Hello Again, Sports Fans....

cccmedia wrote:

Coming up:  can you follow your team when living in or visiting Ecuador...

Yes, you can, with a combination of satellite TV and-or Internet with an occasional sports bar visit thrown in.

Details next....

cccmedia wrote:

cccmedia wrote:

Coming up:  can you follow your team when living in or visiting Ecuador...

Yes, you can, if you can install or get access to a satellite dish -- also IMO the best-most enjoyable way, through the DirecTV Sunday Ticket package.  (My experience is in Quito, so if you're elsewhere in EC...YMMV.)

There are also sports bars showing most games in the heart of the capital's Gringolandia -- aka Foch plasa.

DirecTV's Sunday Ticket package shows all games played on Sunday afternoons.

Sunday Night Football and Monday Night Football are shown on DirecTV on the ESPN channel(s), typically in HDTV.

All teams playing on Sunday afternoon are shown, with no blackouts, per se.  The "early games" do start early in the first two months of the season -- at 12 noon, local EC time.  Starting time is 1 p.m. local time after U.S.-located clocks are moved back an hour in early November.

Occasionally you may miss your team's game.  If it's a Thursday game, it's usually not shown.  (This weeks Thanksgiving Day night game, Seahawks at Niners, is an exception and will be seen.)

The rare re-scheduled games (see Jets-Buffalo in earlier post above) are usually not shown.  Late-season Saturday games may or may not be shown.

All regular season games are televised with English as the main audio or as an option.  Historically, sometimes when the season is starting and they're still getting their act together, some of the ESPN games may not have English

Post-season games:  an early-round game or two (wild card games) may be shown with Spanish audio only, especially if it's on the Fox channel.  The championship round and the Super Bowl:  you can expect English.

If your team is playing on a Thursday or otherwise may not be shown on Sunday Ticket, you can subscribe for that week ($15.00 or so for unlimited games for the week) or for the full season to NFL GamePass on the Internet.  You'll need an above-average Internet connection for decent reception.

This you can find at some but not all Internet (coffee) shops. 

It's not always convenient to watch with headphones on a smaller screen while occasionally being elbowed by roaming "vaqueritos," but it may be better than missing your game entirely.

cccmedia in Quito

Home Office (Mauritius), take note:

Due possibly to a late-night glitch in the system, some post(s) in this thread may be duplicated.  Readers, skip ahead as needed...

cccmedia wrote:

This a thread for Expats and Blog readers who follow NFL, NBA and MLB teams...sometimes with an Ecuador twist...

For anyone in Ecuador not paying attention to U.S. weather patterns, a snow "tormenta" blasted large portions of the latter country this past week and caused the NFL to move the New York Jets-Buffalo Bills week-12 game from metro Buffalo to Detroit.  Six feet of snow fell in upstate New York.

The game, originally scheduled for Sunday at 1 p.m. ET, will be played at 7 p.m. ET on Monday (Nov. 24) -- bumped off the DirecTV Sunday Ticket schedule.

Entering Thanksgiving week, this sets up a bountiful upcoming harvest for Detroit-area NFL fans from now through mid-December:  there will be four games played at domed Ford Field in the next 21 days -- the Jets-Buffalo game followed by three regularly scheduled home games of the Lions.  Tens of thousands of free tickets were given away for the first, re-scheduled game.

There also is the oddity of four different teams playing a total of two games within 3-and-a-half days in the same NFL city:  NYJ-BUF Monday night and CHI-DET on Thursday afternoon (Thanksgiving).

Longtime NFL fans know that the Lions host a Thanksgiving Day game every year -- it's been a tradition for decades.

As for Jets-Bills, the Jets have an advantage:  the Buffalo team was unable to practice due to the terrible weather this past week.

---

In other week-12 Detroit NFL news...

In Foxboro, Massachusetts, the Lions were embarrassed 34-9 in a game in which they failed to score a single touchdown.  The AFC (and in New England games, the NFC too) is being dominated by Brady, Gronk and the Patriots -- a team name an Expat can appreciate.

Coming up:  can you follow your team when living in or visiting Ecuador...

cccmedia in Quito

I have heard recently that Ecuador is looking to implement fiber-optic internet service in the near future. Could anyone provide any information on this please?  Thank you kindly.

This little-used thread has been dormant since around Thanksgiving 2014...and the Expat Geek Squad is more prone to hang out at the unofficial Cuenca pages.

Ipso facto, we suggest you re-post your question there for best results.

To navigate over there, you can type "Cuenca expat community" into the Search Expat.com box at the top of this page, and then click on the search icon to the right of said box.

cccmedia (OP)

lale4 wrote:

I have heard recently that Ecuador is looking to implement fiber-optic internet service in the near future. Could anyone provide any information on this please?

This just in, sports fans!

According to an unofficial source at the "Unofficial web site of the greater Cuenca expat community," there's talk that "they're rolling it out in select neighborhoods or buildings" on Ordonez Lasso in Gringolandia, Cuenca.

The source added:  "So if it is important enough to Lale, tell him to seek it out and he may find it."


                                                                    .

Week 1 of the 2015 NFL season had some rough patches for Expat sports fans in Quito*.

Things got off to a great start when the season kickoff game last Thursday between New England and Pittsburgh was televised with English audio, and the most controversial player of the off-season, Tom Brady, played brilliantly in the Patriots'  28-21 victory.

The Sunday Night game between the New York Giants and Dallas Cowboys was listed by ESPN+HD for 7 p.m., but was bumped off screen by U.S. Open Tennis at the last minute.  Sports fans with DirecTV missed seeing Tony Romo and the 'Boys pull off a miracle comeback, 27-26.

The two Monday Night games were shown on ESPN+HD, but -- though the screen indicated an English-language option was available -- only Spanish audio was actually heard.

The NFL Sunday Ticket games, with noon and late afternoon starting times in Quito, were fine .. but the disappointments of Sunday and Monday nights had one thinking back to last February -- when the Superbowl was shown on DirecTV with Spanish-language audio only!

cccmedia in Quito

*All games mentioned were viewed via DirecTV in Quito.  Showings and language options may have varied for fans viewing via other systems or in other places.

Traveling to Cuenca tomorrow. As a college football fanatic where would you say the best option on Saturday 19/09 is for vowing SEC games?

bluestraveler wrote:

Traveling to Cuenca tomorrow. As a college football fanatic where would you say the best option on Saturday (September 19th) is for SEC games?

So far as I know, precious little college-football from the U.S. is shown in Ecuador.

And by precious little, I mean virtually nothing until the bowl season.

You could ask around for a sports bar in Cuenca.  But the truth is, I just checked the listings on DirecTV (in Quito) and I didn't see any sign of college football for next Saturday, September 19th.

You could throw a Hail Mary, and ask the gang at our unofficial Cuenca page.  Type Cuenca forum into the searchbox atop this page and then click on the search icon to the right of the box.  Frankly, I don't think there are that many SEC football fans on that virtual page.

cccmedia in Quito