We're on National TV a grand total of ONCE all season. On a tape delay. At 1:30 AM. Against the Galaxy. On ESPN2. WTF. Metropunks, of course, lead the league in National TV appearances. I could understand the Galaxy, being the champs and with the new stadium and all. But the Metros? Good thing I was planning to buy an MLS cable package, anyway.
Hand held camcorders and high school football video tapes. 1 time? Thanks for nothing MLS. Not more than one away game? I guess we weren't going to get Stewart all along. I sure as sh** wouldn't show a home game on national TV. I hope we get a decent shootout package this season.
Perhaps it is a blessing in disguise. No July 2pm matches. It still worries me that perhaps Dragon Stadium is not even fitted to allow the televising of a match.
Man f*** Disney, f*** them in their stupid asses. Oh man, why is opening day at 3:00 pm? Ouch, that could be a hot one.
You know, the last time I checked, the Burn plays half their games on the road. So even if Dragon Stadium isn't TV friendly (which I doubt -- I'm sure there'll be plenty of other teams' local TV broadcasts from Dragon Stadium this year), that still gives them 15 opportunities to broadcast them on the road. So what this amounts to is MLS giving it to Dallas up the ol' poop shoot. And it's nice to see that while MLS is very liberal with the kind words for Uncle Lamar, they're also very quick to marginalize his teams. A grand total of three appearance for us and the Whizz. Add in the whopping five appearances that the Crew will be getting. And that's eight appearances total for the Hunt family, one fewer than the Metros will be getting all by themselves. Can somebody PLEASE tell me why MLS is too friggin' smart to do what every other league in this country does: Have your national TV schedule consist primarily of the best teams, with a few more "big market" games sprinkled in.
Amen bro. This sucks for the Burn and the other Hunt teams. Are ratings that bad when the Burn plays?
Ideally, you're right, but every other league in this country has a television contract they have hundreds of millions of reasons to be happy about. MLS is, presently, auditioning for a good TV deal and a bit more sponsorship money. Let me point out that Metros fans simply don't care if the games are on ESPN2 or on MSG-- we'll see them in either case. MSG is even slightly preferable, with all ESPN's programming I asked KC fans this question and never got an answer: is it that having games on national television is so vital because the local television package is so bad? Are you guys simply not gonna see the Burn play away without ESPN2 showing it?
Well, in previous years, I could've given you the following answer: Not really. Because TV coverage was a time-buy out of the promotional budgets and because the league-run teams were run on ridiculously small budgets, you had a finite number of local time-buys for away game broadcasts. So any away game that wasn't on national TV was one that the Burn were going to have to buy time for somewhere, whether on Fox Sports Net Southwest (a difficult prospect considering how congested their schedule is with two MLB teams) or on a local over-the-air station (an expensive prospect, since D/FW has the lowest cable-penetration rate of all the large TV markets) or on radio (which is where all the non-televised games ended up). So the Burn generally had all but a two or three road games on local TV. And they generally chose those two or three games judiciously, so that even if they weren't on local TV here, they'd be on local TV there, and thus would be on the Shootout. They'd also provide English radio coverage. So in previous years, we'd get a lot of road games at the Metros and Revolution that weren't on local TV here. Now, that's how it WAS. It's my understanding that Hunt Sports Group is running the show in Dallas now, even if there hasn't been a formal announcement made. I don't know how it'll be with them. I do know that neither the Crew nor the Whizz have had blanket coverage of their road games. They had most of them on, but not all. So I'm not exactly optimistic here, especially if only one of them is being carried nationally.
I guess alot of people in this country won't know how good the Burn will be this year. They will read about greatness but wont be able to see it. Now I know why soccer does not grow in this country. The viewing public on a weekly basis sees the absolute worst soccer imaginable on a pitch that is all torn up.
If the Hunt folks, as they have in the past, have requested that home games on television be kept to a minimum, that leaves considerably more room for non-Hunt teams (like the Metros) to be on the air. So rather than drawing from 30 games, MLS schedulers have to draw from 15 away game for each team. So that's going to skew the trend even more towards the big AEG teams. I'd prefer that every stadium get one game on national television, possibly in succession. The rest of the schedule should have a few key "derby" matchups (Metros-DC, Chicago-Dallas, LA-SJ, and possibly Revs-Metros and Chicago-Columbus), and the remaining games could be picked out maybe three weeks to a month ahead of time-- surely it can't be that hard to move a game up three or hour hours on a month's notice. But until MLS gets some clout, I hope they squeeze every fraction of a ratings point out, and use what they can to bargain for a better deal.
I blame the burn staff for this. If we had a good popular player it would all be different. The truth is that no one outside of tx cares about us. It's sad but true.
They'll care about us when we kick their ass, come on boys how about a foot up the Gals ass for the first game?
That's not true!! I'm somebody and I care! I really enjoy watching Dallas play and even have your games that were on TV last year here on tape. I was, for one thing, pulling for O'Brien to fit in on your squad and he did.. Dallas is my 2nd fav' team to watch in MLS...
That's what I was thinking. We and DC gave MLS their best TV game of the year last year. Dallas rarely goes out there and gets beaten miserably (except at San Jose) the team is a hell of a lot prettier to watch than the KC slow-ball show or DC and the Metros clubfoot-fest last year. The Dallas TV package has deteriorated over the last couple years and KC's and Columbus' package wasn't much better from what I remember hearing. HSG has already shown they are misers so I doubt things will improve. I hate non-televised Burn games. It drives me up the wall not being able to see a game. Really.
So what's required here is that we become the best team in the league right out of the gate this season. Every week the MLS fools will be televising another middle-of-the-table match up while the national audience will be asking why they're not watching the top team play. Sign #3 for opening day "Screw MLS!" right after "WE NEED BEER!" and "Bait and Switch!"