Broadcasting rights for NFL games from America

Another disgruntled NFL fan (Michael Busittil, November 20) has written and quoted a letter he received from Melita purporting to explain why NFL games aren't being shown as advertised. Are we to believe that the billion dollar enterprise that is the...

Another disgruntled NFL fan (Michael Busittil, November 20) has written and quoted a letter he received from Melita purporting to explain why NFL games aren't being shown as advertised.

Are we to believe that the billion dollar enterprise that is the National Football League has no problem with granting the rights to ESPNAmerica to show its games in virtually every country of Europe and the Middle East (check the website) but somehow balks at letting tiny Malta have the games? And that none of this has anything to do with Melita?

Why am I having flashbacks to the controversy of a few years ago when Champions' League fans, including me, were fed stories about "loss of broadcasting rights" when these games disappeared from Melita's Italian channels only to reappear on its (extra cost) sports channels.

Unlike virtually all other viewers of ESPNAmerica, we NFL fans in Malta get a watered down channel devoid of any NFL games and related programming.

What is left is "a little bit of everything, and a whole lot of nothing".

Does this smack of "bait and switch"? At best it is the Melita programming department "asleep at the switch".

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