I think most of us are feeling a whole lot of despair. However, I was struck by this article in The Athletic. One of the amazing things about MLS is that with enough money and a front office wizard a team can re-build itself fairly quickly: https://theathletic.com/1171664/201...ng-front-office-structures/?source=dailyemail
Has everyone paid for The Athletic? I see people posting their stories fairly frequently, but every one I click on is behind a paywall.
I believe (from what people have said, anyway) that the content is that good. And I'm not at all opposed to paying for access to stuff -- they gotta pay the bills somehow, after all. I haven't signed on to the Athletic because it seems like there's already 18 billion websites I'm individually paying for access to that I'm probably not reading/using as much as I wish or could.
Seriously. Off the top of my head, my family pays for: Spotify, ESPN, Hulu, Netflix, Sirius, Amazon, Microsoft, Apple. I'm sure I'm missing a few at least. People can talk all they want about how great the Athletic is but I want to slice off services, not add them.
So, my sentiments exactly. Its my main point of frustration, that more and more things I/the family watch are going behind a paywall while the cable bill keeps climbing. I am over due to tune down the Fios plan. I was max platinum whatever before because it included access to all the streams from Disney, ESPN, BeIn, Fox Sports, etc, etc, etc. Now with all those channels replacing the content I wanted with BS programming like Corn Hole championships, cliff diving and downhill combat skiing I think I need to reallocate my spend. I've been buying the EPL on NBC Sports the last 3 years, although it quietly jumped from $50 to $65 this year, The Athletic and Amazon Prime, although I only bought it for the Grand Tour and have been pleasantly pleased with my savings at Whole Foods that has more than made up the cost of Prime, thats well more than a wash in my favor. Disney+ coming with ESPN will be a big one in my house. At this point, I will will prolly tune Fios down to the lowest plan that comes with basic sports and the trash my wife watches on Bravo.
YouTube TV gets most stations, BEing TV an exception. So many of DCUs games are blacked out, and the coverage so bad, I've given up on watching games not part of a national broadcast. I combine Amazon prime, with Acorn TV, Masterpiece theatre, and my total bill is $75/mont exclusive of internet service.
And yet to see what I want I need Hank's, Ralph's, Jerry's, Stan's, Marty's and Sarah's streaming service. At $9.95 per service. Each with different technical specs. That sounds like Nirvana.
Interesting My main takeaway was a feeling of emptiness thinking about how little DC has changed in the time that so many clubs have completely reinvented themselves (or in the case of expansion teams, invented themselves from scratch) All these other teams have found talent that is capable of fighting for championships. Meanwhile DC is sticking to their guys and unlikely to change because they don't have to. We take the kind of gambles that FC Cincy tried and are reaping the poor results year after year