FOX Sports has announced a new feature to its UEFA Champions League coverage named Multimatch 90, which will allow soccer fans the ability to watch a “red zone channel” where the best highlights will be shown live or on quick replay. The feature, which will become available for the UEFA Champions League matches beginning this month, will only be available to subscribers of FOX Soccer Plus and/or FOX Soccer 2GO.
“We might start off at the Real Madrid game,” said Jonty Whitehead, executive vice president of soccer at FOX Sports told the New York Times. “And say that a goal happens at the Emirates in London — that will be spun back, recued, and the host will say, ‘Let’s cross to Emirates Stadium, where there’s some early action.’
“If Gareth Bale has the ball around the midfield line, we know there’s only thing on his mind, and we’ll go to that. Or a corner kick somewhere might produce a goal-mouth incident.”
The Multimatch 90 service will finally give some soccer fans a reason to consider subscribing to FOX Soccer Plus and/or FOX Soccer 2GO. Both services have lost a lot of rights to leagues in the past two years. And recently, FOX Soccer Plus’s name has seemed to be a misnomer given the quantity of rugby games shown on the channel.
FOX Soccer Plus features two main obstacles. The first is the $14.99 monthly rate that most TV providers offer the service for. The second obstacle is that there are still some major TV providers, such as regional Comcast Xfinity providers, that don’t even make the channel available to its subscribers.
Meanwhile, FOX Soccer 2GO charges $19.99 a month.
Soccer fans will get a chance to test out the Multimatch 90 service this month and next. FOX Soccer 2GO is offering a free 7-day trial that coincides with the first set of UEFA Champions League matches on September 16-17. And there will be a free preview of FOX Soccer Plus on DirecTV, Verizon FiOS and AT&T U-verse from October 18-26, while DISH is offering a free preview from October 15-29. Additionally, some cable TV providers will offer a free preview of FOX Soccer Plus (check your cable provider for local availability).
The New York Times newspaper adds that John Strong will be among the hosts of the channel.
The move is a positive step by FOX Sports to give sports fans a reason why they should consider subscribing to FOX Soccer Plus and/or FOX Soccer 2GO. However, while it’s a step in the right direction, the service isn’t worth the price for roughly four UEFA Champions League matchdays per month when Multimatch 90 will be used. FOX Soccer Plus and FOX Soccer 2GO do have rights to other leagues and tournaments, but it isn’t robust enough at this time to make it worthwhile to subscribe unless money isn’t a concern or if your TV provider offers FOX Soccer Plus for $4.99/month.
In addition to the UEFA Champions League, FOX Soccer Plus and FOX Soccer 2GO have the rights to the Europa League, Scottish Premier League, select UEFA 2016 qualifiers and FA Cup.
The concept of the red zone-like channel is sound. The shame of it is that FOX Sports decided not to make the Multimatch 90 service available on a regional FOX Sports channel or FOX Sports 1 or FOX Sports 2. Or FOX could have offered it on its free online FOX Sports Go service, which is available to FOX Sports 1 & 2 subscribers.
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Horrible idea. This isn’t the NFL with constant stoppages and commercial breaks where you can switch back and forth. If you watching your team play live in the CL the last thing you want is to see coverage of another game.
Yeah, great idea FOX. Do they forget football fans are so passionate about the sport that many DVR games to watch later? Catering to the casual fan, once again.
Can this network do anything right at the moment?
I think this is a really cool idea and I applaud Fox for trying to innovate. The best thing about this is the chance to see every goal from every game on UCL match days (even if they’re not exactly live). The only shame of it is the limited distribution of FSP and ridiculously high price of FS2Go. Hopefully they make this more available in future years.
So I get Espn3 and all it’s world wide sports together with my cable sub. I get NBCSN and it’s live streaming together with my cable sub. I get beIN sports and all their world live streaming together with my cable sub. I can finally get Fox1and2Go with my cable sub. And they want to charge me 15.99 or 19.99 for one channel with whats left over in the soccer-viewing world??? No….
Not saying it’s a horrible idea. I might check it out. Just get rid of the price!
This service would better be suited for FS2 than Fox Soccer Plus despite it’s tiny, tiny availability. I say this not because of the FSP cost factor but purely because it can be a service that draws in the ‘casual’ fan who (for example) may have become interested in football during the World Cup.
RedZone is so popular because it’s pretty much endless action for seven hours going from play to play to play. Multimatch 90 going from say a corner kick to a free kick outside the box to a goal just scored could be a way to expose more people to football in a more exciting manner than watching a full 90min game. Although having Multimatch 90 (shocking name for the service BTW) on FSP severely limits it’s audience & potential from the beginning.
Saw that GolTV released a streaming service similar to DishWorld.
CTBlues, what’s the link for the new service? Thanks.
I got rid of fsplus two years ago. I’ll not pay for rugby, rasslin’ and reruns. If they think I have any intention of paying $15 a month for a gimmicky highlight reel, they need to send me some of what they are smoking.
Listen up fox, I HAVE A DVR. If I am pressed for time or disinterested, IT HAS FAST FORWARD.
This is a link to a story explaining the service:
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/thegoalkeeper/Gol-TV-finally-gets-online-streaming-for-Bundesliga-US-Open-Cup-final.html
This service has been utilized in Germany and Italy on their Sky Sports Platform, predating Red Zone, and it works beautifully sometimes out rating the constant feed of games. I think it can work out just as well as it is constant action for 90 minutes on 8 games.
Unlike others, I can get FOX Soccer Plus with Sports Pass which includes GolTV, beIN Sport, and other specialty sports channels for about $9 a month with Time Warner. I would get this in a heart beat if I paid for my cable if I hadn’t already have it
Sounds awful.
On the subject of Fox, watching the England/ Swiss game right now and getting annoyed by the bloody ticker that has been announcing the same “breaking news” for 45 mins. Then when the cringeworthy halftime “show” comes on the ticker is taken down and we have a full screen of the Fox morons Stone, Wynalda and cockney whatshisname. Why can’t we have a full screen of the game instead?
Fox did bring the first-down line to NFL broadcasts and the scorebox to sports broadcasting in general. DIRECTV invented the Red Zone Channel before the NFL itself picked up on it and created a RZC of their own for other cable providers. MLB has a “RedZone” channel for itself, too.
It’s a good idea, and if executed properly, it can work out great.