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Here in the UK, sports channels are always an optional (and quite expensive) extra - it seems to work. Same with movie channels.
by petercooper 11y ago
Here in the UK, sports channels are always an optional (and quite expensive) extra - it seems to work. Same with movie channels.
- robk 11y agoYeah but in the UK consumers are used to public viewing in pubs. The USA has a far less developed sports bar market.
- osi 11y ago<insert generic comment about suburban living and drinking and driving> Sports bars are very alive and well in Chicago. Atypical for the US as a whole.
- mark-r 11y agoThat's probably changing. The falling price of TVs means any bar that wants can have them wall-to-wall. It's getting hard to escape them.
- ascagnel_ 11y agoThe same is true in the US. You have your "free" terrestrial service (BBC, Channel 4, et al. vs the "big four" of ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC funded by ads) that show a few sporting events on weekends, but for anything beyond that you'll need to have an expensive cable or satellite bundle. For example: the BBC shows some F1 races in their entirety and the rest are aired as highlight packages after-the-fact, while all races are shown on Sky Sports F1. In the US, NBC airs a select few races in their entirety (Monaco, Canada, and the US GP), while NBCSN shows the rest of the races live as well as tape-delay full-race repeats. NBC can be accessed over-the-air for free, but NBCSN is typically an add-on to a cable bundle, so you're paying $60+/mo to have access to that channel for (if you're only an F1 fan) at most 12 hours of content a month.
- petercooper 11y agoYeah, but I have every satellite channel /except/ the sports and movie channels. It seems like ESPN gets bundled in as default with any extended package in the US. In the UK, sport is something you quite specifically have to sign up for - it doesn't get bundled with anything else because they assume not everyone is into sports.