RHST: Is Fox Soccer Ripping Me Off?

There is the possibility I’m overreacting to this and I encourage you to tell me if I am. From my perspective, I feel that I am being slightly bamboozled by Fox Soccer with their Fox Soccer Plus premium channel. Let me lay out the details…

On Sunday I tuned in to the Roma v Lazio match on FSC Plus. As I usually do, I was also on Twitter during the match talking with other fans who are watching as well. I began to notice that people were discussing things in the match that hadn’t happened yet on my television. No big deal I thought, this happens from time to time, probably only a 30-45 second delay. So I waited…and waited…and waited some more…and finally over EIGHT minutes later I saw the described events. Quickly checking the match tracker on Soccernet, I discovered that Fox Soccer Plus was playing the Rome Derby on nearly a nine minute delay, yet they were claiming it was Live. A nine minute delay is not live, it’s absurd. I could forgive the delay in the first half if the previous program had overrun but at least they could have cut the delay considerably or eliminated it at halftime. No such luck, the ridiculous delay continued the entire match and FSC quickly cut away at the end despite on-going handbags all over the pitch. I expect there is some cookie-cutter explanation for this that FSC could crank out and admittedly this is the first time I’ve seen a delay this bad, but I’m still feeling ripped off.

Here is my problem…I pay $14.99/month to get Fox Soccer Plus and I can’t help but be annoyed when people watching the match on illegal feeds are seeing it in real time while I am dealing with a nine minute delayed match masquerading as a live broadcast. It makes me feel like a sucker, which some might say I already am for paying for FSC Plus in the first place, and I would think that Fox Soccer would want to avoid making their customers feel like a sucker. It’s bad enough I still have neither network in HD despite hearing about all their broadcast being in HD. Who knows whose fault this is and I’m inclined to blame my provider for this, but I have to say I’m annoyed at the moment. I love having the FSC channels and the access to football matches it provides, I just ask that they stop the ridiculous practice of tape delaying matches because their nonsense pre-match studio shows go too long because their analyst won’t wrap it up.

So anyway, I’m curious what you think about this. Am I overreacting? Am I sucker? Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments.