Earlier this week, the CSN TV sched showed the NE-DCU match, not once but twice, live and rebroadcast. Now, the match has been shifted to CSN+, with no rerun showing for plain CSN. Instead of DCU, plain CSN now plans to show expendable stuff during the 4p-6p slot.

I'm a Dish subscriber and I can't be the only DCU fan who doesn't get CSN+ -- or even have the option of getting it. I'm an out-of-market fan, but one of my sons lives in-market and doesn't get CSN+ because he's a customer of a cable system that's not CSN.

TV availability of DCU doesn't get any better down the road. The Montreal match is already listed for CSN+, and while later matches are listed for regular CSN, who knows whether they too won't be shifted to CSN+.

What is up with this diminishing availability of DCU matches on its local outlet? A while back, Goff posted an article that basically said DCU was buying game time on CSN this season. Is the team responsible for the shifts to CSN+ or is CSN responsible. Whatever, the shifts deny exposure to match-day advertisers. This doesn't seem like a good idea. It also reduces the pool of potential fans.

There are alternatives, of course. Fork out a pile of money for an MLS all-games package. Fine if you want all matches, but really all I want out of MLS -- beyond what's available on NBC/ESPN/Spanish channels -- is DCU. This amounts to turning my favorite MLS team into a pay-per-view item. I did this last season, and too many of the DCU matches were the opponents' feeds and in lo-def. I'm not doing it this year.

No DCU this summer? Well, there's always the European championships to fill the futball void until the Premier League resumes.