I love the fact that while the Mouse holds the TV contract for MLS, they can't be bothered to give the draft any decent coverage on their networks. In the meantime, the supposedly non-existent audience for such a piddling news event is crushing websites and servers foolish enough to try and provide live coverage of this non-event.
It's part of the anti-soccer mainstream media bias. It's the same reason people are making fun of Carlos Valderrama's hair. ESPN hates soccer and wants the MLS to fail.
M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E Plain and simple, MLS doesn't get enough ratings to be worth the trouble yet. If you took all the talent from Europe and put them on 20 teams in America, the ratings would be through the roof. MLS isn't the best league in the world yet, so why should ESPN cover it like it is. Don't worry, every day, year, and World Cup that goes by, the league is getting stronger, as evidenced by this years SuperDraft. As long as the mouse company doesn't make fun of the league or sport, I'll be happy. P.S. I am not a Eurosnob, the opposite actually. -VON
Next year will be interesting. There were 1,500 people trying to cram in the draft room, and obviously a lot of people taking a "break" from work on the internet. There is obviously some interest that might not have been apparent in past drafts. I can't imagine that it wouldn't be worth a couple of cameras next year as a Friday afternoon is not exactly prime ratings time.
They don't cover the draft because the interest simply isn't there yet. The NBA and NFL drafts are huge media events because college basketball (not to mention the big names abroad and coming out of high school) and college football are huge, and so are pro football and pro basketball. But what about the other sports? The NHL draft (first round or first two rounds only, I forgot) are shown on ESPN2, but probably only "just because" the Mouse networks have the TV rights for the NHL. The NHL draft probably only gets the quick once-over on SportsCenter. And the MLB draft? I hear it's being televised on the Masochist Network but not ESPN. College hockey, baseball, and soccer don't have the following that college football and basketball have, thus their drafts don't nearly have all the hype going on about them.
yeah, people crashed servers prepared to handle 1,000 people A THOUSAND! WOW! ESPN sure is regretting their decisions.
The baseball draft isn't big news either. Think about it. It's only the pre-packaged college stars (well, with ESPN whoring out LeBron James, high school stars too) who bring the interest.
I think it could warrant some TV coverage, but not ESPN. I agree that the server crashes are disingenuous because they probably aren't huge server racks that were crashed. And the audience may be misleading because they had a captive audience at the convention. So while a lot of people came, who knows how interested those people would have been in following the draft if it wasn't in the room next to the meeting they had an hour earlier. If they can package it with the comvention every year, they might be onto something. And if FSW or a consortium of regional sports nets or PPV are interested, it could make good TV. But I think it's way too soon to say this is a national TV event. Let's get the ratings for the games up before ancillary events become an issue.
If they started with at least some info in the crawl on the bottom it would be a start. That won't likely happen for a few years either. Did anyone's local tv media make any mentions of any of the draft picks? Our local station KCAL 9 at least gave the info on our trade with New England.. Nothing on the draft though.
I think the draft needs to become more interesting to most hardcore soccer fans before we start thinking it should be of wider interest. And perhaps more importantly, it's not as if the world's best 18-20 year-olds are up for grabs like with the NFL and NBA drafts. This is more like the baseball draft, which no one cares about either.
sick sick sick Every server covering the draft crashed? O.K., so maybe that's just 3 or 4 computers, but how badly planned can this be? It's not like this is the first one. I was so frustrated, wanting to get some news and nowhere could I get on a web site with any news. Then, in Chicago, only the Tribune had any article the next day at all. Daily Herald? Zilch. And they used to be pretty good at covering soccer. Sun Times? Nothing. TV? Nope. Yes, this isn't the NFL or NBA, but it is comparable to hockey. One of these years, MLS will do a better job of getting the word out. One of these years, someone in mainstream media will notice. Meantime we soccer fans will have to develop further internet networks to share news and commentary. Go Fire!
Well, the Daily Herald also tends to be a little slow. I'd look for an article on Monday. Personally, I think it would be a nice gesture if the draft was part of the shootout package, or otherwise available via PPV. Hopefully for less than $20.
I really wonder what the ratings are like for the NFL or NBA drafts. As far as I know, ESPN shows both live, and I personally couldn't imagine watching either. It's like watching paint dry or grass grow. Am I interested in who gets drafted into the MLS? Sure, but not enough to take time out of my day to watch it on tv.
NFL "Ratings for the draft were up 7 percent from 2.7 to 2.9. Overall, more than 25.4 million people watched some portion of the proceedings." http://www.nctimes.net/news/2002/20020426/54623.html NBA The ratings have ranged from roughly 2.9 to 2.1 over the past 5 years http://www.usatoday.com/sports/comment/martzke/2002-06-26-martzke.htm Andy
And that's all I'm asking for really. I'm not quite deluded enough to think that MLS deserves anything resembling the ultra-hype that NFL/NBA drafts do. THEY don't deserve that kind of coverage. I also realize that it doesn't take much to kill some individual or small server clusters. Witness the fact that BS stayed up, that it wasn't THAT bad. But those die-hard fans are simply a sample of the larger soccer audience that would have had SOME interest in seeing WTF happened in the draft. It's just my longstanding beef agin' the Mouse that they treat their soccer programming like a charity case or as part of some strange sporting affirmative action mandate that they have to carry but would just as soon ignore.
I agree that the small servers being down is not a good indicater of interest. However, ESPN has a BIG server. If, next year, ESPN provides live draft coverage with a web cast, they could get a pretty fair index of whether the event would be worth some broadcast time. It would not cost them a lot to do this, and with a little promotion they could be "the" web portal for draft coverage, and in the process get a hit count which would help measure the real extent of interest in the draft. Just a suggestion.
Re: M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E I don't think so. While this would interest the Euros amongst us, I don't think their numbers are so great that they would make a real impact on the TV figures. And I've actually met quite a few Euros who have little or no interest in football -- including German, Italian and English nationals who live and work here. Our problem isn't the Euros who ignore MLS, our problem is us.
Re: Re: M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E What I was saying is that if you have all the best talent in the whole world in a league in the US, then the ratings would be really good. I know they would beat hockey's ratings. I heard way too many times on ESPN and other radio shows that if we had the best players and the best league in our country, sports people would watch. Tony Kornheiser is one of these types of people who said he doesn't watch soccer because all the talent is scattered around at least 10 leagues around the world. Americans want to turn on the TV and know for sure they are watching the best, and right now there is no league with all the best players, not even the EPL. When you watch the NHL, NBA, NFL, and MLB you know that you are seeing the very best teams and players in the world, without having to follow several leagues. The only way I keep myself from being the same way, is I pretend MLS is the best league in the world and that keeps me brainwashed enough to not realize that most of the best players don't play here. -VON
Re: Re: Re: M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E Then why do so many people watch college football and college basketball? The answer: Vested interest and relative competition. Or they just like the sport (For colleges that means its a local school, people went to that school, know someone who did or hate that school. ) MLS can meet that requirement. Though it would help to have more vested interest, with more teams so more locales would feel that vested interest.
Re: Re: Re: M-I-C-K-E-Y M-O-U-S-E Kornheiser is also a sports media member who absolutely, unequivocally refuses to interview athletes. So take his opinion for what it's worth.
That's it, exactly what I was thinking, and about where the intrests level hits. The MLS contract isn't exclusive, FSW doesn't show anything of too much importance on Friday afternoons, I certainly think the first 3 rounds of the draft (don't bother beyond that) presented a bit slicker than the already-impressive presentation it was on Friday (well, impressive for MLS)...I would imagine it would be a good thing, maybe combined/interspersed with a year in review show/season preview. Lots of interviews. If they could manage to get it on all or most of the regional sports networks, bonus. That's about a 3 hour show there, maybe more, before commercials. Should be more than enough, and about as much as anyone could reasonably hope for.
If it's done right with lots of highlights and interviews (the number of people together in that room notable to US Soccer/MLS was ASTOUNDING) and presented on a regional basis or on FSW, I certainly don't think it would do any worse than a game (plus, there would be much more in the way of commercials)...