I personally LOVE that we have a big break in October so we can focus on our last games of CCL Group play. I bet Kreis was very pleased with the scheduling in that regard. Though, when do the first games of CCL action start? August?
Yes, he was very pleased with the break in October. I took a photo of him the moment he found out: Then he found out that RSL has to play Seattle and LA twice each on the road - that made him very very angry. I took another photo at that time: At that point, Jeff Cassar pinched off a really loud air biscuit...totally hilarious moment. Here's Kreis right after it happened: The many faces of Jason Kreis...
I went through the schedule and tallied up the number of nationally televised games each team had. Below are the results: NYRB - 21 LA Galaxy - 18 Chicago Fire - 14 Philadelphia Union - 14 Chivas USA - 12 DC United - 12 FC Dallas - 12 Houston Dynamo - 12 Portland Timbers - 12 Seattle Sounders - 12 Colorado Rapids - 9 Sporting KC - 7 San Jose - 6 Columbus Crew - 4 New England - 4 Real Salt Lake - 4 Toronto FC - 2 Vancouver - 1 Montreal - 0 Total # of games for WC teams - 86 Total # of games for EC teams - 90 A couple of observations: 1- LA won the cup, and yet NY still gets more televised games. I would've thought it would be the other way around. 2 - Colorado has terrible home attendance, and yet they get 9 games. Only 3 are at home, but even that is too many. 3 - Montreal doesn't have a single US TV fixture. I'm sure they have plenty of coverage with a Canadadian TV deal, but I find it odd that the expansion team isn't shown once in the US. 4 - RSL was the runner up in the WC, took 2nd in the CCL, took 3rd in the league, and we are the 4th lowest in national TV appearances. I understand the small market, but wouldn't it be better to show an entertaining soccer team more than a mediocre or bruiser type team? 5 - DC United and Chivas didn't make the playoffs last year, and they both get 12 appearances. WTF? Same with Chicago and they get 14. I know most of this is rehashed and the same as last year, but what does RSL have to do to increase their coverage?
Okay, so I was reading the schedule thread in N&A, and I was wondering WTH? at the injustice of 4 nationally televised games for what is some of the best-looking soccer in MLS, and started putting something together. We've been hearing about a new TV deal, and now we have very few nationally televised games, home or non, and I wondered: What's going on here? I wonder if the new TV deal is with BYUtv. (Cue booing and pitchforks.) But it does make some sort of sense--national market, HD truck, HD facilities at both the broadcast center and the Riot, some connection between the owners of BYUtv and RSL. I'd take it over four games on NBC Sports Network; I'd have to mute (and or black out) the commercials, probably (and I'm Mormon), but I do that with the incessant Gatorade/Dick's Sporting Goods/adidas commercials on most MLS broadcasts anyway. If that's not the case, though, how do we explain the shaft from the national market? Is there another national deal in the works?
Move to St. Louis? This year we still got plenty of coverage via the CCL. With these games still on FSC, we'll add those in as well. Re LA: I imagine their mega-contract with the regional broadcaster mandates X number of exclusive broadcasts, therefore limiting the possible number of national broadcasts.
Looks like the Ismitjes will make two away games - at Seattle in July, and at Vancouver in August. No trips planned to the RioT in 2012, though.
Kreis has at least one more face: we saw it when that guy from the Panama national diving team took one in the juevos. also, I must spread rep IBIK. well played
Re: RSL Offseason News Thread 2011-12 Beat me to it. I posted a similar post in the 2012 schedule thread. Yours is better. One thing to note, Montreal isn't on a US national broadcast once this year. Their website says all games will be televised in Canada, but after looking through the full schedule I didn't see them once. But, I could've missed them...
The RSL Twitter feed complained about the lack of coverage as well (Trey runs it if IIRC), so I don't think a new TV deal will have national reach like BYUtv.
Re: RSL Offseason News Thread 2011-12 so now that the schedule is unbalanced, what is the liklihood that we'll change the playoff format to one that would have made sense in a balanced schedule? This meaning, instead of keeping the conferences this year in the playoffs they just ditch that and say "top 8/10 teams get in"? Wouldn't put it past the league to do that...
Re: RSL Offseason News Thread 2011-12 They announced that at the MLS Cup match, right?From the press release on MLSSoccer.com
Re: RSL Offseason News Thread 2011-12 I blame all the damn typos in the website schedule, i hope whoever put that thing on the RSL website was either extremely drunk or 5 years old, because its awful.
I bet if you took the cities MLS represents and listed them from largest to smallest, it would closely mimic the list you made. Broadcast moguls don't care who plays attractive soccer. They don't care who are the better teams. They don't care who did what in CONCACAF (hell, they don't know or care what CONCACAF is). They care about exactly one thing: Number of TV sets.
Yup, its bullshit, but the only thing that puts $$$$ in their pockets is more TV sets tuned into what they are broadcasting. RSL is in the smallest market in the league and gets some of the weakest ratings. If the league was smart they would have pushed for every RSL away game they could have gotten (already 3 of our 4 "national tv games" are away). The only reason I, personally, dont care so much about this is that there will be few games that are blacked out to me on matchday live without the threat of me not being able to watch on tv (I actually dont know if I have the new NBC Sports channel).
Ahhh, I see, well then I'm happy I should be able to watch every RSL game without needing some crappy pirated internet stream.
I went back through and added the populations (I used the Metro populations provided on Wikipedia). Here's what I found: Team - # of Games - Population NYRB - 21 - 18,897,109 LA Galaxy - 18 - 15,250,000 Chicago Fire - 14 - 9,461,343 Philadelphia Union - 14 - 5,965,343 Chivas USA - 12 - 15,250,000 DC United - 12 - 5,580,000 FC Dallas - 12 - 6,477,315 Houston Dynamo - 12 - 5,946,800 Portland Timbers - 12 - 2,260,000 Seattle Sounders - 12 - 3,439,809 Colorado Rapids - 9 - 2,552,195 Sporting KC - 7 - 2,035,335 San Jose - 6 - 1,975,342 Columbus Crew - 4 - 1,836,536 New England - 4 - 4,522,858 Real Salt Lake - 4 - 1,124,197 Toronto FC - 2 - 5,113,149 Vancouver - 1 - 2,116,581 Montreal - 0 - 3,635,571 For the more part, IBIK is right. It's amazing how much smaller SLC is than the other markets. CBus is 700k people larger. Incredible. I've known we were the smallest, but I've never checked the numbers before. I'll go ahead and retract my complaint about our lack of coverage...
For some reason it blows my mind that Portland has twice the population SLC does. In terms of geographical area, Portland just doesnt seem twice as big as SLC in my head. Downtown Portland itself definitely is several times larger than SLC, but stretching out into the burbs, SLC just seems to extend forever while Portland isnt as extreme. Guess thats the difference, high population density for Portland.
From a perspective of population of metro area divided by number of games, RSL and Colorado is getting similar and decent treatment. Second best in the league. Portland is in a league of its own, however. So, I suspect that some of the decision making took into account documented TV audience for watching games. Code: [FONT=Courier New]Team # of Games Population Population/Game Portland Timbers 12 2,260,000 188,333 Real Salt Lake 4 1,124,197 281,049 Colorado Rapids 9 2,552,195 283,577 Seattle Sounders 12 3,439,809 286,651 Sporting KC 7 2,035,335 290,762 San Jose 6 1,975,342 329,224 Philadelphia Union 14 5,965,343 426,096 Columbus Crew 4 1,836,536 459,134 DC United 12 5,580,000 465,000 Houston Dynamo 12 5,946,800 495,567 FC Dallas 12 6,477,315 539,776 Chicago Fire 14 9,461,343 675,810 LA Galaxy 18 15,250,000 847,222 NYRB 21 18,897,109 899,862 New England 4 4,522,858 1,130,715 Chivas USA 12 15,250,000 1,270,833 Vancouver 1 2,116,581 2,116,581 Toronto FC 2 5,113,149 2,556,575[/FONT]
Don't forget, guys, when comparing metro areas, you need to look at CSA's and other nearby MSA's as well. SLC is 1.2 million, but combined with Ogden MSA (to make the SLC CSA and pre 2000, this was the actual metro area), it goes up to 1.7 million. Add in Provo/Orem and you are over 2.3 million. For whatever reason, the Census decided to make the SLC MSA basically just SL County. Also, MSA numbers aren't the numbers tv people look at. They look at TV market size, and with that, SLC is pretty much the exact same size as KC and Columbus.
Sorry late to the party, but did I miss the announcement of local broadcasts? I am thinking this year not having Direct Kick will be bad for a RSL fan. No? And did you guys catch this genius article by Lalas on MLSsoccer.com? My fav part was this: April 7: Real Salt Lake vs. Colorado Rapids — The Rocky Mountain Cup kicks off early in ‘12. And RSL, who don’t have to worry about CCL action or anything else in the first part of the season, will be on a mission to regain their status as top dogs in the Rockies and the West. Will the Rapids’ new coach be up for the venom that comes with this rivalry? Pretty sure we have been on top the of the Rockies for 4+ straight years... ugh.
DMA's are what the TV folks look at - basically it's the # of households with TV's. But anyway you look at it, we're at the bottom of the list in MLS.