Bar owners offering these closed-circuit broadcasts usually have to fork over obscenely high fees to get the broadcast. Typically, they're gonna lose money even if they charge $10 and even if they get a decent crowd. They're hoping to make up the difference on food and drink. This is not a case of greedy pub owners gouging punters for huge profits.

And no, I'm not a greedy pub owner. Wish I was! :-P

Well, you know what they say- "something is worth what someone is willing to pay for it". As for me, I'd gladly pay $10-20 to watch an Ajax CL game at a pub in Denver. You can't compare it to live seating in the Arena, because you have to add in the cost traveling there....

Well, the good new is that - if Ajax win the CL - it will hopefully be easier to catch them on TV :)

Up here (Canada), TSN is showing Arse and Valencia on Wednesday :(

In sweden the situation with Zlatan in Ajax, and the fact that we have few other star players or teams to follow in Europe, means that when they show CL - they show Ajax. Shouldn't it be the same in the US? With JOB in the team (and to be honest you don't have many better players - especially not playing in CL) it should be a given choice. I'm sure you've already done it but you should mail-bomb the networks telling them of the American interests in the games with JOB.

I agree with you- we don't have much better than JOB, although I'd certainly put Friedel, Keller, Sanneh, Reyna and Donovan in the crowd.

The problem in the US is that the majority of soccer fans are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants who continue to follow the teams of their old countries, and snubbing the US team. Go to any international match in the US, and the US team is generally the "visitor". I went to the US-Mexico game in Denver last spring, and I should have brought my passport. 40,000 plus Mexican fans (all living in the US) in the tri-colores, and a smattering of US fans sprinkled in here and there (Who desperately need to learn how to be soccer fans. The chants of "USA, USA" and the occasional guy trying to start the tomahawk are downright embarrassing....). Same with MLS, much of it's support comes from either immigrants following the foreign based stars on their MLS teams, or youth soccer kids/families, who don't watch much soccer on tv.

Bottom line- there just isn't that much interest in US soccer players, or their appearances on TV. The majority of the soccer watching population in the US follows their old country and teams....

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Originally posted by Joel

But obviously you don't really care how much it costs if it's that hard to see Ajax play in America...

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Originally posted by tmeuz
I agree with you- we don't have much better than JOB, although I'd certainly put Friedel, Keller, Sanneh, Reyna and Donovan in the crowd.

The problem in the US is that the majority of soccer fans are 1st or 2nd generation immigrants who continue to follow the teams of their old countries, and snubbing the US team. Go to any international match in the US, and the US team is generally the "visitor". I went to the US-Mexico game in Denver last spring, and I should have brought my passport. 40,000 plus Mexican fans (all living in the US) in the tri-colores, and a smattering of US fans sprinkled in here and there (Who desperately need to learn how to be soccer fans. The chants of "USA, USA" and the occasional guy trying to start the tomahawk are downright embarrassing....). Same with MLS, much of it's support comes from either immigrants following the foreign based stars on their MLS teams, or youth soccer kids/families, who don't watch much soccer on tv.

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good to see another Ajax fan in Denver (tmeuz). Hopefully we'll see some games on ESPN2 now that we made it to the semi's.

likewise- look for the Ajax sticker on my white Tacoma, and you know that's me driving around.

Someone has posted a message to BigSoccer about the PSV-Ajax game being available live, for free, via webcast on a Korean TV website. The website http://tv.joa.to/ is a collection of almost all of Korean broadcasting stations which you may watch online, free of charge. Best guess is that the match will be shown either on SBS, MBC or ITV.

I will follow up and, if I get any credible information, will post it here.

Oh, and you can tell me by my license plate: http://www.ajax-usa.com/ajax/about/cl.html

I thought you all would like to know that Summer's in Arlington, VA will be showing the PSV-AJAX game live Saturday at 7am (according to their website). I hope to see some Ajax supporters there.

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Originally posted by ajaxusa

Oh, and you can tell me by my license plate: http://www.ajax-usa.com/ajax/about/cl.html

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Originally posted by wooden shoes
i hope you're right about that game being broadcast...

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Originally posted by ajaxusa
The latest word from my source is that the game will be webcast 3 hours delayed. (Thank God -- I was gonna have to get up at 4am to MAYBE watch a webcast. Now I can get up at 7 and maybe see something; much more palatable.)

Go to http://tv.joa.to/ and choose one of the channels that MBC provides.

I'm not getting my hopes up, but it's worth a shot...

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Well, the good news for us is that if Ajax gets to the semis, then ESPN will have to show one of the legs, and if they get to the finals, then (obviously) we'll see Ajax win.