Tottenham preseason matches to be live-streamed on B/R Live in USA

There’s good news and bad news if you’re a Tottenham Hotspur supporter wanting to watch the club play in the preseason.

The good news is that Tottenham’s preseason match schedule has been finalized, with the club announcing a new friendly against recently relegated Watford at Vicarage Road on Saturday, September 5. The match against Watford joins three other previously announced friendlies all held at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, which makes the schedule as follows:

• vs. Ipswich Town, this Saturday, 10 am ET/3 pm BST
• vs. Reading, Fri. August 28, 10 am ET/3 pm BST
• vs. Birmingham City, Sat. August 29, 10 am ET/3 pm BST
• at Watford, Sat. September 5, 10 am ET/3 pm BST

The club also announced yesterday that preseason matches will all be streamed on the club’s new N17 Live streaming platform. Streaming access will be free for season ticket holders and One Hotspur members, and other supporters will be able to purchase an all-match streaming pass for £20, or £10 for individual matches.

That sounds great, and it’s fantastic that Spurs are finally implementing a streaming service, something which has been very long overdue. However, now comes the bad news. Buried in the fine print is this:

*Spurs TV streaming service available in Australia, Canada, Cyprus, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Iceland, Italy, Republic of Ireland, Japan, Malta, New Zealand, Portugal, Russia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Switzerland and United Kingdom. Information on broadcasters showing the matches in other territories will be confirmed in due course.

Guess which prominent country with a lot of Tottenham Hotspur fans isn’t included in that list? OK, yes, China. But also the United States. Crapsticks.

UPDATE: Keen-eyed Carty-Free reader Clark (clark p on the site) emailed me a little while ago to let me know he discovered that, actually, all of Tottenham’s preseason matches will be streamed in the United States on Bleacher Report Live. This includes tomorrow’s friendly match against Ipswich Town. Thanks, Clark!

I’m not sure how I missed this, but last fall Tottenham entered into an agreement with Turner Sports, B/R’s parent company, to stream Spurs TV content on the B/R Live platform. This apparently extends to preseason matches streamed on N17 Live, and is why USA was specifically excluded from the list of countries that can access NC17 Live content.

It’s a paid platform, as you probably recall from watching Champions League matches on B/R the past couple of years. However, you can get a month’s access for $9.99 and cancel after the last pre-season game ends. $10 is still cheaper than the £20 that Tottenham is charging non-season ticket holders to stream the matches, and even the £10 that they’re charging for one single a la carte match.

So hooray for American ingenuity! And let’s go Tottenham Hotspur!