In baseball, they call these early afternoon games on Wednesday or Thursday the Getaway Game, both because people can get away from work to attend the game and because it permits traveling teams to depart the host city that same day. It doesn't happen very often in MLS, but here in week 20 we have two teams - New York and Chivas USA - hosting getaway games. All start times listed as EDT, and all games broadcast on Direct Kick and MLS Live unless otherwise noted. Wednesday 18 July Chicago at New York, 1:00 Portland at Chivas USA, 4:00 Colorado at Toronto, 7:00 New England at Montreal, 8:00 Kansas City at Houston, 8:30 Los Angeles at Vancouver, 10:00 Dallas at San Jose, 11:00, NBCSN - The Chelsea at Seattle friendly is also on the 18th (ESPN2, 9:30), in place of the regularly scheduled Salt Lake at Seattle game. Initially I was upset as the change scuttled the mini-vacation (without our kids!) Mrs. Ismitje and I planned, but given how poorly RSL has looked of late, I thank SSFC for the delay. Saturday 21 July Philadelphia at New York, 2:30, ESPN DC United at Columbus, 7:30 Montreal at Houston, 8:30 New England at Kansas City, 8:30 Portland at Dallas, 9:00 Chivas USA "at" Los Angeles, 10:00, Telefutura Colorado at Salt Lake, 10:00 -The Liverpool at Toronto game is also on the 21st (Fox Soccer, 4:00). Sunday 22 July San Jose at Vancouver. 7:00 As always, keep it friendly here in the neutral PBP thread.
Chivas USA has already disappointed me with that 1:00 pm PDT kickoff on Wednesday. But I'm sure they'll manage to disappoint me in other ways as well.
They sold 4,000 tickets to youth campers, so I'm going to say 7,000 in attendance, announced 16,000. Going to be a terrible atmosphere on a terrible day for soccer. *groan*
What's the deal with these afternoon mid-week games? It wasn't hot enough in the summer in the evening? Mid-week games didn't already draw badly enough? Very strange. Very... Doug Logan.
In the case of NY, it's very Chris Heck, who was hired to try to increase revenue. He was responsible for the ticket price hike fiasco, which may have caused a net loss not only of STH's but also of revenue from the season ticket stream. In this case, he experimented with an afternoon game to attract the summer soccer camp crowd. Of course, had he bothered looking into this, he would have found that Sacko tried this desperate gambit and saw it fail in that Metrostars vs KC game in 2003. It's actual far hotter today than it was in that awful 2003 game: Newark Airport reported 100F at noon. How this clown will manage to keep his job, I have no idea.
It is asinine. It is like they have said, "We have seen what works and what does not and we know what conditions are best and worse for soccer so now it is time to put that knowledge to use and do what doesn't work in conditions that are bad for soccer" Brilliant!
If I were a troll I would say it could never happen in a proper league but the reality is it would never happen in any top league - the sort of crass idiocy and ignorance required to schedule a mid week game at mid day in over 100F+ heat just does not exist there. (Yeah I know RBNY had a hand in it)
I have four days off this week, what with our kids away at camp. The plan was to fly to Seattle and spend three days hanging out, book ended on the RSL at Seattle game. Then they moved that game so Chelsea could play a friendly against the Sounders, and we've saved a grand instead. We set the alarm for 9:45 PDT, just finished a leisurely breakfast of eggs, potatoes, sausage, and toast, and now we have an equally leisurely day planned.
Even if I was at work, MLS Live would serve me well. Less watching and more listening in that case, but it would work. I might even appreciate this game more if that were the scenario.
Not too leisurely with the kids away at camp I hope. The only good thing about work for me is enjoying time off away from it - but then i really am a bum.
I think broadcast crews (like Chicago's today) who call the game from the studio rather than travel to the away venue should also have a sideline reporter not at the game. Maybe they could sit in an adjacent studio rather than the same one as the PBP guys. Then we can have that additional, scintillating context we've come to expect, such as on-field temperature discussed every fifteen minutes or so (I am thinking of Rob Stone here).
Count your blessings. I just had to hear Messing posit that Conde was changing out of orange shoes because they were too hot for conditions.
I think it safe to say this game is thus far as disappointing, slow and poorly attended as we all expected. When I say all I am obviously excluding those that are actually paid to analyse these things and scheduled the game. Oh, an effort on goal, well off target but an effort!
MLS should have stepped in and never allowed this to happen. An absolute disgrace of a match brought to you by Chris Heck.
I actually got the time for this match and US women's basketball against Great Britain mixed up. When I didn't see anything on espn3 an hour ago, I forgot about MLS.