anyone see the channel 4 news at 11 last night, specifically the sports segment? bob lobel was wearing a red revs fleece while reporting the sports. when asked why he was wearing it by an anchor, he said that he had run out of clothes in florida, where he is for sox spring training. just found it interesting that hed even have one, let alone pack it.
I think Bob's a closet Revs fan, though he's in denial. He slags soccer with some frequency, but he was awfully excited during NE's playoff run in 2000. After the Revs evened up the Chicago series back then, he talked about how winning the series would move them into New England's sports consciousness. More impressive, he sounded as if he'd enjoy that. He was suitably upbeat during their success last year as well. My guess, while he doesn't care much for soccer, Bob's a homer and so roots for the Revs. And hey, if he wears a Revs' fleece on TV, who are we to complain?
I'm friends with someone who knows Bob pretty well, I'm told that while Bob isn't a soccer fan per say, he doesn't really have anything against the sport or the Revs. By the way, remember how last year he had TNT and Jay Heaps on Sports Final? I wrote him an e-mail after the show in which I thanked him for the effort to promote the game nad the Revs. He wrote back and thanked me for my words of encouragement and said he liked reading that e-mail alot more than most of the e-mails he gets regarding soccer. Remember, boys and girls - you attrack more bees with honey than with vinegar. But basically, he said that he's not opposed giving the Revs more air time, but he thinks they need to earn their coverage. He's got a limited amount of time each week, and as long as the Revs are averaging 15,000 per game and getting miniscule ratings, he's not going to spend a whole lot of time on them. When the Revs made their late-season run last year, they earned more coverage because the TV ratings went up and they drew 60,000 fans for the Cup Final. Unfortunately, that's where we are with soccer coverage in this country right now. Most of the major media outlets want MLS to prove they've got a significant audience.
I think any local team that attracts 15,000 fans a game is deserving of coverage. Apart from the Red Sox, Pats, Celtics, Bruins and BC Football, how many other teams around here get that many fans to show up on a consistent basis? The miniscule TV ratings certainly don't help, but compare the Revs numbers to what the Bruins are getting for a lot of their games and what the Celtics get on some nights during the season. Are they really that bad in comparison? Remember that most of the Revs games are in the summer when there are a heck of a lot less people sitting in front of their TV sets than during the long New England winters. There's a reason the networks only run repeats during the summer. I personally like Lobel as a sportscaster and I think he's been very fair to the Revs. I just get ticked off when some of these other clowns diss the sport and the team. In doing so, you're also dissing a decent part of your audience and how smart is that?
I don't think we really "averaged" 15K, if you pull out the "special events". Even so, a legitimate 15K average should be very do-able this year - and that would put them right in the ball park with the Bruins and Celtics. The big gap, of course, is in TV ratings. In all major US sports, the number of "TV fans" is many times greater than the ticket-buying segment. The NE soccer audience is a sleeping giant. I'm anxious to see what happens when we go into a season with winning expectations - and live up to it! TV ratings might move beyond the microscopic level!
That's the chicken, here's the egg: as long as the revs get miniscule exposure, their average attendance and TV ratings aren't going to get much better - simply because most people don't even know they exist, or when they are playing. I wish there was a scientific way to compare the ratio of combined media exposure, to the live attendance and TV ratings numbers for each team/sport. I think the Revs would do VERY well in comparison to the other Boston sports teams, or even all other US sports teams - based on the present figures and the very limited media exposure. Good example: When the local media spotlight actually focused on soccer/the Revs for almost an entire week prior to MLS Cup 2002... 62,000 people showed up. Just think what averages/ratings we could reach, if that level of exposure was maintained, or at least was comparable to the other Boston sports teams.
It would have to be the ratings, because the Celts and the Bruins average about what the Revs do. I thought that our attendances were pretty consistant last year. I went to two Wednesday games, both when we sucked, and we were around 12k for both games. The only big "special event" I can recall was the Holland game, although some would put the opener in that category. The Holland game probably only added about 1k to the average.
Do you actually think that soccer is more popular with television than hockey or basketball? plus it doesnt help that the revs play once a week where the Bruins and Celtics can play up to 3 or 4 times a week. please think.
He didn't say that the MLS was as popular as the NBA or the NHL. He said (more or less) that the Revs get about the same turnout for their games as the Bruins and the Celts, which is true.
Way back a few years ago when Lobel would call in to Nik Carter's show on WBCN I almost drove off the road when Carter was lamenting that the Revs traded Lalas because "he's the man." Lobel explained in a way that would make the more rational posters in this forum blush that although Lalas was the biggest name, the Revs weren't successful, and needed to improve the on-field team to bring out more fans, and that Raul Diaz Arce as a goal scorer would do just that. Hey, we all thought that at the time! As for the comparison with the Bruins and Celtics, there is no comparison! I don't know what the total number of people who are considered "fans" of the local teams are (let's define this as they would go to multiple live games in person, watch the team on TV whenever possible, and read pretty much every article about them in the papers every day). Using that definition, the Bruins and Celtics have a lot more "fans" than the Revs do. In fact, the Revs "fans" make up a much higher percent of the people watching on TV and in attendance at every home game than with the other teams, even if they both draw similar numbers per game in butts in the seats. How many people would see the Bruins and Celtics if they played in a 68,000 seat stadium and had prices similar to the Revs? Soccer is a niche sport, but growing every year. The Revs' run last year brought in a lot of new fans, many of them presumably either bandwagon jumpers whose first soccer game was the final, soccer fans who hadn't given the Revs a chance because they had always been crap, or old fans who once came out earlier, but got tired of losing. If the Revs start out well and do as well as most of us think they can, it will be interesting to see how much having a good team will help. We've never been there before, so it's anyone's guess. Tom
Make no mistake, it's about the almighty dollar. Advertising revenue is the key, and someone has to 'put it up', in order to compete with the audiences of the four other major sports. MLS Soccer - the fifth major sport? Yep. Is this country rich enough to have the capital support for propelling soccer-in-America forward? Yep. Can we someday reach the lofty perches of the rest of the Soccer world? Geez, if any country can do it, we can. We need legitimate 'money' in this game, which translates to well-supported advertising campaigns, which equals networks selling air time, which forces sports broadcasters to carry the news. If ABC is getting 'so-many' greenbacks from Joe Soccer, then the sports people will keep their jobs by covering soccer. There's your justification.
The Celtics would do fine, but I'm guessing the Bruins wouldn't. Hockey in Boston is dying a slow death thanks to a combination of the owner, Harry Sinden and the NHL in general. Their ticket prices have been so ridiculously high for so long that they've lost a couple of generations of kids. The media is so outraged with Jacobs unwillingness to spend money and Sinden basically being there for too long, that they're starting to ignore the team. And by this, I mean I think it's been a minimum of 10 years since they were ever discussed regularly on WEEI. Plus the NHL has just over expanded to the point where no one's ever heard of half the players, and the talent level is too thin for the games to be entertaining. I can't watch a Bruins game for more than 5 minutes at a time now and I've followed them since back in the Bobby Orr days. Right now in Boston it's the Red Sox and Patriots 1 and 2 in popularity and the Celtics a fairly distant #3. The Celts are in danger of losing a generation or two of fans because THEIR prices are so out of control. But they still have a decent following. After that there's a huge drop off to 4, 5 and 6. And those are the Bruins, Revs and BC Football. The Revs have a real good chance, I think, to get to #4 sooner rather than later. My point with the TV ratings is this. If the weather was warm and sunny and it got dark at 8:30, the Bruins would be doing .6 and .7 ratings and maybe lower. If the MLS were playing right now in the middle of winter, the Revs would be doing .8's to 1.2's, simply by virtue of the fact that if people were in the house at night flipping the stations and nothing else were on locally, more people would be watching them. When you assess overall fan base, the Revs aren't at the Bruins level yet, but in 4 to 5 years they very well could be. And the Bruins may be at the current Revs level or lower.
I think success will also play a big part of how popular the Revs are.... I think it's amazing that they've managed to keep a good fanbase despite their losing record... now with them appearing to be turning the corner I think coverage and popularity will go up. The bruins are starting to struggle attendence-wise and everything because of their continued lack of success over the past few years, and the fans' negative view of management.