I got a nice little treat today while surfing the channels on Dish Network. Sure, I don’t have GolTV anymore (although I do now have Fox Sports en Espanol, so it’s not like I’m totally without soccer on channel 407), but now I have 24 hours a day of Olympic soccer.
As part of the 10 billion hours of coverage by the Peacock net here in the U.S., there is a 24-hour soccer channel in HD. It’s ONLY in HD, so if you’re old-school, you’re out of luck. When there isn’t a game live, there are highlights of qualifiers, and Dish says there will be rebroadcasts throughout the day.
The Olympic Soccer channel is on channel 98 or 367, depending on your system. So far, it’s been showing the women’s qualifying rounds, including the U.S. women vs. Norway (yeah, nice result).Over on DirecTV, instead of having dedicated channels for soccer and basketball, they’re putting events, including all gold-medal games, on demand. I don’t know what the timeframe will be for getting a game online, but it should be interesting to watch.
Comcast originally was planning to offer the Olympic Soccer channel to its customers, but it appears that it will only be available to its highest-tier customers. If you know any different, please let me know!
Cable customers, what are you getting for Olympic soccer? Sure, it’s not the Premier League, but it should be fun to watch until the big boys start again next week!
UPDATE: Comcast nationally did sign a deal with NBC, according to a network statement, but it is up to individual Comcast systems to launch the channels. So if you’re not getting Olympic soccer, call your Comcast system! Also, it’s confirmed that Cablevision does NOT have the channels.
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