There used to be only one game for baseball. Cable changes a lot of things. You also have every pro football game televised, every baseball game televised, pretty much every MLS game televised, etc. etc. What exactly is the correlation between a possible MLB strike and the LLWS?
Damn capitalists. Don't they realize they should do things for the good of sport? Like giving Africa a World Cup, c'mon, they deserve it!
The LLWS has teams from all over the world competing it's kinda like the World Cup of soccer but pro baseball doesn't have a world tournament get as much attention as the LLWS does which is kind of puzzling to me. It's a shame when the hopes of dreams of your country rests on 12 yr olds because thats all you have to root for on an event of that kind of level.
U12 Girl's Softball World Series [R] Hell, probably ESPN2's broadcast last night of the U12 girls softball world series final outdraws most soccer ratings. By the way, congratulationis, Waco. I completely agree that the spectator sport of the US is baseball, taking all its venues into account. As much as I love soccer (more than any other sport), it's baseball that resides deep inside my American psyche. All those minor league games that my grandfather took me to shaped my neurons. It still is the national pass time--not the national past time...
Anyone who thinks the LLWWS isn't a newsworthy event or something that makes big money for a lot of people should pay Williamsport a visit one year in mid-August.
Re: U12 Girl's Softball World Series [R] Notice how they showed the whole game and then joined the Red Sox - Mariners game in progress? Have they done that for soccer? Would they do that for soccer?
I doubt that got better ratings than soccer. Considering that softball is the 3rd most popular sports amongst girls (and women) behind basketball and soccer. I was dumbfounded when I saw it, it is even more of a slap in the face that they showed it on Wednesday night, MLS midweek Match Night. This is affirmative action programming the the nth degree. They are only showing it because some bored women's group (or some high up female at ESPN) bitched about how their isn't equivalent coverage to the LLWS for girls. I could be wrong about that, but I don't think I am. I am sure ESPN PAID someone to put that on the air,though. The real question, then, is: Would they do THAT for soccer??
Not everything is about ratings. Sometimes it's about offering a look at an event people don't usually get to see. A little thing called diversity. Kind of like how some people on these boards expect them to change all their programming decisions anytime they bitch about soccer getting passed over? I don't see why it's hard for people to accept the fact that ESPN doesn't always say "Let's show soccer instead" when something other than a huge sporting event is on TV. Remember, while you are going apoplectic about the perceived slights against your favorite sport, there are other people out there who get far fewer opportunities to watch their favorite sport on national television.
Though admittedly not being well informed on the broader issues here, I would presume that soccer's great window of opportunity in America will come when MLB's present TV contract expires. As long as the network(s) have big money invested in the present contract, it pays them to promote baseball all they can, and champion the sport above all others (in other words, TV has paid for the rights and, to convince advertisers to come on board, they have to promote the sport as "big" whether it is or not.) But when the contract expires (or is about to expire), then it is up to soccer to offer the network(s) a viable alternative "top summer sport", and probably for a lot less money at that. Like I said, this is where and when the window of opportunity exists, and also where and when the sea change needs to start. And TV will welcome the arrival of soccer if for no other reasoning that it gives them a bargaining chip in their renegotiations with MLB. If TV has TWO instead of one summer sport competing for airtime, the economics indicate it will pay less for both.
Re: Re: Little League Baseball, ESPN, and Youth Soccer The "Big" baseball contracts are the local television contracts (and radio) for individual teams. This money is not shared league wide, which is pretty much the reason you have the big market vs. small market club problems today. On the national level I'm not sure what Fox is paying, but I know the Yankee's, Red Sox, Dodger's, Met's, etc. aren't relying on it to fund their payroll. So there isn't really isn't an end to a television contract per se, that soccer could try to work itself into. The big clubs are also buying their own cable networks, YES for the Yankees, and NESN for the Red Sox, which only further complictes things. I belive all Yankee games that aren't on Fox Saturdays are on YES, and next year I think only 30-45 games will be on over-air stations for the Red Sox, with the majority on NESN.
And you ignore the fact that, oh by the way, people will actually watch the World Series on television, and will not watch soccer. So there's your window of opportunity. Once again: We're not going to get ours out of theirs.
kenntomasch BigSoccer Member Team: Tampa Bay Rowdies Nice.... I wish there were more NASL replica jerseys out there to buy.
Kenn, Andy and others who have commented on the U-17 World Cup Final (involving the US) v. LLWS final.... (given all things equal) hypo... I would remind all of you that last years 5.9 number was based on the hype of a 14 year old Illegal Alien Domican Republic Pitcher throwing no hitters against 12 years olds... I watched it too. And admit it... you had to find the whole thing LOL funny. BTW: The Harlem team that just qualified is having allegations about illegal players (here we go again)
TV is a business...it is about ratings 99.9% of the time. In this case, maybe not, though, because affirmative action has little to do with standard business logic, only quotas. No, they say, let's show soccer as little as possible, once a week. I have no problem with ESPN showing this kind of programming, what I do have a problem with is the fact that it gets a better timeslot than MLS coverage.
If you look at a bunch of what ESPN and ESPN2, it's really hard to say everything is ratings driven. People - including MLS - pay money to be on there. That fact is undeniable. I refer you back to the paranoia picture I posted. It's really not healthy to think everyone is out to get you. If they start showing youth softball i a consistent timeslot for 24 straight weeks, then start showing European youth softball once a week for much of the fall and winter, you'd have a point. Maybe. But this was one freaking night while they show soccer 50+ times a year when you look at MLS, CL and national team games. But I can understand how the big picture can be hard to see.
I'm sure that had something to do with it. But couldn't it also helped that it was a team from the country's biggest media market that was the American representative (and delivered a 6.2 rating)? Or that the game was in prime time? The year before, the title game got a 3.4. Which is still far better than a U17 soccer game is going to get in this country.
Not helping.... ABC has done nothing for luge. I'll bet Fox would love to have luge. If we could just get luge into the top 15 markets and expand the footprint, we'd be doing great.
Re: Re: U12 Girl's Softball World Series [R] Look at it the other way....how would you react if the Boston-Seattle game was an MLS game and we missed the first 10 minutes or so? It'd get really ugly on here, wouldn't it? Not everything ESPN does is based on the dictum "Let's keep soccer down."
Re: Re: Re: U12 Girl's Softball World Series [R] Logic like that will get you nowhere on these boards. Big Soccer: Where Reality Goes To Die. Just a heads up - the evil feminist youth softball lobby has failed. No softball in September. Seven soccer matches on ESPN/2. Don't fret. I'm sure a new threat to soccer's iron grip on America will emerge.