(Soccer) Copa America to be on GolTV

[SirFozzie]

(this apparently includes US Games, which is fairly huge)

GolTV Acquires Exclusive, English-Language Rights to Broadcast Copa America Live in its Entirety

FIRST TIME EVER U.S. Viewers will Experience the Unsurpassed Excitement of the Oldest National Team's Tournament in the World in ENGLISH


NEW YORK, May 16 /PRNewswire/ -- GolTV Upfronts -- GolTV, the All Soccer Network, where soccer lives 24/7 in the U.S., announced today that it has secured the exclusive English Language broadcast rights to televise the 26 matches of The Copa America LIVE in their entirety for the U.S. fan and English dominant Hispanics.

The exclusive rights to broadcast live in English were acquired from Traffic Sports Marketing, one of the top sports marketing groups in the world, and are considered another coup for this pioneer soccer Network who has scored many firsts when it comes to televised soccer. This will be the first and only opportunity for fans to catch the games live in their entirety for years, as the cup will only come around again in 2011.

Beginning June 26, 2007 and running through July 16, 2007 GolTV will be the place to be to catch the action, via live matches and more. The in-depth coverage will not only feature all 26 live matches, but also news and highlights throughout its proprietary and highly followed shows such as American Soccer, which will shadow the U.S. performance, and other premium shows such as GolTV news that will provide rich in-depth analysis and commentary of what has occurred or is expected to occur on the field of play.

[Critch]

Good news.

So the US going to be able to send a full strength team, or does it clash with the Gold Cup?

[Fighter of Foo]

Take a guess.

[SirFozzie]

it's right after the Gold Cup, so it'll probably be one or the other, because MLS is in full swing, and euro leagues will be in preseason warm ups

[cthomer5000]

They've said the Gold Cup will be their top priority team-wise. Either way you're going to see two pretty different teams playing the two tourneys, it can't be avoided with the tournaments being immediately back-to-back.

[GoldenEagle]

Also do not forget about the U-20 tournament this summer, so none of those players will be available either. It will be very interesting to see what type of squad the US can put together. I believe the Gold Cup roster comes out early next week.

[Flasch186]

for the uninitiated, what are the tournaments a step towards...i mean which one is more important? Does Copa America get an automatic bid to the Worldcup?

[Critch]

No, the Gold Cup and the Copa America don't lead to anything else (other than an invitation to the meaningless Confederations Cup). The Gold Cup is the championship of North and Central America, the Copa America is the championship of South America. The Copa America regularly invites a couple of countries from outside their region too, this year it's the US and Mexico.

The problem is that as the Gold Cup is the championship of the US's federation, the world football authority insists that the US sends it's strongest team to this one despite it being less prestigious than the Copa America. I believe that the US can't force clubs to release players for the Copa America squad too, as they're only competing as guests.

[Fighter of Foo]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

for the uninitiated, what are the tournaments a step towards...i mean which one is more important? Does Copa America get an automatic bid to the Worldcup?

Winning the Gold Cup gets an invitation to FIFA's Confederations Cup, held the summer before the world cup. It's 8 teams with a representative from each of the 6 regions, plus the host(South Africa) and last year's winner. This tourament is held solely for the purpose of making money for FIFA.

Our national federation has decided it's more important to send our top team to the gold cup this summer because playing in the confederations cup is very, very important for our world cup preparations.

Got all that?

The problem is, we play crap teams all the time, and will do so again in the gold cup, whereas in the Copa America we'll actually be playing quality teams in a non-friendly setting. So we'll get to watch Tim Howard stand around and do nothing for 90 minutes versus Guatemala and the futility of Brian Ching trying to score against Ayala and Argentina. Lose-Lose for everyone.

Oh and MLS will keep on chugging right through all this.

[cthomer5000]

Critch summed it up pretty well. The Gold Cup only leads directly to the Confederations Cup, but that's really a sort of "whatever" event. It is technically the North American (CONCACAF) Championship though, while Copa America is something we're invited to. It's the South American (CONMEBOL) Championship, but we're there as guests.

On a "step forward" level, the Copa America can't take them anywhere, but you can easily argue that the Copa America is a more important tournament because it means games against some tough South American teams that the US never gets to play against. I think this is the source of a lot of World Cup demises - the relative lack of "practice" against some big teams. The USA doesn't help themselves in this department by rarely playing teams of note in friendlies, and almost never playing outside the USA.

BUT, teams do not have to release US players for national team duty for the Copa America because it's not "our" tournament. So we're probably likely to see a more English Premier League-heavy side in the Gold Cup, while I think there will be a more MLS flavor at Copa America. They will likely be almost entirely different teams.