I enjoy the games myself as well. I just think it devalues the regional tournament to have versions that certain teams treat as secondary events. Would rather have one tournament every 4 years that all nations get up for. I also think that these "b" tournaments can be confusing to casual soccer fans open to becoming more hardcore soccer fans who don't immediately understand when we have an "a" team or "b" team on the field.
I think it's because the tournament relies pretty heavily on double headers to inflate ticket sales and save money. With Mexico in your group ticket sales weren't really going to be an issue. Also don't Southern Cal and Texas have pretty large Salvadoran populations?
Disappointing not to at least have the final available OTA. But as little long as they keep the games off of FS2, an entirely theoretical network for Comcast subscribers, I won't complain too much.
Majority of Salvadorians are in; D.C. - Virginia LA Houston Dallas New York San Francisco Atlanta Boston We are behind Mexicans, Cubans and Puerto Rican's, 4th biggest majority of hispánics, by now we should be more than than Puerto Rican's, second biggest soccer community after Mexicans. We have big communities in Canada, Australia and Italy as well. Last gold cup, we had a game in Canada with about 200 fans, dumbest decision ever by conacacaf, that game gets at least 40k in DC. Looks like the organizers of this tournament aren't very smart. El Salvador, México and the US shouldn't be in the same group, these are the fans that can draw more people but then again, the organizers are really dumb.
Normally I would agree, but do not have this channel anymore. However, it is on univision at 1:30 and again on Fx1 at 7:30.
Having the final on a Wednesday night for whatever reason makes at OTA final difficult. The 2013 final was on rabbit ears FOX if I remember right. I think that may have been the only one.
I have a Roku with Sling TV. I chose the Sling that has FoxSports 1 and 2, Univision and Unimas. I have an antenna that picks up local channels, but this does not include network Fox. However, I do not get ESPN unless I want to pay more.
Somehow empty Canada vs Martinique games in Puntarenas or an empty cricket field in St. George, Grenada in July don't really hold my attention.
Yeah, putting ESPN and Fox Sports on two different tiers is kind of a dick move. I have both plus the sports package and it has everything I need except local Fire games, because MLS still considers use of Sling to be "Streaming" and not "Cable".
Would be cool to rotate it among the USA, Mexico, and Canada for now. Eventually add joint Central American and Caribbean hosts spread out over a few nations.
MLS teams, for one. This tournament is played too often and it causes the league to lose tons of players. And if you believe that players do most of their development with clubs and that national team games are just about identifying players, then there is an argument that an excessive amount of call-ups actually HURTS development of the players as well. We (the US) simply play too many games. And this is coming from a guy who attends a fair amount of them.
Well that gets into another debate with the MLS playing through the summer. Also doesn't MLS take 2 weeks off for this tournament anyway? So it's only a couple games which is well worth getting a look at fringe NT players a year before a World Cup IMO
#USMNT: Guzan; Zusi, Gonzalez, Besler, Villafaña; McCarty, Acosta; Bedoya, Corona, Rowe; Dwyer. (Hedges, Arriola started vs Ghana) #USAvPAN— Steven Goff (@SoccerInsider) July 8, 2017
Allow me to propose another angle. With MLS playing thru some of the GC, it forces teams, in theory, to give younger players mins they otherwise might not get.
Maybe Mexico but any other country won't generate any money. USA, Mexico and El Salvador need to be in separate groups, this makes much more financial sense. A game between El Salvador and anybody that's no the US and Mexico will get a good crowd in any of the places mentioned above. Every 2 years is good for me, they just need to make sure they bring at least one star on each team.
MLS.com has Morrow starting . . https://matchcenter.mlssoccer.com/matchcenter/2017-07-08-us-mens-national-team-vs-panama/lineup