World Soccer Weekly and Landon Donovan

[NEKSoccer]

Seems that the hosts of "World Soccer Weekly" on the radio were not happy at all last night (Monday, 4/28). Apparently, they had booked Landon Donovan to appear on the show and had advertised his appearance, but he never called in. The hosts complained because they had access to cell phone numbers for David Moyes, Arsene Wenger, Frank Lampard, but they claim that they are not allowed to gain access to the numbers of certain MLS players. I believe that this was the league's doing because they said that they were going to complain to MLS. They were quick to add, however, that the LA Galaxy were very good to them in delivering their players for the weekly Monday night broadcasts.

If the league, or some entity within it is depriving these guys with the info they need to contact players, then this is terrible PR (actually, it is regardless of who is responsible) because the league and American players NEED publicity and should not deny it to anyone willing to give the league some exposure! Your thoughts?

[Merengue]

And I thought MLS is always promoting how media friendly their players are! I don't know the entire story there but it seems strange that they wouldn't allow a legitimate media outlet to directly contact their players.

[harttbeat]

are u two the hosts?

i am playin' but i am disappointed at Landon...

Hopefully he makes it up to those guyz.

[Ringo]

landon's coaches (yallop and arena) each said he needs to scale this sort of thing back and he said he was going to. but if he said he would, he should've i guess. that said, you might want to cut the guy some slack. he might have a very good reason for not calling in. do you know why he didn't call? if not, get off his case.

[whirlwind]

Heck, if Jim Rome gets situations where guests bail out or postpone, it shouldn't surprise you that it happens to shows that don't draw a million listeners.

Always have a plan B.

[_chachi]

Originally posted by NEKSoccer
Your thoughts?

i think you should get both sides of the story before you go ripping on landon, mls, and who ever else you want to bitch at. any number of things could have happened. maybe landon just plain forgot. maybe he was confused on the date. maybe he had an emergency.

[NEKSoccer]

Originally posted by _chachi
i think you should get both sides of the story before you go ripping on landon, mls, and who ever else you want to bitch at. any number of things could have happened. maybe landon just plain forgot. maybe he was confused on the date. maybe he had an emergency.

You're right. Maybe I am jumping the gun on this. But I can tell you that the hosts were not happy. I really don't know if the league was to blame, or it was a player agent, or what. The hosts were mad not at Donovan (and I'm not blaming LD for anything), but at whoever it was that was not allowing them to directly contact the players. I should have qualified my opening statement in that it was my understanding of the situation and was not etched in stone. My guess is that the radio people were forced to make the arrangement with a third party and that LD never found out. This is why the hosts were complaining about the lack of direct access to players for interviews. They said they had direct numbers to Arsene Wenger, David Moyes, and Frank Lampard, but it was ridiculous that they could not access certain domestically based players. My apologies if my assertions were out of line.

[NEKSoccer]

Actually, I don't think that the league was to blame in this case at all because the hosts said that they were going to go talk to MLS. I do not know which go-betweens were involved. But lack of direct access to players is frustrating them.

[PZ]

Why would Landon or his agent agree to do the interview if there was a chance he wasn't going to show? The minimum he (Landon's agent) could have done was call Nick and Steve sometime before the show and give them some excuse as to why he wasn't going to show. That didn't happen and it looks very unprofessional.

[NEKSoccer]

Originally posted by PZ
Why would Landon or his agent agree to do the interview if there was a chance he wasn't going to show? The minimum he (Landon's agent) could have done was call Nick and Steve sometime before the show and give them some excuse as to why he wasn't going to show. That didn't happen and it looks very unprofessional.
You are right, it does look unprofessional. Why they have to go through an agent is what I want to know! How can they have direct access to big time players and coaches overseas, but not OUR players (save for most of the Galaxy players)?

[DennisM]

There's a blurb about Landon in this week's TV Guide with a listing for the MLS match this week right below it. Also the PPV EPL match is listed on the PPV sports events page with a photo if I remember right.