while the baggies are currently playing in the premiership, it has been a struggle and truthfully, not much fun. and purely from a pragmatic viewpoint - it is likely as not that the albion will be relegated back to the championship at the end of this season. it is a stark contrast to last year's championship league winners, who were the highest scoring team in the country in any division, made it to their 20th FA cup semi-final, and were tremendously entertaining. trouble was... i didn't get to see much of it, because there are very few football league (championship, leagues 1 and 2) matches broadcast where i live, and the local BBC radio streams - that provide live commentary of a team's home matches and are all available online through the BBC website - are inaccessible to non-UK users "due to contractual obligations".
the other alternative of keeping up with a team in the lower divisions is to use the official team websites - which are all setup by a company called "premium tv", which uses a basic template (so all the websites look the same) , and (presumably) supplies support for the sites - where for a yearly fee you can join as a "premium user" and thence can access streaming media (both audio and visual) through the site. the trouble is that the content on these websites uses DRM (digital restrictions management) to limit and/or otherwise control the copying and/or sharing of the information. DRM requires the use of a microsoft operating systems and further requires accessing these sites using microsoft internet explorer (MAC and FOSS software users are defacto denied access to the content). anyone who understands the nature of digital media should recognize at once how unethical and plain wrong on just so many levels this is, that i wouldn't know where to begin. for one thing, it works completely against and interferes with the constitutional nature of what digital media actually is and how it works!!! DRM is an intrusive function that works to limit the natural capabilities and characteristics of digital media - in other words: it is a process that performs nothing but negative functions - in that it works to "stop" or "limit" something happening rather than help to "facilitate" what is its nature, or to help it work better - and on a more insidious and larger scale it is another attempt to control the computer user and force them to use particular and specific microsoft products, re-inforcing and colluding mindlessly in the neo-criminal monopoly of microsoft on PC computers. by all means, go ahead and join your favourite team's website, and use it for whatever worth you find in it - buy a shirt, order tickets, download photos and read articles but DON'T join as a premium member and give them any money. if people stop giving them money, they will have to stop asking for it and give us what they should be in the first place. unless you just want to keep creating more and more manchester united supporters. the only thing that restrictions on allowing international users access to live audio commentary of local matches in the UK does is re-inforce the status quo and keep the system that has created unfortunate situations like the "big 4" to perpetuate. it does nothing for brentford football club, or cambridge united who would be the kinds of organizations that would benefit immensely from the free international access to audio commentary and/or video broadcasts - as this would allow for them, just as with manchester united or liverpool to become known around the world - albeit, most probably, on a somewhat smaller scale.
while i have less of a problem with the idea of paying a membership fee in order to access content; after all, i would do the same with a website that dealt in pornography or erotica that might interest me - but, surely membership fees for professional football online that isn't even remotely ethical by virtue of the use of DRM - couldn't possibly be worth anything near what the potential advertising revenues that would be created by streaming the matches for free - at least as audio commentary, which we should probably be getting from local BBC stations online anyway. the difference is, that with pornography/erotica, the websites depend on membership fees as their main source of revenue. i'd be curious to see what they offer as content, but i am completely opposed to DRM (and closed information in general) i have no intention to start using windows again now - i haven't had microsoft on one of my computers in over 2 years, and the computer that i am running at the moment was purchased new, and has never had any microsoft product installed on it.
english football in canada is broadcast starting with basic cable. in that, a regular, no-frills, cable TV service will get you 3 or 4 live premier league games a week, over the course of the saturday and sunday. there are two networks: TSN (canadian affiliate of ESPN), and SportsNet, who must license and cross-license with the likes of skysports and setanta for their broadcast content. these are, more often than not, matches featuring the "big 4" and historically popular teams like newcastle and tottenham. there is no broadcast of any stage of the FA cup, league cup or any of the lower leagues at this level. this is mainstream football boadcasting designed to do nothing but tie in with the champions league (of which they also have an allotment of broadcasts), cater to and create more and more manchester united and liverpool fans.
on top of this, and at considerable extra cost - there are 2 other packages that can be ordered by digital cable subscribers - that offer the full extent to which english football can be seen in this country. at $25 a month extra (and available as a single item only) is setanta sports canada, which is - as its name implies - a setanta network aimed at a specifically canadian audience. along with the other two aforementioned networks, this alone will give you the opportunity of seeing every single premier league game - if not live, then at least in repeat over the next few days. this, along with skysports telecasts covered by FOX sportsworld canada is also the only way to see any of the FA cup, including the semi-finals and final. typically, during the second-half of the season setanta shows perhaps 1 championship game (usually an important game between 2 of the top teams, or a famous historical derby) and one or two SPL matches in the course of the week. occasionally fox sportsworld canada will likewise, broadcast an important championship game, historical derby or FA cup game - but this is most infrequent.
so - even after buying every extra cable service that i can - and diversified my selection of games to watch to the utmost extent, and searched the internet for resources; i still find myself living in a world that does nothing to encourage my being a west brom fan, nor a coventry city, brentford, walsall or leyton orient fan... having resisted it all my life, and having truly hated manchester united for just as long, i have to wonder why the FA is so intent that i be a manchester united fan?
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