Premier League Down Under
I am a bit of a cheapskate when it comes to television. I don't have cable or pay TV as I naively and incorrectly believe that the 25 or so free to air channels ought to be enough. Our main TV set is now so old we honestly couldn't give it away. The big problem with this equation comes with the viewing of sport. Most televised sport here is now relegated to pay TV, and so the situation becomes for me untenable. Because of my very eclectic tastes it also means I would have to subscribe to virtually every subscription service out there to have the full range of options that I would want in the course of a sporting year. This causes me not inconsiderable angst at times, most particularly during cricket season, but it applies to just about every sport, very very few of which can be watched in their entirety on free to air channels.
Take as an example English Premier League football. Noticing that Man U and Man City are set to play each other this coming weekend I thought that it would be a match worth watching. Also aware however that the free to air network that until this season had the broadcast rights here had now lost them, I had go to searching for my options. They were, it must be said, less than satisfactory.
The EPL rights in Australia have been bought by the telecommunications outfit Optus. Even though I use Optus for my mobile phone service, this does not allow me to watch the games. Instead I have to fork out an extra $15 per month on top of my already horrendous mobile phone plan just for the right to watch any of the EPL matches. But it doesn't end there. Obviously I don't want to watch them on my tiny mobile phone. I would of course much rather watch them on my nice big (albeit very old) television. However, as I said, it is so old that it doesn't have anything as whizz bang as Wi-Fi or any form of network interface or digital anything at all. in other words, I can't connect it to the Optus service even if I did pay for it.
I could watch it online, but only if I pay the additional $15 per month, and being the tight wad that I am I refuse to do so on what I think is the reasonable basis that I already pay Optus a huge sum of money to avail myself of their services, and I resent having to fork out any more. Old fashioned, I know, but that's me.
I resigned myself, or so I thought, to catching up with the match reports on BBC and Premier League websites, but of course their vision is geo-blocked so I can't watch any of the video highlights, post-match interviews and so on here on the other side of the planet. Not being able to watch the vision makes the rest of the web page a little pointless as it assumes you can watch the vision and the articles are written with that understanding. Duh.
Yes, yes, I know I could watch it through a VPN, but they cost a tidy sum for a decent service as well, and by this stage of proceedings I was fed up with the whole process and thought instead I would merely vent my spleen here, among a group of friendly, if not long-suffering readers of my not infrequent rants on such matters.
It did at least remind me rather more happily of my youth, when life was simpler and I was a far more avid fan of English football despite the lack of TV coverage. This fandom was thanks mainly to my father who was a keen follower of his home town side Portsmouth, and my older brother who also actually played the game at (amateur) club level and occasionally would take me to local matches. Way back then of course there were no live football telecasts on TV here at all except for the FA Cup final which required us to get up at 3 or 4 in the morning to huddle around the TV feeling very adventurous. Here in Australia TV was even black and white only until 1974. This was a particular nuisance when two teams with strips of vertical stripes played each other, such as say, Stoke versus Newcastle.
Despite the lack of live telecasts or even full match replays and the restrictions of monochromatic television, we were happy enough with BBC's 'Match Of The Day' each week with the inimitable Jimmy Hill, and the occasional live game (usually involving Pompey) tuned into via shortwave radio (yes, really!). This meagre coverage was supplemented by my own semi-regular purchase of Shoot! magazine, where I avidly followed the fortunes of my team of choice Crystal Palace. I followed Palace only because I liked the name and there was a very loose connection with radio, having been given a crystal set for Christmas one year when still young and impressionable.
Over time the more readily available access to the local code, viz Australian Rules Football, together with cricket and the relatively poor local standard of soccer saw my interest wane. In recent years it revived a little with EPL matches regularly shown live or delayed but at least complete on one of the free to air networks. However with the disappearance of EPL to the difficulties of a mere Telco provider who seems to think they should be in the business of sports broadcasting, I am left in a state of limbo. I might have to eat humble pie and ... no, no, that's not going to happen. I won't pay out yet more money just to watch one code of sport!
I might just have to fire up the short wave radio again ... or perhaps just follow the local football. Sad, but radical!
OK, rant over ... I'll get back to the subject of running tomorrow. Promise!
This is Radio MLCMM, out.
Schleptember
