From ussoccer.com: "We apologize for the technical difficulties. The hamster that powers our Apple 2e passed away last night due to a lengthy 'Oregon Trail' marathon. Since our Commadore 64 is also in for repairs, we will be unable to broadcast yesterday's match. But fear not soccer lovers, you will be able to watch the MEN'S TEAM on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN Classic, ESPN Deportes, ESPN the Ocho, Univision, Galavision, Telemundo, Fox Soccer Channel, and Gol TV. If you do not receive these channels with your provider, you can follow the match on a fully functioning MatchACCESS or ESPN360. Please pray for Fluffy the Hamster as she passes to the great beyond. She served the women's team honorably. Oh, and by the way, if you haven't caught on yet: stop trying to follow the USWNT. Can't you people get it: we don't care about this team or their fans. Go away!"
in fact, maybe we should creat it via facebook. There are over 2,500 members in the WPS group alone. There has to be some petition applicaiton on there. and nike has its own corporate network with all nike employees on there.
i purposely withheld any indepth comments until i saw the game. i especially wanted to see how canada played as compared to australia last week, and as compared to how north korea and brazil would pressure our passing out of the back. @#$%^&*(!!
http://www.nikebiz.com/ Nike of course has a site just for the WNT. The above link is to their business division. This site has a "Contact Us" link for emails.
As I was typing my letter to MatchAccess, I was thinking the same thing. Some kind of huge petition to the US Soccer Federation and sponsors to get more airtime for the women. Maybe start with those of us here, then take it to any youth and adult teams that would sign, and keep passing it around until we can get numbers behind a petition. Of course, the electronic idea is probably easier, but I don't know how to do that... The alternative is the status quo, and that is completely unacceptable.
A far better idea would be to look up the list of sponsors, go buy their products, then contact them with letters stating that you bought their products because of their support for the WNT. There is no entitlement for being able to watch sports on TV (or the internet). It all has to be paid for. Most of the time that is paid for by the various sponsors. Because they are business to make money for their investors, they spend their sponsorship dollars where they think they'll get a return on investment. It's the lesson of NASCAR. Make the investment worthwhile and you'll see more WNT games on TV in HiDef than you can shake a stick at. This isn't rocket science. It's commerce. Forget the petitions, forget the whiny "because I want it" crying, and open your wallet and break out those credit cards. It's that simple. Nothing is free - or deserved.
what about going the old fashion way? writting a letter? like the FREE HOPE SOLO thing.. Sunil Gulati, President United States Soccer 1801 South Prairie Avenue Chicago, IL 60616
Exactly Greez, we need to find a site, most are free and create the petition. Then we merely direct people to go to the site and sign it. At a minimum we should request names be given because sometimes they can be assigned anonymously and its not as convincing. people can also add comments to their signature. We could literally scour the Internet on facebook, myspace, all the boards like bs etc and direct people to sign it. We can then forward to whomever or some brave soul could print the dang thing and mail it. ( i kind of like the idea of a box full of some several thousand signatures. Since its relatively easy to sign i doubt we will have trouble obtaining signatures. People could also email their local clubs, leagues, etc to have them sign. It is the most practicable way to get the numbers we would need for them to actually even do anything.
http://www.gopetition.com/petitions/greater-football-soccer-media-exposure-in-australia.html This is a similar petition in Aus. How does the petition get spread from there?
i think having people include the estimated amount of soccer products they bought from sponsors as part of their electronic signature would be convincing enough for those such as nike. we could just forward a copy to them. i probably spent a good 300$ myself in the last year buyin soccer related nike stuff and a total of 500$ for nike in general.
what pisses me off the most about that is the 2nd time they didnt tell us until right before the game was to error ensuring we all stopped what we were doing and got the the computer before we learned there was no game: HELLO!!!!!!!
That doesn't help in the least, in fact the mother's day clip is like adding insult to injury. "Happy Mother's Day, I know the one thing you wanted to do today was to watch the game, but you can't; nanny nanny boo boo!"
Thanks for the economics lesson, Andy. But the sponsors aren't exactly exotic products. Most of us probably use their products already quite often. The credit cards are already being used full blast. Agree with letters to those sponsors, however. That's how they drove Imus off the air, and that's how we can get support for more accessable broadcasts.
if i were a players mother trying to see my kid play, id have my own message today for ussf. and i would probably have the best direct telephone line to effectively deliver it.