My iPad worked all afternoon too, although I went radical and actually watched the Liverpool - Stoke match on the TV

I don't agree that Owen is a joke, though. I think he really knows what he's talking about. He's just a relatively quiet bloke who has had to work on being a bit more extrovert - nowt wrong with that in my book !!

All they need is Clarkson and a cool wall

Did BT actually have an audience in their studio for the Liverpool match?

Looks a bit daft to be honest.

Sky should have just kept what they are good at. No need to try and outdo BT.

The BT set-up is big on gimmicks, but they don't really deliver.

I don't think so. I didn't notice one, anyway. Why would they? They were at Anfield for the commentary and then it was just jake and co for the chat

Well, they did have 75 minutes of build-up to get through first - so they may have wanted to do something with an audience then, perhaps.

Sky SNF totally pointless as well. Lots of stuff I've seen today on both Sky and BT I've just felt are OTT nonsense, designed just to look different but not really achieving anything.

What's wrong with Sky just being at the Liberty like they'd be for a Sunday game or last season for a 12.45 game?

This is the Champions first game, away from home at a tough place, it should be a fairly big occasion on the opening day. Instead it feels like a poor mans Monday Night Football where the actual game is an afterthought, with Redknapp spouting obvious line after obvious line and a crowd of whoppers who obviously think standing in a TV studio for hours is the best way to watch a game.

No, but I remember that had one for one of the previous games. They may have decided it was a bit naff and ditched it!

Yep, BT coming in has really messed up football presentation.

Just get a studio at the ground with a couple of pundits in it. Its getting daft everyone trying to outdo each other

Agreed - it's bizarre that both Sky and BT have chosen to host the match from the studio rather than actually be at the match - makes it all feel a cheaper.

I agree - I always felt ESPN/Setanta looked poor against Sky's professionalism. However, out of the two matches today, I think I've actually preferred BT's coverage to Sky's. Maybe a change is as a good as a rest as they say!

And complete bollocks - there will be no source of ratings until 9.30am tomorrow morning at the earliest.


Someone has forgotten he's left the BBC. Presumably BT get to show all the goals at some point themselves as part of their deal. I think in the Setanta days it was after midnight, but that might have changed now. Only thing I can see is "Premier League Review" which airs first on Monday at 7.30am.

Possible BT Sport Live could show them too if it's presenting itself as effectively a news service under the standard fair usage policies.

I sympathise with your general point.

But at the same time Sky are trying to integrate preview (at 2.30pm) and review (at 5pm) of the 3pm games.

If Sky just did a normal presentation from the ground (ie starting at 5pm) arguably almost nobody would watch it as people would stay with Soccer Saturday.

So yes, I agree they should be careful about too many gimmicks. But in my view the general overall structure makes good sense.

I cancelled Sky a long time ago so I can't really compare but I enjoyed the match on BT today. I skipped the build-up but the match was well presented and streamed almost flawlessly for me on my Android tablet.

One specific on the BT coverage of Liverpool v Stoke - I think they generally showed very few replays of key incidents.

I wonder if they were worried about missing anything important on such a high profile occasion for them.

I just don't feel that they need to do lead ins for Premier League games. People know when games are on, and will watch them regardless of what the build up is. I don't like football games taking place in the middle of TV Shows, and that is what today has felt like.

Overall I have been very impressed with the presentation of BT Sport. I think the biggest compliment I can pay it is (to me) it dosen't seem like a new channel but rather one that has been around for a while.

I guess taking over ESPN has helped them bed in very quickly.

Perfect post

Owen's on record as saying that football comes a distant second to his love of horse racing , I'd say he's only doing this to fund his stables .

On the other hand, I think he's a bit of a perfectionist, and now he's taken on this commentary role, he'll do his best to do it well (after all, he's been more of a pundit in the past, which is quite different). Personally I think he's improved greatly - in fact we were joking here that there must be two Michael Owens - the on we usually get, and the one we heard today and last week

Give the guy a chance

Flicking the channels at half time in the Sky game and saw the half time chat in the German match on BT

So............who's the guy doing the interviewing ?

His face looks really familiar but his hair has gone a bit grey since I last saw him

I'm sure he's one where you go 'oh yeah, d'oh !' when you hear the name..............

Paul Demspey? he's ex-Sky News/Sky Sports/Setanta?

Just got time to watch BT Sport yesterday and overall I am impressed. I really liked the Claire Balding Show, although she seemed very full of her self in the introduction to the show which was something I had never seen her do before but on the rest of the show she seemed fine.

Lifes a Pitch was good after that awful, cringy and unfunny bit at the Start where Des Kelly tries and fails at being Jon Stewart. When he interviewed Richard Scudamore he was fine, leave the comeady to the professionals.

Havent seen anything else.

I agree we should give the guy a chance, however saying that, as I posted somewhere a few days ago, if BT feel Owen is working out they have a ready made replacement in Steve Mcnanaman.

He and Ian Darke were a very popular combination for ESPN so why not for BT?

You can easily tell whenever Mcnanaman is about he has had far more experience than the rest and speaks a good game.

Yeah, cheers.............that's him

Haven't seen him for a while................I probably remember him from Sky News

Just checked his biog and it says he's been working in Ireland since 2006 so I probably haven't seen him since then