Advice For International Viewers For The Big Game

Hey guys,

I'm sure a lot of people outside of the U.S. are wondering where they can
catch the game. Unfortunately through my (very long) investigations from
Spain it looks like in most places they're out of luck. In Spain maybe
the only way to get the game, or any college basketball game for that matter,
is through the Armed Forces Satelitte, which you can only get being a member
of the military. Even if you are lucky enough to get one of the ESPN
international networks they typically don't carry NCAA basketball. Here
in Spain the major provider for sat. TV is Digital Plus, and while you can
catch NFL, NHL, and NBA games they don't televise any NCAA sports until the
Tourney's Final Four - so if you can make it until 5am you can see the entire
final game, or watch it tape delayed. The two channels for the Final
Four broadcasts will be Canal + Deportes (they have three channels) and
Sportmania, who broadcasts the Final game tape delayed by one day (be careful,
they show the result of the game right before the rebroadcast! A bar full of hundreds of
Americans in Sevilla saw the result 10 minutes before the game. That was
after having waited in a bar for over two hours. What a let down...).

There are two solutions if you have internet access abroad and depending on
your team, and both involve Yahoo. Yahoo Sports College Broadcast
Subscription now includes live video feeds of select games.
Unfortunately 90% of the live video consists of Kentucky and SEC play and no
ACC teams, thus no video, but audio, for Duke games! The Platinum Sports
package does give you live feeds of every NCAA tournament game until the Final
eight. For this you have to be a U.S. resident, although all you need is
a billing address for your credit card in the U.S. to get the coverage from
anywhere. The video works best at connections around 300K - nice clear
video. My connection hovers around 195K and the video is smaller and a
little pixelated but still easy to follow. Without this I would suffer
immensely during tournament time.

With SKY sat. from the UK you may have a little more luck, and I'm sure there
are some other ways to see a few games in other countries. Unfortunately
the NBA and other pro sports rule the airwaves as the "imported"
leagues of choice in other countries (when it's not soccer). There is
little knowledge or demand to see NCAA basketball (or football for that
matter) outside of expats and students living abroad. Every year in
Sevilla there are maybe 150 UNC and 5-10 Duke students studying Spanish (the
program is run by UNC), and I get the same question every semester - where can
I watch the game? Unfortunately they have to wait until the end of the
tournament and hope UNC or Duke makes it that far. Thankfully I'm a Duke
fan so I think my chances each year are a bit better. So I'll be up
very, very late tonight with my audio coverage and the ESPN game update
refreshing every 30 seconds. It's the best I can get until someone at
the networks here in Spain "discovers" college basketball. If you're in Sevilla and want to catch the NCAA
Championship game or other sporting events I have some of the basics on how to
catch that game or other games here:

http://www.exploreseville.com/tv.htm#4

Finally, thanks so much for your page. As funny as it seems one of my
biggest worries in being so far away from home was being away from Duke, ACC
and NCAA basketball. You guys keep me in the loop and I feel a little
closer to what's going on back home.

Jeff Spielvogel