DirecTV and Dish Network are two popular satellite TV providers that have been able to reach to most households in the United States. A wide range of TV programming from movies, music, entertainment to sports and international programming are delivered by both the satellite TV providers. This article explains in brief the sports programming available in both Dish Network and DirecTV with special emphasis on DirecTV’s exclusive sports programming. DirecTV provides more extensive sports programming than Dish Network. Also subscribers of DirecTV can enjoy different advanced features that are not available in Dish Network.
Sports Packages in DirecTV:
DirecTV satellite service delivers subscribers variegated sports packages for different sports. Some top-rated sports packages of DirecTV include NFL Sunday Ticket, MLB Extra Innings, NBA League Pass, NHL Center Ice, ESPN Full court and many more. Apart from sports packages extended coverage of Grand Slam tournaments and many exclusive sports packages are delivered that are not are not found anywhere else. Below is given an a brief account of DirecTV’s exclusive sports packages, exclusive coverage of different sports tournaments and other sports packages.
Exclusive Sports packages:
- NFL Sunday Ticket: NFL Sunday Ticket is an out-of-market sports package that broadcast National Football League regular season games unavailable on local affiliates. Regional games produced by Fox and CBS are delivered by this package. This package enables subscribers to watch their home team on local television even if they are not residing in the team’s market. This sports package is available in the United States exclusively on DirecTV. Other TV services such as Cable TVs and Dish Network do not constitute the rights to broadcast this package.
- NASCAR Hotpass: In the United States, NASCAR Hotpass is available exclusively on DirecTV. With this package subscribers can enjoy watching every moment of the Sprint Cup. This package that provide four channels, all in HD , put subscribers right in the middle of the action from the driver’s seat to under the hood. This package is a complementary television package and delivered free to DirecTV subscribers.
- MLB Extra Innings: MLB Extra Innings is an out-of-market sports package that broadcasts up to 80 out-of-market Major League Baseball games a week via local over the air stations and regional sports networks. In the United States DirecTV is the sole satellite TV provider to deliver this package to subscribers. Along with the 80 out-of-market baseball games DirecTV delivers 40 games in crystal clear HD.
Exclusive Extended Coverage of Grand Slam Tournaments:
- Grand Slam Golf: DirecTV delivers extensive coverage of major Golf events namely the PGA Championship and U.S Open. Subscribers can have enhanced and extended viewing of these tournaments on four channels including bonus channels. The PGA Championship is an annual golf tournament conducted by PGA(Professional Golfer’s Association) of America. It is one of the four major championships in professional golf. On the other hand the U.S Open Tournament is the second of the four major championships in golf.
- Grand Slam Tennis: With DirecTV, subscribers get full coverage of all the major Grand Slam tennis tournaments every year on multiple channels as well bonus channels. Advanced features of DirecTV adds to subscribers’ watching different Grand Slam tennis. These tournaments are the most prestigious tennis events that are played every year. Grand Slam tennis constitutes four tournaments namely Australian Open, French Open, Wimbledon and U.S Open. DirecTV satellite service gives full coverage to all the four tournaments of tennis.
Other Sports packages of DirecTV:
DirecTV renders subscribers the experience of watching bulk of sports programming via its various sports packages. Its is very likely for subscribers of DirecTV to get confused while selecting sports packages from the vast package lineups. Apart from the exclusive sports packages DirecTV delivers a number of other sports packages that are namely ESPN GamePlan, NBA League Pass, NHL Center Ice, ESPN Full Court, MLS DirectKick, Fox Soccer Plus, CricketTicket, Sports Pack, Soccer. DirecTV Pay-per-view are available for many sports programs. WWE and UFC are available in DirecTV as pay-per-view options.
DirecTV’s Advanced Features for Sports Fan:
DirecTV provides many advanced features to deliver subscribers an enhanced viewing of sports programming on TV. With different features subscribers can enjoy number of advantages such as they can watch up to 8 live games on one TV screen, they can check scores of any game at the press of button and many more. Below is given a short explanation of such different features of DirecTV.
Sports Mix:
Two channels of DirecTV viz. channel 104 and 205 are together called Sports Mix channels. With this channels, subscribers can watch non-stop sports action. They can enjoy watching up to 8 of the most popular sports channels on one TV screen. For audio feeds subscribers just need to use the arrow buttons of remotes. Also subscribers can press the Select button to tune in any of the eight channels to watch games in full screen.
DVR Instant Replay:
DirecTV DVRs comprise the feature of Instant Replay that helps subscribers to catch a missed moment of a game. With this feature, subscribers can pause, replay or rewind the game.
ScoreGuide:
Subscribers while watching one live game on TV can keep themselves updated with scores of other live games via the ScoreGuide feature. By pressing the red button on remotes, subscribers can find the ScoreGuide popping up on the TV screen. With the ScoreGuide subscribers can check scores of different games and also they can tune directly to those events by clicking on it.
GameSearch:
GameSearch feature of DirecTV recognizes a blackout game of a channel and immediately looks to find if the game is on another channel. If the broadcast of the game is found on other channel GameSearch feature displays an on-screen message that gives subscribers an option to tune into that channel. If the blackout game is not found in any other channel then the on-screen message will inform that the game is not available. Apart from this, if subscribers have scheduled a game that has been blacked out then GameSearch will find out the game in other channel and the game will be recorded automatically. GameSearch feature is delivered to subscribers for free of cost.
DVR Scheduler:
With the DVR Scheduler feature of DirecTV subscribers can set their DVRs to record their favorite programming from outside home using their mobile phones, PCs etc. Thus, they can catch all their favorite programming without a single miss.
Advanced Search:
Advanced Search enables subscribers to make a quick search of availability of a TV program such as game or show. They can search for their desired program by Title, Person, Channel or other Keywords. This helpful feature works for both DirecTV on Demand and general program guide searches.
Sports Programming in Dish Network:
Dish Network delivers subscribers a number of different sports packages. The sports packages available for subscribers of this satellite TV provider include MLS Direct Kick, NHL Center Ice, Fox Soccer Plus, ESPN GamePlan, ESPN Full Court, NBA League Pass, Multi Sport and Zee Sports. Dish Network satellite TV service provides subscribers a total of 8 sports packages. Pay-per-view options are available for number of sports. WWE and UFC games are available as Dish Network Pay-per-view.
Dish Network possess many advanced features such as Parental Control, Dish Remote Access etc. But features helpful while watching sports programming are not available much in number.
Comparison of Sports Programming of DirecTV and Dish:
- DirecTV delivers more than 10 sports programming packages to subscribers. But Dish Network delivers around 8 sports programming packages to subscribers.
- DirecTV delivers 3 sports packages exclusively available only in their service in the entire United States. The three packages are namely NFL Sunday Ticket, NASCAR Hotpass and MLB EXtra Innings. Dish Network do not possess these three packages though subscribers can access MLB Extra Innings games in certain chgannels of the service.
- DirecTV broadcasts extensive coverage of Grand Slam tournaments of Tennis and Golf to subscribers in different channels. They also provide bonus channels for extensive broadcast of these tournaments. But Dish Network do not deliver subscribers wide coverage of these tournaments. Subscribers of Dish Network can catch these tournaments only on certain channels such as The Tennis Channel.
- With DirecTV, subscribers can have an enhanced viewing of different sports events via DirecTV’s advanced features. Subscribers can use feature such as GameSearch, Advanced Search, ScoreGuide and many more. But in Dish Network, subscribers do not have such features. Many features such as DVR Schedular are there in Dish network but lots of other advanced features are not available in the service.
- In DirecTV cricket fans can access the sports package namely CricketTicket package. This sports package brings subscribers a huge array of cricket broadcasts from round the world. In Dish Network subscribers can do access cricket matches in number of channels but there is no package solely dedicated to cricket.
From explanation above it is thus noticed that DirecTV provides extensive coverage of different sports than Dish Network. This satellite TV provider provides subscribers with more package and variety of sports programming than Dish Network. DirecTV provides many advanced features for sports programming and these features enhance subscribers’ TV viewing experience. Features like GameSearch, ScoreGuide etc are utterly useful while watching different games. Dish Network’s subscribers do not enjoy using many such features. Thus, it is noticed that DirecTV edges Dish Network when sports programming is concerned. According to DirecTV they are the leader in sports programming in the United States.