Win Sports was the Grinch of Colombian soccer this Christmas
The network flatly refused to broadcast the Betplay League final live .
The sports channel turned Colombian soccer into pay-per-view entertainment. / Photo: IG-winsportstv
LatinAmerican Post| Juan Manuel Londoño
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Leer en español: Win Sports fue el Grinch del fútbol colombiano esta Navidad
At the end of this edition, the occupation of the Intensive Care Units in Cali, Colombia, had exceeded 90% . Also, América de Cali, a soccer team from this city, had virtually guaranteed their victory in the final of the major Category A tournament, positioning themselves 3-0 over Santa Fe in the first game on December 20.
Now, any ethical and rational person would consider that, taking into account the first, the broadcast of the game would have been a source of great joy and relief for a people that has been devastated this year by both the coronavirus and the economic crisis. Not for Win sports Tv.
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The highly criticized paid channel, which turned Colombian football into pay-to-watch entertainment, refused to do the minimum for its fans, broadcast the LigaBetplay final live. Despite the requests of the mayor of Cali Jorge Iván Ospina, the chain did not broadcast the game live to reduce, even a little, the conglomerations in Cali.
Propongo a @ClaudiaLopez Alcaldesa de Bgtá , al Sr Pdte @IvanDuque a que hagamos una minga y paguemos a @WinSportsTV y a @Dimayor los derechos del partido final del fútbol , América vs Santa Fe para que sea transmitido en señal abierta y así evitar conglomerados #futbolparatodos pic.twitter.com/o3VBhTUwD1
— Jorge Ivan Ospina (@JorgeIvanOspina) December 18, 2020
What the chain did do was adopt the superfluous measure of transmitting the game on a delayed basis, two hours later, on Channel RCN. It is not necessary to explain to the reader that given the nature of the fans this move was both useless and insulting.
Although the game did not have a bad rating , achieving a 3.8 in its deferred transmission on the RCN channel, Win Sports made it clear with this move that its interests are, and have always been, not in the transmission of quality sports programming, but in extract everything possible from the pocket of the Colombian fan.
Partido más visto del fin de semana:
América de Cali vs Santa Fe 4.1
(Diferido)@CanalRCN 3.8
@WinSportsTV (Básico) 0.3— Rating Colombia (@RatingColombia) December 21, 2020
As additional data, it is worth mentioning that the basic Win SportsTV broadcast had a rating of 0.3, bringing the total rating of the game to 4.1. As we said, not bad for a delayed game, but they are pathetic numbers for a final. For reference, the Sunday before the game was better for an episode of the novel "Chepe Fortuna", which is now in its second repetition. This got a rating of 4.2.
Domingo 13 de Diciembre:
1 #LosInformantes 7.8
2 #SéptimoDía 6.9
3 @NoticiasCaracol 6.0
4 #ChepeFortuna (R) 4.2
5 #TheSusosShow 3.3
6 @NoticiasRCN 2.9— Rating Colombia (@RatingColombia) December 14, 2020
At press time, there are no plans to broadcast live the first leg, which will likely crown America as champions.