Help a British Ex-Pat Access Overseas Content (BBC, iTV, premier league football, etc...)

November 27, 2009 2:10 PM

My father is a British ex-pat who is craving some good old fashion football/cricket/BBC. Please share some advice about best way to access this content while in the states.

My father is a British ex-pat who has lived in the states for some 20 odd years. After many years of paying through the nose for pay per view football matches and the occasional cricket test match he gave up.

Can you give us some advice about the best way to access this content? He is interested in watching Premier League matches, cricket, rugby, and most everything the BBC puts out. He is particularly interested in live-streaming matches, but would take what he can get.

Also news to me Hulu has a UK only site that features content from Channel 4, ITV, and other UK only channels, and so access to that would be welcome.

Do you have any advice? Where do we start?

posted by ghostpony to computers & internet (17 comments total)

UKNova is a torrent site dedicated to torrents of just-broadcast television. You'll find it has a fantastic coverage of a wide array of British television on BBC and ITV. And it's free.
posted by koeselitz at 2:14 PM on November 27, 2009 [1 favorite]

(And they're great most of all because they refuse to post torrents of shows that are available commercially - so you aren't ripping anybody off by using it!)
posted by koeselitz at 2:15 PM on November 27, 2009

This was on Reddit today. (Reddit thread). Seems a good place to start.
posted by Petrot at 2:16 PM on November 27, 2009

If he already has cable tv, subscribe to setanta sports. It's approx $15/month, and it will cover all his football needs. I believe they now also I have a (separate) online version for approx the same price per month, though I cannot vouch for its reliability.
posted by modernnomad at 2:19 PM on November 27, 2009

I believe ESPN Soccernet shows some live Premiere matches online.
posted by cazoo at 2:24 PM on November 27, 2009

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio Oh so enjoyabel in so many ways. Sports is on "5 live sports", of course.
posted by mmkhd at 2:26 PM on November 27, 2009

I looked at UKNova a year or more ago to try and get my footie fix, but it's invite only and there seem to be no more invites available.
posted by autojack at 2:28 PM on November 27, 2009

This was on Reddit today. (Reddit thread). Seems a good place to start.

Just a note on this -- all the publicity on reddit made it such that this script no longer works. Which is a shame, but... well, what can you do? Oh yeah, post on AskMefi! :)
posted by cgg at 2:30 PM on November 27, 2009

The Box.bz is your best alternative to UKNova. There's still a good 8,000 spaces before they go invite only.
posted by asharchist at 3:00 PM on November 27, 2009

myp2p
posted by mannequito at 3:01 PM on November 27, 2009

Was going to suggest The Box too - football-wise has the lower league highlights programmes if he supports a non-achiever side like I do and there was, for example, a choice of highlights or the full days' coverage during the recent Ashes series. ratio requirements are strict but manageable.
posted by Abiezer at 3:13 PM on November 27, 2009

iraqgoals.net has streaming football - a huge range , but the quality can be variable. fbtz.com has torrents of football matches, again with a huge range.

mmkhd mentioned bbc.o.uk - is that content available outside the UK?
posted by Infinite Jest at 4:20 PM on November 27, 2009

Fox Soccer Channel shows Premiere League matches every weekend.
posted by Zebtron at 4:41 PM on November 27, 2009

As Zebtron says, Fox Soccer Channel has a big chunk of the live Premiership football (about 3 live and 3 delayed games a weekend) and as of this season is the main place to see UEFA Champions League fixtures.

FSC also shows Sky Sports News a lot, so you can get rugby and cricket results, and maybe see a very small amount of live action (usually a short clip that they talk over).
posted by galaksit at 5:01 PM on November 27, 2009

Seconding galaksit above on Fox Soccer Channel, there's way more than enough if your Dad is Premiership-centric and you have the right provider. Your profile doesn't detail where you are in the US, and you don't say where your Dad is, but here in New York, and in many other US cities there are loads of sports bars that show the live games from Fox, as well as some of the pay-per view ones that you may have to pay a door cover charge to see. Your Dad may or may not be comfortable doing that, but if he's a footy fan from Britain, I'll hazard a guess he's been in a pub before. Over here many of the pubs showing English footie in preference to other more traditional US sports will be Irish, so check them out in your local area.
posted by Nick Verstayne at 5:27 PM on November 27, 2009

Echoing mannequito's link.
But before you go to MyP2P though download a couple of bits of software to help you watch the streams: Sopcast and TVU.
Sopcast is the more reliable. TVU blocks access to certain channels for certain games.

As mentioned above then go to Myp2p and explore...

Any further q's... check my profile.
posted by Webbster at 6:21 PM on November 27, 2009

autojack: “I looked at UKNova a year or more ago to try and get my footie fix, but it's invite only and there seem to be no more invites available.”

[Actually, UKN does not issue invites; they only open signup at very limited times, apparently. I signed up two months ago, so there are times when it opens. You just have to be patient.]
posted by koeselitz at 10:39 PM on November 27, 2009