Fox Soccer Goes Spanish, Briefly
By Mike Cardillo
Fox Soccer is in its last days of existence. The channel will be replaced by FXX in September and its soccer content absorbed into Fox Sports’ new cable entity.
Saturday morning, during its broadcast of the Arsenal/Norwich City match, viewers thought they were losing their mind when the picture — and audio — switched over to an NPower Championship match featuring Cardiff City, resplendent in their newly-branded red kits.
Over the years Fox Soccer has been no stranger to continual goofs in its broadcasts — audio outages, misidentified players, spelling mistakes, giant green bars blocking off the screen — it was part of the channel’s Lo-fi charm.
Today Fox Soccer apparently got its wires, err, satellite beams crossed with beIN Sport. For about a minute the Arsenal game was taken over by a Cardiff City goal celebration. Making it all the more unusual, that game’s audio was in Spanish.
Apparently it was an issue on Fox Soccer’s end, not the providers seem multiple people on multiple cable/satellite companies saw the same switch.
Viewers didn’t miss much during the brief crossover.
Arsenal ended up coming from behind winning 3-1. All the Gunners goals came after the 80th minute, the first via a penalty kick call converted by Mikel Arteta. Olivier Giroud and Lucas Poldolski also scored, as Arsenal moved by idle Chelsea and Tottenham into third place in the Premier League table and on track for a Champions League place — an unofficial “trophy” in the eyes manager Arsene Wenger.
Dropping the three points, in six minutes time, was a tough blow for Norwich which would have moved all but out of the relegation scrum with the win. Elsewhere it was mostly a quiet Premier League matchday due to the FA Cup semifinals.
Reading got a heroic performance by keeper Alex McCarthy and drew with Liverpool 0-0, but the Royals remain rooted at the bottom of the table. QPR’s survival hopes continue to look bleak, falling 2-0 at Goodison Park to Everton . Aston Villa could only draw 1-1 with West Ham at home and are now only three points above the final relegation place.
There’s no “late” Premier League game today. Instead it’s an FA Cup semifinal between Millwall and Wigan Athletic on Fox Soccer Plus.