Re: Re: Re: ESPN? Exactly which sports qualify as "similarly situated" to MLS? Just in case anybody was confused, the First Amendment doesn't enter into it. Individually, no, they probably don't care what you think. If there were thousands more just like you (and they knew it), it would make a difference. You're absolutely right. Unfortunately, when somebody starts a thread EVERY Saturday evening because there weren't any highlights (or not enough or whatever), it's not constructive criticism, it's whining.
Nope... it's pretty simple here. The first week of NFL games is more important to most than a haphazard collection of American basketball players losing a couple of games in a championship most Americans wouldn't care about if we won. NBA has always been more popular than world basketball championships. Those championships only have meaning when we send a "dream team." Sound arrogant? Probably... But no more arrogant than if Brasil finised 5th in a world championship without Ronaldo and company...
Re: Re: Re: Re: ESPN? That's easy to cure-- show highlights on Saturday night, and no one will start a thread. . . .
Re: Re: Re: ESPN? Just as in real life, sure ask for more, but if you complain about the crumbs you are getting, to the exclusion of any appreciation of how things have changed over the past decade, your requests do start to cross a line. It's kinda "don't bite the hand that feeds you". If you're starving you don't complain about those crumbs.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ESPN? You can't imagine how wrong you are. They don't show enough highlights. They show the wrong highlights. I think the announcer was mocking soccer during the twelve minute MLS highlight section...... I remember when Business and Media used to be a discussion of Business and Media topics, and not a "guess what I just saw/didn't see on TV" forum. It's become the "Real and Perceived Injustices Against the One True Sport" forum. The subtitle would be "Jack Edwards must die"
I am still surprised that nobody picked up on my "Stockholm Syndrome" reference written to those who complain about those who complain that media coverage of soccer is less than poor!
Re: Re: Re: ESPN? Minor League Baseball regularly gets crowds equal or greater than MLS . How much coverage of Minor League Baseball do you see on ESPN ? Nice Red Herring with the 1st Amendment comment . When the Wizards can draw what the Royals draw regularly you may have a point . I'm sure more people care about the D-Rays or the Royals for no other reasons than gambling or Fantasy Baseball than care about about MLS So anyone who disagrees with you has some sort of problem ? The fact is MLS isn't much more than a blip on the sports landscape of the USA . Why should ESPN give coverage to a League who's champion has trouble drawing 10K people ?
Why all the self-loathing? First, there's nothing inherently wrong or deserving of scorn for someone saying, "Gee, I wish the biggest sports station in America would cover my favorite sport." Second, I assume since there's never been an X-Game or a Bassmasters classic that had 10,000+ in attendance that ESPN therefore would not cover those sports, either? Even if you buy into the market-driven theory about sports highlights, there's plenty of evidence that ESPN has the power to affect the market.
You're comparing apples to oranges, John. X-Games are little more than an infomercial created by ESPN. They cost next to nothing (in TV terms) to produce, they can run them over and over and still get ad revenue from them because the folks at Vans and Mountain Dew know that the skateboarding clan will want one more look at that wicked 360. You're only going to show an MLS game once (twice tops if they decide to replay it at 3am some day), so you have to have a pretty good indication that enough people are going to watch it to make the ad dollars you'll need to at least break even, or better yet, turn a profit.
I appreciate that point and don't disagree with it at all, but we're not talking about airing MLS games on ESPN. The focus of discussion is highlights on Sportscenter. As for highlights, all I'm pointing out is that certainly if attendance were the ONLY factor driving the selection of highlights (as some posters have argued) then there would be little reason for Bassmasters or X-Games coverage. If we stay focused only on Sportscenter highlights, then I think it's demonstrably true that the choices the producers make are influenced by factors other than attendance.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ESPN? INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE CLASS AAA Total Openings Average Buffalo Bisons 652,245 68 9,592 Louisville RiverBats 649,232 70 9,275 Pawtucket Red Sox 647,928 70 9,256 PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE CLASS AAA Sacramento River Cats 901,214 72 12,517 Memphis Redbirds 887,976 71 12,507 72 games and they are over 12 K per game. N. Y.-PENN LEAGUE A-SHORT Brooklyn Cyclones 289,381 37 7,821 (this year it was 8345 Stadium cap is 8500) TEXAS LEAGUE CLASS AA Round Rock Express 668,792 70 9,554 MIDWEST LEAGUE CLASS A Dayton Dragons 578,578 69 8,385 With these teams AVERAGING these types of numbers over a 70 game season . It's fair to say that these teams regularly draw(or could draw in Brooklyn's case) numbers equaling or exceding most MLS attendence figures .
"The 2002 Summer XGames will feature 22 free-to-the-public events, which are expected to draw a quarter of a million spectators back to the City of Brotherly Love for the second straight year." http://www.factmonster.com/spot/00xgames1.html Can you find over a Quarter Million MLS fans ? I saw about 5 minutes of the Motocross "Big Air" competition . The First Union Center looked pretty full and that holds over 20K .
Yes I can, especially if you give me 22 games of paying customers in which to compare that wholly fabricated attendance figure. 250k would require an 11,363 average and MLS is currently averaging 15,500 or so per game. So, if the ONLY question is whether a free event that draws an "estimated" (i.e. "we hope we get") 250k deserves more coverage than a league that would attract 341,000 (15,500 *22) paying customers in the same time frame, I think you'd have to go with the latter. That is, if it were true that attendance alone is the only factor deciding what gets covered, which obviously, it is not.
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ESPN? old article from SI/CNN: http://www.sportsillustrated.cnn.com/baseball/mlb/news/2000/08/22/minor_explosion_ap/ Granted, this is from 2000, but the generalized info quotes minor league attendance that varies from 4,000 to 9,000 per game-- they seem to be quoting more along the lines of AA and AAA ball clubs. Attendance may not be on par with MLS per game... but with a season of over 140 games, there are actually MORE people going to AA and AAA games total than MLS... weekend attendance would have to be closer to 9,000-- hmmm... San Jose and KC recently won MLS cups and have attendance closer to minor league baseball than MLB. The most telling thing about the above article was the popularity of the new ballparks constructed in the last 10 years. Seems like the public doesn't have as much problem using tax funds for a spiffy new ballpark that seats 10K as they do with a SSS that needs a capacity of 25K. Unfortunately, ESPN has taken the same kind of road that MTV took... I remember the days of aussie rules football and NASL soccer. ESPN has become a major player and it's sports coverage reflects the same "winner-take-all" attitude that the networks had for a long time. The only deviation was the "sports variety shows" of ABC's Wide World of Sports (Remember the CBS "Sports Spectacular"?) Those shows gave us their own media tradition: the 4 major sports (hockey only recently) plus the Triple Crown, Indy 500, Daytona 500, Wimbledon, the Olympics, etc... I think the World Cup is finally starting to become a fixture in this lineup. As for MLS, a 10-team league that avgs. about 15K a game just doesn't cut it... When MLS expands and has franchises that draw 25-30K in raucous stadiums (hoping LA will start doing this next year) and teams start to compete with the best in the world, that'll be when MLS arrives with better highlights on sportscenter... Until then, at least there's ESPN2...
oops... the link got abbreviated but gives those same kinds of numbers as the best of AA and AAA baseball that I see above anyway. The 8/22/2000 article implied that many of these attendances were fueled by cozy new ballparks... OKC has one, I went to a nice park in Indianapolis... hmmm...
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ESPN? This is exactly what it boils down to . All "ESPN sucks" and "(insert Sports talkshow host who "soccerbashes" here) is a tool , let's e-mail his employer" stuff does nothing . Soccer has to earn the respect ( one of the hardest tasks facing MLS in this country ) of the mainstream sports programmers . MLS doesn't "deserve" coverage just because it calls itself Major League ( Just ask Major League Lacrosse ) .
Nobody is contending that soccer "deserves" top billing. The counterpoint that was made is that there is an unnecessary cult of self-flagellation when a SOCCER fan comes onto a SOCCER fan website and says something as innocent as "it sure would be nice to see 10 SECONDS of SOCCER highlights on Sportscenter on Saturday night." Then other SOCCER FANS throw out unsustainable arguments about market forces being the only force in determining what goes into a highlights show to justify abusing the person for asking for 10 SECONDS. Why not simply acknowledge, "yeah, I'm a soccer fan, and I wish they would have those highlights, too?" We can meet in the middle. There is the possibility of protesting too much and failing to acknowledge MLS is a small market sport. But surely a FAN can WISH for 10 SECONDS of highlights once a week without automatically being labelled a soccer geek complainer?
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: ESPN? And generally in smaller cities, hemmed in by other minor league baseball teams. I'll drive 4 1/2 hours to see MLS games at RFK, but there must be 50 or so Carolina League, South Atlantic League, Southern League, and International League teams in that same radius. (I can only think of seven or eight professional USL, MLS, or WUSA teams in the same).
Fair enough . But being that I've read the same complaint time and time again it's sometimes hard to tell the difference . If they had the 10 seconds you'd see the complaints that it wasn't enough .