said by jvmorris:Paul,
Correct, we poor souls are only getting one match per week on BBC America. However, I guess my complaint is more about the matches chosen for show in the US.
Of the Six nations, we get
3 involving England
3 involving Scotland
1 involving Wales
1 involving Ireland, and
2 involving France(!), and
0 involving Italy.
IIRC, Italy was very well rated prior to this year's program and I find it rather odd that they're not being shown at all.
not well rated afaicr......
said by jvmorris:If it's a matter of BBC America being Anglo-centric, it would have made more sense to having at least two matches involving Ireland and two involving Wales, dropping France entirely.
that would be, quite frankly, nuts - France are (with England) the 2 world class sides in the tournament,
and play the most entertaining rugby -
and are the defending champions.....
prior to the tournament the participants ranked as follows in the IRB rankings:
4 ENGLAND
5 IRELAND
6 FRANCE
7 SCOTLAND
.
9 WALES {who hadn't won a single match for a whole year on the eve of the tournament
}
.
12 ITALY
said by jvmorris:And, if it's a matter of BBC America trying to play to the American audience, we could have had 1 less England match, two less French in exchange for at least 1 additional Welsh, 1 Irish and 1 Italian.
hmm - the available matches were/are - chosen matches in Bold:
week 1:
Fri 4th Feb 11 19:45 Wales 19 - 26 England Millennium Stadium
Sat 5th Feb 11 14:30 Italy 11 - 13 Ireland Stadio Flaminio
Sat 5th Feb 11 17:00 France 34 - 21 Scotland Stade de France week 2:
Sat 12th Feb 11 14:30 England 59 - 13 Italy Twickenham Report
Sat 12th Feb 11 17:00 Scotland 6 - 24 Wales MurrayfieldSun 13th Feb 11 15:00 Ireland v France Aviva Stadium
week 3:
Sat 26th Feb 11 14:30 Italy v Wales Stadio Flaminio
Sat 26th Feb 11 17:00 England v France Twickenham {this is likely to be the "grand slam decider" - only someone crazy would omit this game.....}
Sun 27th Feb 11 15:00 Scotland v Ireland Murrayfield
week "4":
Sat 12th Mar 11 14:30 Italy v France Stadio Flaminio
Sat 12th Mar 11 17:00 Wales v Ireland Millennium Stadium
Sun 13th Mar 11 15:00 England v Scotland Twickenham week "5":
Sat 19th Mar 11 14:30 Scotland v Italy Murrayfield
Sat 19th Mar 11 17:00 Ireland v England Aviva Stadium Sat 19th Mar 11 19:45 France v Wales Stade de France
so they are giving you:
a) one match each at Stade de France, Murrayfield and the Aviva Stadium (Dublin) and 2 from Twickenham {sadly none from the millenium stadium - but the only 2 possibles were either broadcasting on friday, or the wales v ireland game that would mean missing the Calcutta Cup game that is always a very hard fought affair}
b) what were/are, on paper, the likely "best" (i.e. most competitive) matches {certainly given that they are unlikely to have been prepared to broadcast the match on friday when most of the potential audience will be at work/in school....}
certainly France v Scotland
was the best game in week 1....
not sure what US schedules are like on a
Saturday afternoon/evening - that may be why they didn't opt for a later broadcast of France v Wales as match 5
by either ranking, or likely potential audience (just how many "welsh-americans are there??*), the country that should have got more matches is
Ireland (at the expense of Scotland) - but the only way i can see it being possible schedulewise, given 1 match per weekend, broadcast live, would have meant you loosing todays wales v scotland in favour of tomorrows ireland v france.... which would then give:
3 involving England
3 involving France
2 involving Scotland
2 involving Ireland
0 involving Wales
0 involving Italy.
i.e a virtually stricly ranking based choice (but one that leaves you even less satisfied methinks....)
or i guess one could have foregone the calcutta cup for wales v ireland to get:
2 involving England
2 involving France
2 involving Scotland
2 involving Ireland
2 involving Wales
0 involving Italy.
with each side having one home and one away game.... but the rugby seen would be poorer methinks
hmm - one other possibility that occurs to me is that picking the Calcutta cup game moves it away from Saturday 12th march which would involve a clash with the FA Cup quarter finals {all 4 of which are played on that day, and broadcast in the US on Fox Soccer - which might be a ratings worry..... }
*edit: to answer my own question, according to the US census there are:
36.3m irish-americans - plus another 3.5m of "scotch-irish" descent
27.5m anglo-americans
17.75m italian-americans
9.5m Franco-americans {not including french canadians - another 2m of them}
5.8m scots-americans
and a whisker under 2m welsh-americans....
»
factfinder.census.gov/se ··· -format=obviously all of these are not exclusive and a few may even claim to be all of these
now off to watch france v ireland...