Exactly!
It's always funny when people who don't know what the fück they're talking about open their big gobs.
Here in Sweden we started watching English football November 29 1969, to be precise.
This is from Wiki:
"Tipsextra was the name of the football broadcasts on Saturdays that SVT (Swedish Television) broadcasted to Sweden from the UK from 29 November 1969 to 18 March 1995. Almost all the matches were from England's top division. The season 1986/1987, attempts were made with broadcasts from the West German Bundesliga. In such a broadcast was a vote if the viewers preferred that, or English football, which resulted in a clear predominance of the latter.
Football Broadcasts from England to Sweden became a reality on Nov. 29, 1969.
In 1967 the Swedish reporter Lars-Gunnar Bjorklund (Director of Sport at Swedish Radio/TV in Gothenburg), went to England to do a program about fox hunting. After only one day there he was forced to suspend filming, when all fox hunting in the UK was suspended due to foot-and-mouth disease in the UK.
He then went and watched the football game in London between Tottenham Hotspur FC and Chelsea FC. Bjorklund realized that English football matches would be possible to show on Swedish Television, because it was not cultivated to play football in Sweden on Saturdays at this time, Sweden remained in place until Sunday, while Saturday was the most common day of play in England. Tipsextra did not compete with the Swedish first division "Allsvenskan" as Tipsextra exclusively aired from mid November to late March. Because conditions were similar in Denmark and Norway, Lars-Gunnar issued up with their Scandinavian colleagues. Swedish Radio/TV succeeded, together with DR and NRK to buy broadcasting rights from ITV for $ 1,500 per game. Swedish Radio/TV's share was $ 850 per game. Normally Tipsextra ended the season with the League Cup Final from Wembley.
The very first game of the Tipsextra show was Wolverhampton Wanderers FC against Sunderland AFC (Wolves won 1-0).
Tipsextra appeared, apart from the FA Cup final round in May, just from November to March, when there was no football season in Sweden. Some Swedish clubs were opponents of televised football to Sweden from other countries during the winter on the ground that it would take the audience from football in Sweden in the spring. During Björklund's time at Tipsextra, the program would become very popular and drew 33 to 35 percent of the Swedish viewers! The program has increased the interest in English football in Sweden.
In England, you could not see league football on TV until 16 December 1983, when "Match of the Day" came, as it was previously feared that the audience would stay home if the matches were broadcasted on TV.
SVT opted in 1995 not to continue the show Tipsextra, and from the 1995/1996 season the broadcasting was overtaken by TV 4 under the name Tip Saturday.
In their day the Tipsextra show had full attention from all the viewers in Sweden each and every winter Saturday. This had been very difficult to get today as there are now lots of TV channels showing several games a week from different countries throughout the year. The program then worked in Sweden often as a symbol of football broadcasts on television.
On November 28, 2009 were sent a 40:th anniversary on Swedish Television, among other things they broadcasted the match between Manchester United FC and West Bromwich Albion FC from the 1978/1979 season. The match took place on Dec. 30, 1978 and West Bromwich Albion FC won 5-3. Just after that match Tipsextra broadcasted the match Manchester City FC - Hull City FC from the Premier League 2009/2010."
Yeah that about sums up how the English football came to be one of the most viewed sports in Sweden ever since 1969.
By the way: Had The Premier League started back then?
