"Europeans' Fluid Game Is a Treat in New Jersey" By JACK BELL http://www.nytimes.com/2002/08/09/sports/soccer/09SOCC.html Nice meaty article. Yes, the article mentions the Metrostars.
Yeah it sure does: "Tickets priced as high as $75 were no deterrent for the clubs' loyal fans, the majority of whom have clearly not been impressed with the quality of play from the stadium's regular tenants, the MetroStars of Major League Soccer. It might be an unfair comparison, because Zidane and Figo are each paid $6 million a year, which is nearly the combined payroll of all 10 M.L.S. clubs. Still it is a comparison that is constantly made." I wonder if Figo wasn't impressed by what the "regular tenants" of MLS did to his team in the World Cup.
I saved my money on Metros v. Boca, cause I didn't pay anything as a season ticket holder. And, once bitten, twice shy, I'm not even bothering with the Chivas match, I don't think. This has been the year of my disillusionment with the meaningless friendly, and last night's match gets lumped in with all of em.
Re: newspaper coverage of Real Madrid/Roma [R] Hopefully this'll cover just about all the English-language papers... except the Herald News, whose reporter was at the match but I couldn't find the story online. And there were quite a few mentions of the MetroStars. Watch the papers for rebuttal. Scoreless match still a huge draw - NY Post Real-Roma quite a draw - NY Daily News Soccer powers bring out the fans - Daily Record Zoffinger questions marketing skills of MLS - Star-Ledger Drawing crowds a foreign concept - Star-Ledger Madrid-Roma go scoreless - Bergen Record
How about European raiders come to take your money, fans and women. It really pisses me off that when any European teams travel to the U.S it is not to an attempt to forge closer links between fans of these two great continents but as a marketing ploy to crack the U.S market. This is the only reason that the dirty reds of Manchester are traveling to your country next year. As a English fan living in Manchester I can only apologise. No wonder the red shite are the most hated team in the world.
The thing that irks me is the NY Times failure to regularly write a day of game article for the Metrostars. It would be nice to know that their is always going to be a pre-game article for the team. Then this friendly comes along and suddenly there's an article and a picture of Kofi Annan with the players. I give Champions world a lot of credit for being clever. I think the tie in with the UN Aids fund was a great marketing ploy. I'm curious to know how much the actual donation was. I'm sure it paid for itself many times over with all the free publicity.
Well if more than 4000 people showed up to a wednesday game, maybe they would write a game of day article.
Maybe. But if I wasn't being clear, I mean an article before the game is played. So I don't think attendance is the sole cause for our lack of coverage. We've had saturday games that have no pre-game article as well, and that draw at least as well as other local teams.
The Metro are averaging somewhere between 18-19,000 for their home games. If you believe the source they're drawing more viewers on MSG than either the Devils or the Islanders. How about some coverage commensurate with those numbers? Is that too much to ask?
Now that it's been a couple of days , I'm not sure what the hell I was posting with that one . I guess the train of thought derailed .