Game: FC Dallas vs Minnesota United FC Date: Saturday, August 18th Time: 7:00 PM [CST] Location: Toyota Stadium, Frisco, Texas, United States of America Weather Forecast: Partly Cloudy; H 97, L 78 Competition: Major League Soccer Last 5 For Opponent: D-L-L-W-W Live TV: FCDallas.com/live [DFW] | Fox Sports North Plus [Minnesota] | ESPN+ [Out of Market] Delayed TV: KTXA-21 (10:00 pm CST) [DFW] Radio: FCDallas.com/radio [English] | KFLC 1270 AM La Voz del Pueblo [Spanish] Pretty must-win for many reasons.
I personally have thought that all the chatter from lazy media folks about "IS THIS A REPEAT OF 2017?" has been stupid. FCD has lost two in a row, the second of which was a hard fought road loss in a place where they've lost something like 73 games in a row. If they don't get a win tonight in Fortress Frisco against the Loons, I might consider that talk a little less stupid. BTW, I'm disappointed that FCD's TV partner is showing the game tape-delayed, but let's see what they're showing instead... ...oh. So this is what we get because FCD is on a CBS owned & operated station. CBS 11 is showing the Cowboys preseason game, so TXA 21 gets the CBS Saturday night schedule, and FCD gets tape-delayed. I get why that is, but holy crap, let's not act like that any OTA network's Saturday night schedule is a ratings juggernaut that MUST have priority over a live FCD game, especially when you're moving it to another channel. I hope that FCD's getting a good deal from CBS 11/TXA 21.
The hoops will not make it three in a row tonight. In fact, they will set a team record for goals scored in a regular season match! You heard it here first!
Welp, the 2 hour 40 minute delay was annoying and the rainfall was insane but it was worth it in the end. Badji was mostly quiet but Aranguiz was all over the place, causing Minnesota lots of problems. He still needs to sharpen up (some bad passes in the early stages) but Pareja definitely undersold his potential impact on 2018.
It should be noted, CBS likely has obligations to those syndicated shows to air them within a time window. I have no doubt in their contract with FCD, it explicitly states the games can be tape delayed as other obligations conflict. Those shows regularly get as good or better ratings than the FCD games. All of this complaining really has demonstrated to me the general public just doesn't understand how little audience these games get. It's generally well less than 10K. sometimes, so little, they don't even garner a rating. I used to be a up front advocate for a OTA broadcast, but in 2018, I'm not sure there isn't a more progressive outlet for FCD and MLS games. The ROI from these broadcasts, in my simple business math mind, just don't seem to be worth it.
The difference between HSG and the owners of let's say "more relevant teams" is that HSG won't usually spend money on things where there's not a clear ROI, while those other owners will. TBH, the fact that HSG pays to televise all of FCD's games on an OTA channel is pretty impressive in itself.
I applaud them for having games on an easy to find over the air channel. Hopefully it plants seeds for long term care. Arranguiz is pretty impressive. He has a wicked curl with his right foot, can dribble and shoot near the box with either foot and can may key passes. I hope he take Pomykal under his wing and encourages him. Was Unkel in the Goonies? He looks like Sloth.
I'm not sure OTA is the right way to go. making the games available live and on demand via streaming outlets would be cheaper, and frankly, reach those who the club cares most about long term. The people watching today on OTA are those who only care enough to watch on TV and have no plans on buying tickets. EPL and EFL is powered by blackouts, as was the NFL until not too long ago.
I could not disagree more strongly. OTA has pretty much zero upfront cost. Buy a set of rabbit ears, attach a wire clothes hanger, or whatever, plug it into your TV, and you can watch the game. There is literally no better way for the team to make itself accessible to the maximum number of people around the area. Meanwhile, streaming services require a high-speed internet connection and a monthly fee for whatever streaming. Even the teams that have partnered with streaming services for their local TV coverage (save for the chronically mismanaged Fire) also put their games on local OTA channels to reach the maximum number of fans. When NBC, Fox, Univision, and Telemundo are putting soccer on OTA channels on a regular basis, why should FCD retreat from OTA and go streaming exclusively? It is literally the TV equivalent of putting your team in a stadium next to a toll road in suburb half an hour from downtown.
LAFC simulcasts their local telecasts in Spanish OTA on the local UniMas affiliate, so YouTube is not quite an exclusive.
The $40K per broadcast averaging maybe 7K viewers. do the math. There is nothing the OTA offering is proving out to be beneficial in creating a fanbase for the club. in fact attendance is slightly down since this deal. My feeling about this is early, but once 5G is here an established, everyone will have big bandwidth everywhere and the numbers of target audience for MLS will almost exclusively turn to streaming. Overwatch finale (eSports) was broadcast on ESPN to great fanfare. It got terrible ratings. It absolutely killed and got Super Bowl like numbers on Twitch. I admit my suggestion here is premature, but the future is near.
En Español might be the way to go for FC Dallas en televisión. I gotta say, I'm pretty impressed with our new #10. I went to sleep before the game kicked off, but the highlights were all the new guy (not Badji... there were none of him).
I would miss broadcasts on TXA 21 or the cable networks if HSG decided not to do them anymore. Even if I go to the game, I record it so I can watch it again when I get home to see replays. After waiting out the lightning delay with my old friend beer, I somehow wound up playing a drum in El Matador. You're REALLY close to the game down there, but when the action is at the other end you don't see much. It would have been nice to record that one, though my DVR would have missed it with the delayed start. Screw the swoon! I can't find it now, but FCD posted a cool video of them killing time during the delay. It was on the FCD website yesterday. It might still be on their Twitter. Ulloa traded headers with every guy on the team plus some of the staff, working his way around the locker room until the last guy chested the ball into a garbage can.
Still heavy rain in the area. 🌧 Meanwhile back in the FCD locker room...trash can challenge skills 💯#FCDvMIN | #ChallengeAll pic.twitter.com/3L1UpBUsDk— FC Dallas (@FCDallas) August 19, 2018
Correlation ≠ causation. My feeling is that a lot of people greatly overestimate how evenly the bandwidth is distributed in this country. There are a lot of places in this country without high-speed internet, and you don’t have to go very far from the major and medium-sized metropolitan areas to find them. And even if you’re one of the vast majority of people who live in a place where high speed internet is available, it can be relatively expensive because the rates are kept high by the fact that most places have at most two providers, who are usually the local telco and the local cable monopoly. The availability of LTE wireless drops off very quickly once you get outside of cities and away from interstate highways, and it is still pretty expensive — look at how much you have to spend to get “unlimited” data. Yes, there are more people with access to more bandwidth at cheaper prices than, say, 10 or 20 years ago, when I was working in GSM and UMTS and the wireless data transfer rates were in the tens and hundreds of kbits a second. Will the technology continue to advance, and will that advancing technology eventually make more bandwidth available to more people? Sure. But I think we’re still 10 years away from the point where going streaming-only makes sense for a sport that’s still fighting for mass appeal. In other words, everyone’s got a TV, and the portion of people who can get most, if not all, of the full-power stations in DFW with rabbit ears is pretty high. Not nearly as many people have the bandwidth to watch streaming video... and have the hardware capable of putting that streaming video on a screen... and have a subscription to the right streaming service. If you’re telling me that FCD should do something similar to what LAFC does and stream their games at fcdallas.com for free for people in DFW with Messrs. Followill and Davis on the mic, and also put the games on Ch. 49 with Carlos Alvarado on the mic, then that’s something that’s interesting to me. But not having any sort of local OTA or cable broadcasts at this point in time? Nah.
Ever go to your favorite soccer bar and get them to put on a game that's only available on internet? I think I saw this done at Trinity Hall for one of the last Chile or Peru WC qualifiers, but man it's tough enough just getting my bar to find BeIN on their satellite package.
I thought that was now zero since they all went to HD TV. Think every needs that digital converter and a special type of rabbit ears. Your point is still sound as neither of those is very expensive and are one time charges. Felipe's point about a bar is also a really good point as who knows how many eyeballs are on games in bars and restaurants and yes I have seen them in multiple places but will admit I hang out in soccer friendly places.
The analog cutoff was almost a decade ago and pretty much every TV sold since then has a digital tuner built-in. And contrary to the marketing materials from the antenna manufacturers, any TV antenna is a digital TV antenna, since the digital channels are broadcast on the same VHF and UHF channels that the old analog channels were broadcast on. So slide on down to Target, pay $80 for TV and $11 for an antenna, and you're ready to watch FCD in you're in DFW.
You shall not force your overpriced, yuppy influence on me good sir. I will wallow with my kind over at wall mart and pay $79 and $10 for my soccer entertainment.