A quick shot from today's Melbourne Derby ... ... my first (and hopefully not last) live A-League match!
Do Americans have to put up with this sort of racist garbage because they are Soccer fans Remember this was actually printed in the no.1 selling Newspaper(Melbourne's Herald Sun) in this country Melbourne is also home to the AM talk-back radio station 3AW- 2 weeks ago 3AW’s Tom Elliott’s made an on air mockery of the deaths of 96 fans at what is known as the Hillsborough disaster basically saying that the reason the Liverpool fans 'rioted' was because they were bored, because you know, Soccer is darned boring isn't it You have to love this Bozos final summation: The opening lines of our national anthem say we should rejoice because we are young and free. No age-old hatreds, no bitter rivalries or blood feuds. This is Australia. Young and free. Young and free. If you don't believe those magical words, then rack off. And take your round football with you. I was born in Australia and I love football, where exactly should I rack off to? Read more: http://www.news.com.au/top-stories/virtue-in-a-nations-footy-code/story-e6frfkp9-1226579464999#ixzz2LKorXdgFPlease for the love of all that is Holy, including the Football Gods, DO NOT click through to this idiots page, it will only give him what he wants and encourage more of this type of Trolluminst crap.
It is a pretty silly banner. "FYI"? Really? And way to screw up the metre with "repulsive" (itself a bit too Downton Abbey for a football taunt) and then tangle up the address by ending with the singular "shite" when there is more than one Melbourne Heart fan. Unless it was directed at this one guy from Morwell. Bit harsh if so... 2/10, but what do you expect from subliterates?
At least A-League gets coverage in Australia. Here in the states most MLS teams barely even get mentioned in their local press. Even here in Seattle, which has MLS's largest fanbase, the Sounders don't get much coverage. The city's only daily has its cub reporter covering the team and one of the suburb dailies has their college basketball guy covering it so he has something to do during the summer. Sports radio is sall to wall coverage of American football with some baseball and basketball thrown in. Just to give you an idea. I was listening to one of the three sports radio stations in this area and despite the Sounders having a preseason game tonight in Arizona and the radio station being in another city in Arizona to cover the baseball preseason there was absolutely no mention of the Sounders at all. They couldn't even be bothered to send a reporter the 120 miles to do game status bumps...
Is it worth getting covered when the 'coverage' consists of anti-soccer hate pieces written by so-called journalists(trollumnists writing opinion pieces?) who are fans of other codes of football? Seems like 80% of the çoverage is hell-bent on painting the impression that attending the Soccer in Australia is akin to holidaying in Downtown Kabul. Seems amazing that the A-League is averaging the crowds that it does when I'm sure your average joe sports fan playing word association would think of 'Hooligans' or 'violence' if prompted with 'Soccer'
There are some shitful journalists out there but I think you are starting to paint the kind of polarised picture of coverage in Australia that you are complaining about. The truth is somewhere in the middle.
When you start reading stuff like this from NRL man Phil Rothfield, it starts to make you wonder if the tide is turning. http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/sp...in-at-wanderland/story-fnecsqy7-1226584647664
Was just coming to post the Buzz article, gee hasn't the Daily Telegraph changed its tune? In Oz it used to be SBS that lead the way with Soccer puff pieces. As WSW were getting started I remember SBS The World Game (TWG) trolling the hell out of potential WSW fans desperate for any news on the name of their team. TWG tried to pass off "they will be called the Western Pride" as legit insider info. IIRC It was Tom Smithies at the Terrorgraph that bothered to ring the FFA and ask if it was true. Of course the FFA said the team name will be decided by the fans in the fan forums and as we know it was. With Sydney being the source of so much of our county's media it is great to have the success story of WSW and the boom of ADP at SFC to drive a lot the positive stories that have appeared in the various Newspapers, even the NewsLtd papers have for the most part jumped on the bandwagon.. just the odd blip of Sockah-knocking these days not the constant barrage of old. Forza Football!! and lets hope the new TV deal starting next year with Free To Air on SBS can help those who don't have Foxtel get 'in' to the A-League.
You know what they say, there is no such thing as bad press. Even if the press is bad, they at least have to acknowledge that it exists. In most MLS cities even getting the sportswriters to acknowledge the sport is difficult and when it is covered it is more often than not covered in the trolling manner you're complaining about. Another example from MLS's largest market, Seattle. We are a week out from the start of the season and if it weren't for the paid bumps by the Sounders, they would 't be getting any mention on sports radio. Heck, even on the paid bumps the guy reading it often sounds like he is annoyed to have to read it and can't set it aside fast enough. That is in one of the only MLS markets where the MLS team is an actual competitor with the other sports in the city for sports dollars. In other cities, teams don't even get that. Go to the LA Times website and despite having two MLS teams in the market, soccer doesn't even have a section on the "front page" of The Sports section. You have to select a dropdown to view other sports before you see soccer.
In that the Galaxy were mentioned in the Entertainment section, but only in relation to Beckham? Yes. There was a short bump, but the disappearance of a soccer section on the LA Times sports website is not a recent thing.
How is that addressed? Obviously the big three are well entrenched in U.S culture. Football not so? Is there the support in the public for it? The interest? What sort of crowds do you get in the MLS?
I think it is better to say that MLS is not entrenched and not very well followed. Hispanics in the US, currently about 17% of the population and growing, are very interested in soccer, but they generally aren't interested in MLS. Most tend to follow the league from their home country, so a Mexican-American will follow Liga MX, a Costa Rican-American will follow the Costa Rican Primera Division, etc. Among most sports fans, I think how soccer is treated in Australia is how it is treated in the US. For a large portion of sports fans soccer is ignored, but then you have a segment that are much more biased against the sport with many thinking any soccer fan is a homosexual, hooligan, not American, and/or a freak. As far as attendance goes, MLS is undergoing quite a bit of growth in the last few years. It has added 7 teams since 2007 and has had two new stadiums built in existing cities that have bumped the attendance in those cities. Last season's average was 18,807, but there is a large range. The best average was the Seattle Sounders with 43,144 and the worst average was Chivas USA with 13,056. The Sounders are definitely an anomaly on the order of the Victory when compared to the rest of the A-League with the MLS team with the second best average being the LA Galaxy with 23,136.
Even Hinds is talking positive! Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/evasive-on-the-pitch-del-piero-refreshingly-expansive-off-it-20130226-2f3q0.html#ixzz2M06CUMCn
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/football/goals-aplenty-but-ffa-cant-afford-to-get-too-excited-20130403-2h78d.html#ixzz2PSWihz1L
A-League in the world's top 20 http://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/les-murray/blog/1150840/A-League-in-the-world's-top-20
Here's a turn up! Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/a-league/aleague-will-leave-it-late-to-end-season-20130517-2jryv.html#ixzz2Te6jXUL9
Ok a question (From a Yank). I know that SBS and FOXtel gives good coverage for the games. But do the BIG channels like Nine or Seven give any round ups or mentions of the A League during any sports roundups or even newscasts?
Starting to get better but still not good. CH10 would be the best of the commercial stations, but 9 and 7 would put even preseason AFL and Rugby League ahead of everything A-League bar maybe the Grand Final, and then only in the cities involved in the game.
Nine and Seven will also bash the sport as a whole when an opportunity presents itself. Violence at rugby/AFL = societal issue. Violence at soccer = soccer issue.
Interesting! Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/league-looks-to-expand-in-asia-20131008-2v6fb.html#ixzz2hDia46nD
Seb's 5 key questions for this year: http://www.smh.com.au/sport/soccer/...--into-aleague-season-no9-20131008-2v6ci.html
Article in Bangkok Post: http://www.bangkokpost.com/news/spo...ague-asia-expansion-plan-gets-mixed-reception Don't really know if the local fans would get behind such an idea. Publicity in such ASEAN cities is so poor that A-League teams could turn up without anyone knowing!
If it were a team with a recognized marquee like Del Piero, Heskey or Ono, they might go better than say a good team like Melbourne who doesn't have the big name but plays well. Which is a shame.