Obviously LA v. SJ deserves its own weekend. So we get CUSA, which is more of a weekend pickup game than a rivalry.
anybody know why Barcelona is tagged at the bottom of the announcement on mlssoccer.com http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/artic...occer-schedule-released-complete-rivalry-week
The bizarre thing is, both Colorado @ Portland games are on NBC Sports. San Jose @ Portland I can see, LA @ Portland I can see, but double Colorado?
SUM previously had a US marketing or some such deal with Barca. Maybe that will be re-upped. Or maybe Barca is a likely participant in the WFC or whatever is on deck for a summer SUM friendly series. Or maybe that Barca tag is just a remnant of some old HTML template and no longer means anything.
Why NY games on national tv? Why does MLS want team20 in NYC? That's where a lot of people (and potential consumers) are located. Media companies and entertainment businesses generally try to play/showcase content that will attract the most viewers/listeners/fans. The below is the radio market listing, but it is comparable to the tv DMAs and representative of market populations. http://www.arbitron.com/home/mm001050.asp Market Code* Rank ▾ Type Freq. Market Metro 12+ Population DST Hispanic 12+ Population** Black 12+ Population*** 001 1 PPM 13 New York† 15,867,400 BH 3,687,600 2,682,000 003 2 PPM 13 Los Angeles 11,044,200 BH 4,669,100 779,700 005 3 PPM 13 Chicago† 7,878,800 BH 1,564,000 1,367,800 009 4 PPM 13 San Francisco† 6,264,600 BH 1,408,000 437,200 024 5 PPM 13 Dallas-Ft. Worth† 5,431,900 BH 1,437,100 852,700 033 6 PPM 13 Houston-Galveston 5,126,200 BH 1,749,800 890,900 015 7 PPM 13 Washington, DC† 4,635,000 BH 669,300 1,247,800 007 8 PPM 13 Philadelphia 4,517,800 BH 346,300 932,800 047 9 PPM 13 Atlanta 4,385,000 BH 458,600 1,496,500 013 10 PPM 13 Boston† 4,082,100 BH 372,600 299,100 429 11 PPM 13 Miami-Ft. Lauderdale-Hollywood† 3,781,100 BH 1,927,200 777,800 011 12 PPM 13 Detroit† 3,760,200 B 134,700 839,300 039 13 PPM 13 Seattle-Tacoma† 3,538,100 BH 289,500 211,700
If the game is in SKC or Houston it will likely be full or nearly full. If the end of DC's season is any indication (and our home game schedule is also much much better for attendance this year), we could have lots of near-full capacity games, especially against good teams. As far as viewers watching the bouncing side, stands would be rocking and the atmosphere is great even if its not a sellout. Obviously showing Portland fans is awesome, but the other three stadiums and fans are no slouches on TV.
As I was reading the schedule announcement --i thought this line was very important As a Red Bull fan I just can't forget the horror of now fired GM Chris Heck insisting on scheduling a game in the middle of the day in the middle of one of the worst heatwaves NYC had ever experienced. It is forever remembered by the fans as the "Heat Bowl" and cost Heck his job just a few weeks later. No more of those types of fiascos. I like the summer schedule, but i've always thought common sense calls for evening/night games especially in places like NYC and Houston.
It was also a weekday, wasn't it? Attended by approximately 2 people? Both of which just happened to be walking by the stadium just before kickoff and were grabbed by stadium security and dragged into the stadium.
Yes it was during a weekday and the stadium was full of summer camp kids but precious few adults. At least management had the common sense to put the kids in the roof shaded seats. However the heat index was extremely dangerous and we were lucky a player didnt collapse on the field. Henry was very angry after the game.
MLS did not do a very good job avoiding the FIFA international dates this year although they did avoid having MLS teams play on the same day as the US national team. The March and September windows were pretty much ignored with almost full league slates stuck in between the qualifiers. FIFA international match days, March 22-26 Friday, March 22 - 3 CONCACAF qualifiers Saturday, March 23 - 7 MLS games Sunday, March 24 - 1 MLS game Tuesday, March 26 - 3 CONCACAF qualifiers FIFA international match days, June 7-11 Friday, June 7 - 3 CONCACAF qualifiers Saturday, June 8 - 4 MLS games Tuesday, June 11 - 3 CONCACAF qualifiers FIFA international match days, June 14-18 Saturday, June 15 - 5 MLS games Tuesday, June 18 - 2 CONCACAF qualifiers Wednesday, June 19 - 4 MLS games FIFA international match days, September 6-10 Friday, September 6 - 3 CONCACAF qualifiers Saturday, September 7 - 6 MLS games Sunday, September 8 - 3 MLS games Tuesday, September 10 - 3 CONCACAF qualifiers FIFA international match days, October 11-15 Friday, October 11 - 3 CONCACAF qualifiers Saturday, October 12 - 3 MLS games Sunday, October 13 - 1 MLS game Tuesday, October 15 - 3 CONCACAF qualifiers
If they were to adhere, you would have FIVE dead Saturdays in the whole season. It's not good to leave weekend dates on the table, especially because that would mean those dates would be sprinkled in to the weekdays, and, as we all know Saturday dates draw much better than weeknight dates. It's all just a matter of asses in the seats.
I'm 99% sure you're joking, but given that this is MLS we're talking about, I wouldn't be surprised. ------RM
I'll give you one thing. MLS has a lot of weekend games this year. There are 35 weekends in the regular season. Those Friday-Sundays have 290 of the 323 total games. Add in the 8 games on July 3-4 and you have 92% of games on a weekend or holiday. That's a lot more than last year. 23 weekends of the 35 total have the maximum of 9 games. Every weekend after July 20-21 has the full complement of 9 games except the semi-break on the weekend of October 12-13 which only has 4.
Yes. It's a good way for MLS to avoid scheduling a lot of mid-week games (with FIFA's use of Fri/Tues windows and MLS playing on those Sa/Su in between in 2013). In many ways it is "all just a matter of asses in the seats" -- yet the challenge becomes that the on-field product that those asses get to witness in MLS venues on those "FIFA weekend" dates will be MLS rosters that are (somewhat or very) depleted by NT call-ups during those FIFA periods. I can certainly see why MLS made the decision to schedule as they did (and "eliminate" the need for heavy use of Wednesdays) -- but it comes with the cost of a diminished product when MLS is playing games without NT level players. From another perspective, MLS is using those 4-5 "FIFA weekends" as dates in the regular season that allow the season to end at a reasonable date and still leave a month available for post-season playoffs.
So what's more important: Having revenue driven down for 5 days because you're playing on a Wednesday, or losing one, maybe two players from your team for 5 days, but still playing on Saturday? My guess is the latter.
My guess is that your guess is right, in the short-term business analysis of it. (Although, what's the actual revenue hit for playing on a Wed relative to a Sa/Su in this day and age of MLS? How many fewer tickets sold is MLS seeing there, on average?) But in the long term, and if MLS wants to grow and improve into a league that does have (and can attract) more and more NT level players, it's not doing itself any favors, imo, by playing and showcasing itself as a product when those NT-quality players are away from their clubs. There's no easy or clean or right answer. As both issues -- mid-week dates and conflicts with FIFA windows -- create complexities and drawbacks, imo. "losing one, maybe two players from your team for 5 days" is not a "huge issue" (as isolated incidents but if it happens four or five times for some specific team across a 34-game season, that's a bigger deal) -- and there have been instances when MLS squads have lost four or more called-up NT players (I think NYRB set the record once with like 8 or 9 players away on NT duty at one time) for some specific league game(s).
Has anyone else noticed that all the reports say that NBC Sports will show 3 game on Rivalry Week, but the schedule shows 4 games. New York vs DC United - NBC 12:30 ET Sporting KC vs Chicago - NBCSN 3:00 ET Salt Lake vs Colorado - NBCSN 5:30 ET Seattle vs Portland - NBCSN 9:00 ET