I wasn't living in the Tampa area when MLS was here, but I was wondering what kind of newspaper coverage MLS, especially the Mutiny got. I bought the SP Times today (Sunday) and I didn't notice anything in there about MLS -- was it better when we had a team? When I was living in Daytona we got the Orlando paper which didn't really care for MLS, but they didn't have MLS either.
Coverage stunk. Radio and TV attention on the Mutes was almost non-existent. There were maybe three guys writing about soccer in the Trib and SPTimes. But they never got the kind of space you would want. Many were the Saturday mornings I got up and stumbled outside for the paper, in anticipation of some pregame coverage for the day's game... only to find nothing more than a paragraph saying who was in town and the time of the game. I'm sure it was all part of the Garber/Glazer/McKeun conspiracy... There was a decent radio program hosted by the guy who broadcast the games on radio (ugh, I forgot his name)... but that's about it.
Jim Henderson is his name. The show was on a small time radio station, 1040. The show did not get many calls. The Tampa Tribune did a better job covering the team and MLS than did the SPT. This was page three news most of the time with a photo if we were lucky. I remember when the Rowdies were here, it was front of the sports page with several color photos. Of course they knew how to market the team. MLS HQ has the three blind mice running the show. It's all down hill now MLS. Help MLS has fallen and can't get up! Tony Flash
With regards to newspaper coverage,doesn't it seem that the baseball team gets saturation coverage even though they draw poor crowds? I miss the Mutiny.
Jim Henderson used to do a show, and so did Rob Weingartner on the old 820 The Team. Nick Sak' used to co-host with Rob and it was pretty good radio. ... Not very many people called in. The Tampa Tribune usually assigned Bill Ward to cover the Mutiny, while Rodney Page got the nod from the St. Pete Times. Both were casual observers of the game, and the Trib usually devoted more space. Of course, the Tribune was a sponsor of the team, while the Times became a major sponsor of the Devil Rays. This reminds me of the time when Nick Sak' went to the St. Pete Times and pounded his fist on the editor's desk to demand more coverage. That really didn't go over too well, and he just came off as another Yankee Carpetbagger. Those NY guys never really got the point, and they kept employing that type right up until the bitter end.
I think you guys are being a little hard on the coverage here in Tampa, considering most other MLS teams don't get much more coverage -- or possibly less -- than what the Mutiny got during their time here. 1996 - Steve Duemig, afternoon/evening host on sports radio, was the Mutiny PA guy and talked about the Mutiny a lot on his show. (WHat other city can say that??) 1997 - Rob Weingartner, afternoon/evening host on sports radio (different station) was the Mutiny play by play and hosted a show with Sakievicz every week at 6 p.m. 1998 - Same as 1997,and there was a weekend soccer show on the same station that I'd always seem to catch on Sunday's on my way home from pickup games in Pinellas County. Can't remember the name. 1999 - Not much on radio, but the newspaper coverage seemed to pick up around this time, with both papers always writing a story before game, of the game and a weekly notebook that was usually pretty long. However, it seemed like the Times guy just copied whatever was in the Tribune the day before. 2000 - I'm sure Duemig used to have a Mutiny guests on a fair number of times. I remember hearing Hankinson, Garlick, Kinnear and others talking about the great season. And remember Duemig talking in depth about how fun Mamadou was to watch. Also, 2000, I remember writing to the Tribune because they started writing game notebooks, like they do for the Devil Rays, in addition to the game stories and I got a nice typed letter back from the paper that I still have. 2001 - The Season started with a huge special section preview that wrapped aroudn the front page of the Tribune sports with Valderrama and Diallo on the cover. It's on my wall autographed by both players. You can't get much better than that. ..... Then Jim Henderson hosted that cure for insomnia of a radio show on 1040 and it seemed the Tribune basically started ignoring road games, but the Times kept up with its pregame story, big game story and weekly notebook. Always looked forward to Bill Ward's columns in the Tribune. Then the Mutiny died. But really, I'm sure that a lot of MLS teams would be hard pressed to say that got better or significantly better media coverage than the Mutiny. New England, D.C. Columbus and maybe Miami could claim they had more media. This is not to say the Mutiny staff couldn't have done better, but things really weren't so bad.
Here in SoFla.... I can honestly say that print/tv did their part...Herald (Michelle Kaufman) and Sentinel (Jeff Rusnack) were active and insightful in their coverage (especially Rusnack, who did the post game radio show on WAXY 790--classic interviews with Ray and the boys from the VIP tent, great atmosphere) TV was good (Frank Forte at ch10 especially) across the board...10 even had Ray on their SportsJam Monday program, along with Dolphins, Marlins, Heat, Panthers) Guess who dropped the ball? Management, for doing nothing to increase the visibility of their team....case in point, refusing to air a radio broadcast of most Fusion road matches....there was some spotty coverage with Lindsey Dean, but nothing consistent or bankable. Sad. Management was its own worst enemy. Thanks Ken....
I think that in the Sunday newspapers Soccer and MLS should get one whole side of a page. I really think that, the sport at this point deserves that. Especially, as I would guess Baseball gets a couple of pages. Instead we often get a small bit of print if we are lucky. It would be nice for the kids who glance at the sports section to see that we have some good US soccer players making a living from the game.
In contrast to Fusionmansteve, I don't believe the Herald did much to promote the Fusion. I used to read it every week and on most weekends, the game wouldn't even be mentioned. There was the occasional article in the back pages somewhere, but how many articles got front page even when no other teams were playing? I specifically remember a front page laughing at the Fusion by saying, "Don't the Fusion play soccer?"
Stuart, point taken...I'm a Sentinel reader more so than the Herald, so I wasn't as familiar with their coverage. I guess I was thinking about Michelle Kaufman, who seemed to do a good job the times I read her...certainly better than Dave Brousseau of the Sentinel, though lagging behind Jeff Rusnack in passion and committment. Anyway people, guess how much press the league gets in contracted cities? It ain't pretty. Nothing like decreasing the visibility of your league...brainiacs at HQ.
Steve, yes Michelle did write some nice stuff. The problem wasn't her... it was how often she was asked/allowed to write and when/where it was placed. For example, in the Fusion's four years, the Herald was printed about 1400 times. Do you think you can find 500 articles, 100 even, 50, 25? My guess is that on those very few occasions, they were small articles thrown in on the last minute. The most press we ever got was when we were Contracted. We actually got front page then. Of course, the other side of the coin is that the Fusion should have worked with the Herald to ensure there was more to print. I remember going to Churchill's (big soccer fans tha show every soccer game on huge screens) after the Contraction - they said that the Fusion had never enen contacted them to show Fusion games or promote the team etc. It all falls into the same "plan" of Horrorwiz... the media should come to them, not the other way around. Sigh.