I though it would be easier for to believe as you pay to watch obese, alcohol drinking, pie eating guys throw darts?

you must be on the booze as your post is almost incomprehensible

oh and your generalisation of a darts professional is an indication of your lack of interest or facts of darts these days .

lol just noticed the typos.

I put my hands up and say yes I lack interest or facts of darts. Well I enjoy watching the darts but I do know little about the sport just like the posters slagging of baseball. Still there are quite few morbidly obese darts players out there, but then again this would never of been brought up if a darts fan had not referred to baseball players as being fat in context of criticising the game. I impressed with the gift and talent dart players have.

Darts players are not even all fat and don't all drink alcohol and drink water on the stage. Baseball is boring (nothing happens) and a few of their players take drugs (worse than booze). I

27/08/09 UEFA Europa League Play-off 2nd Leg Five (16:55-19:30)
17:00 Kickoff SK Sigma Olomouc v Everton (according to www.livesportontv.com)

So have Five/BBC/ITV just shared the rights out?

I'm sure the Uefa cup was never on any pay channel. I take it all ex Setanta bound games are staying on FTA TV? I heard on Sky's adverts the Champions Leauge qualifiers are new for Sky Sports? Were they previous on free channels or not on tv at all?

Last year they were on BBC and ITV.

Sky actually don't have any UCL qualifiers: they have the playoffs. The qualifying rounds are now complete, and Sky didn't show any games.

See it says on the Everton website that Everton tv is the only place to watch the 1st leg of Uefa Europa league match on thursday. Am sure last year channel five were keen to pick these matches up? Not sure Villas match or Fulhams game is being shown anywere either.

Your having a laugh trying to defend dart players after the comment you made about baseball players being fat.

Im sure this is to ensure a full house.

No, the rights are still held by the home team until the group phase.

Also according to http://www.livesportontv.com/football the 2nd leg of the Hearts game is now beeing shown on BBC Scotland too.

UEFA Europa League Play-off 1st Leg Thursday 20th August

Dinamo Zagreb v Hearts BBC2 Scotland (19:50-22:00)

UEFA Europa League Play-off 2nd Leg Thursday 27th August

SK Sigma Olomouc v Everton Five (16:55-19:30)
Aston Villa v Rapid Vienna Five (19:30-22:05)
Hearts v Dinamo Zagreb BBC2 Scotland (19:30-21:30)

So 4 out of 8 now on live. Neither leg of FULHAM v Akmar Perm seem to be scheduled anywhere.

And the fact that neither ESPN nor Sky are showing any games probably suggests they are unlikley to be bidding for the ex-Setanta's Europa League rights for the group stages onwards.

Maybe they will remain unsold and BBC Scotland will keep on picking up the Scottish games match by match, and channel Five will pick up any remaining English teams if they can schedule two games back to back?

Im amazed that there is not one live game on TV from one of the Premiership teams in Europe. I thought that one of the these games would have been bought by Five or ITV4.As a Villa fan this is very annoying especially as I will have to try to find another way to watch the game!

Wierd isn't it.

According to this they won't even be on Radio5 (although I suspect at least one game will actually have commentary from each leg).
http://www.bbc.co.uk/fivelive/sport/commentaries/

given how Setanta's demise brought about a drastic reduction in value for EPL/SPL live rights, and ch5/ch4/ITV have reduced income from advertising revenue, these matches clearly have little value to them. The second legs have something at stake - much more (in broadcast value) than the first leg.

The question I'd beg - if Everton FC have it being broadcast live to website subscribers, how much more expensive would it be to have it broadcast live on TV? The club MUST be making a loss, as fans could pay as little as £4 to watch this, and there can't be that many premium website subscribers for any premier league club.

Thats what confuses me as I understand that the rights for Villa away game maybe too expensive but you would think that Everton home game would be cheap enough for say ITV4 or Five to show it!

But on the other hand the second legs can also be 'dead rubber' if the one team has a significant lead from the first leg.

Over here in Ireland things are worse. St Pats are still in the Europa League, a great achievement for an Irish side yet their game against Steua isn't on ANY tv channel, nor has any of their games. When Bohemians played Red Bull Salzburg in the Champions League, the second leg (which was in Dublin) was shown live on Austrian tv but not here in Ireland.

Yea and no Glentoran coverage against Maccabi Haifa in Northern Ireland yet both games aired in Israel. Salzburg v Maccabi Haifa will air on both Sky Sports and Setanta Sports 1.

A lot of the time this is to do with the clubs not selling the rights to try and increase the attendances. Celtic did this earlier in the season. Setanta and RTE offered to cover the last Pat's match but would only cover their costs.

I don't think this is possible this season because the UEFA only brings the whole package to the market now. Broadcasters can either buy all games beginning with the group stage or nothing. I wonder why this isn't in sky's interest as it gives them secured football coverage on every international Thursday.

This is due to the new contract as well which includes all CL games from the playoff stage. They wouldn't have shown that otherwise.

That I didn't know, but it still doesn't explain why the away legs haven't been shown

I don't see why Everton would be making a loss. They obviously don't have to pay themselves a rights fee, and filming the game might be for overseas TV. If not, it would be very basic coverage, and with no need for the involvement of satellites and OB crew.

I don't believe that for one second. Surely the rights could be given away, if they REALLY needed to be.