's meant to be on live in China. Ain't had the joys of one of those for a long time.

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  • 2 months later...
I'm over in Miami on holiday for the Arsenal game. I think kick off will be about 09:15 local time.

 

Any idea what stations will show the game and if any bars will be open to watch it

 

It is on NBCSN (NBC Sports Network). Yep 9.15am ET.

 

I can't personally recommend a soccer bar in Miami but give any of the Miami ones on here a call:

http://www.livesoccertv.com/pubs/florida/

 

I'm sure they will be open for it. Helps that it's against Arsenal (https://arsenalmiami.com/)

 

Failing that - where you are staying will have a good chance of having the channel on the TV. Enjoy. Maybe....

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Oh and an advance warning (to all of us) - Peter ##### Drury is the commentator for Arsenal v Saints. By far the worst commentator ever. I look forward to 90 mins of how great Arsenal are. I'm sure Rooooneeeey will get a mention. And Liverpool. And

 

Saints may as well not be on the pitch - even if we go 3-0 up he'll still be rabbiting on about how great Aubameyang is and what a goal it would have been if he hadn't missed that sitter earlier on. Screaming his name every time he touches the ball...

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  • 3 months later...

Fellow US based saint fans, how are you getting ready for kick off? Any notable changes in the TV arrangements for this year that anyone has seen? Recently had to pay a little extra a month to get the games in HD to make the games watchable (hopefully game play will be superior this year too)

 

All ready to go?

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  • 2 weeks later...

Doesn't look like any changes for this season from last, our first game is on the NBC Sports Gold online thing on Sunday as NBCSN are showing Liverhampton at the same time. In the end last season was generally ok as a cord-cutter but occasionally a pain - having Sling (outside a metro area) and the Gold thing I could get anything on NBCSN along with Gold, but whenever we were on NBC itself (which we were once or twice) there was nothing to be done and so turned to Solent/official site, and once we were on CNBC so I had to subscribe to the Sling News plus thing for a month, which actually was ok, because of Sling being flexible and cheap.

 

The fact we were unutterably crud for most of the year probably helped make me not care so much if I missed the odd game. In the Poch years it was much more fun...

 

I did read a review of the changes to NBC's coverage last year and it said the NBC Sports Gold coverage really would only be for hardened followers of specific lower-table teams. Which we are, or were last year (I presume we'll win the league this year). So maybe it's only an annoyance for a few of whom we happen to be a part. But I still think full, wide availability - both online and on cable - is what they need to do to build the audience. Saturday morning is an open slot for TV sports fans here.

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I'll try out the Gold replay on Sunday since I'll be ****ed if I'm getting up at 5:30. Watch though, as some inept NBC tech forgets to upload the replay as it's the only gold game of the day (and only saints vs Burnley).....happened once last season as I recall. Tossers...

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I'll try out the Gold replay on Sunday since I'll be ****ed if I'm getting up at 5:30. Watch though, as some inept NBC tech forgets to upload the replay as it's the only gold game of the day (and only saints vs Burnley).....happened once last season as I recall. Tossers...

Did they generally have all the Saturday Saints matches available for replay? That is the make or break for me to fork out the $50 or whatever it costs now.

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