Reality

very true and well put. My thoughts exactly.

 

Except they had two other channels with which to make a move.

 

And if I'm a soccer fan, I let ESPN know that I'm unhappy with their decision. What they did may be justified, but I can still let them know I don't like it.

 

I understand why they made the change. I just wish they would've bumped the soccer game to ESPN Classics.

 

Count me in the crowd that's amused by the hysterics.

I understand the answer-- but writing to ESPN may actually be counter-productive.

Given that some people are truly upset and may even spend less money on the league because of it, MLS should take that into account the next time they negotiate the TV contract (err time buy). Receiving letters from fans might make them value freedom from pre-emption a bit more, and they might be willing to pay a bit more for that right. There's no guarantee they can afford it, but if that's what fans really want, they should feel free to say so.

But writing to ESPN has the opposite effect-- they had little choice to pre-empt the game from the deuce (although, as people have said, they could've put it on classic or news...) and they'd be glad to know that MLS will be willing to pay more for protection from pre-emption- they'll wisely take advantage and try and extract as much money from our league as possible in the next round of negotiations.

 

But they didn't bump any old MLS game for women's basketball, they bumped Freddy! How can this be?

 

I'm curious how many people watching the WNBA game followed it to ESPN2.

I'm sure they lost some people in transition.

With Freddy Adu United playing on ESPN2 there's going to be a larger audience than not.

I'd like to see the numbers of people watching in the 1st half hour and then how many there were when the game came on.

I'm pretty sure that the Nielsen's rate in 15 minute chunks and then just take 8 different ratings over the two hours and average them to give the average for the game.

 

The only part of any of this that can be debated realistically is why they didn't use News or Classic, an alternative I am in favor of. They had to show the WNBA game the way they did according to their contract based on a post from a person who works or has previously worked for ESPN on another mailing list.

The problem with moving it to News or Classic is that is something they don't do anytime I have ever seen. They should re-think that. But until MLS boosts its viewership and gets a rights-fee contract, they are the low man on the totem pole. All the letters in the world won't change that.

 

I seem to remember something being bumped to News, but I don't remember what it was. And my memory could be faulty.

But they definitely discussed using Classics (I'm not sure about News) to show live games when they were putting together a bid for the NCAA Tournament a couple of years ago. Whether that means they can contractually do it, I don't know.

 

If News is anything like here in KC, a local station owns part if not most of the schedule and has something already planned. They are not going to turnoff the Royals for an MLS game not even involving the local team.

 

The are some strictly ESPN News channels, you know. DirecTV, most digital cable packages, etc.

 

Who pays whom to show World Cup Qualifiers?

I was at a friend's to watch the USA - Jamaica game in 2001 or 02, the day that we qualified thanks to Trinidad or someone beating Costa Rica or something and Mexico tying some other side, I think.

Either way, the game was scheduled for ABC, and it happened to the be the day we started bombing Afghanistan. ABC rightly chose to have the screen filled with a greenish black box showing an infra-red image of nothing at all along with a lot of conjeture about the nothing that was going on and the something that had transpired before the infra-red cameras had been set up. I don't recall what was on ESPN or ESPN2 at the time, but the National Team game was just pre-empted. There was no attempt to move it to another channel. That was a Sunday. The next Monday, they showed it on the deuce--at noon.

ESPN Classic really seems the perfect place to send games that have to be moved for political reasons. The point is that they preempted soccer when it was on ABC, and then preempted soccer again when girls' basketball was on ABC. And that just sucks. Nobody is going to be surprised to find out who won the 1964 Kentucky Derby or whatever was on Classic on Saturday. By the way, who pays whom to show that kind of filler?

If a ship were going down, and they'd announced "Women and Children First," but then all the lifeboats were full and had gone but one, and there were enough women and enough children to fill a lifeboat each, who would be forced to drown along with the men?

If it was the USS ABC, the children would sleep with the fishies.

As for those who think Disney's contract for Real Basketball is in any way damaged if ABC covers Breaking News instead of some WNBA game, while their relationship with MLS allows for preemption, imagine this scenario:

You're out to lunch from work, and the server or kitchen screws up your order. By the time they get you your sandwich, you're due back on the job. So you take an extra long lunch operating on the idea that you're entitled to do that since you paid for it. When you get back to work, your boss is pissed that he paid you to have a bite rather than do what you were paid to do. The responsible thing to have done would be to have the sandwich to go and it eat it later.

Key: You're Disney, your boss is MLS, and the Sandwich is a WNBA game.

 

Well, then they can respond to my e-mail and tell me why they had to show the WNBA; to which I can reply, "Thank you for letting me know. Keep up the good work. I look forward to when soccer has a good contract with you so you'll stick up for them too." [no sarcasm intended.]

That's why I cannot understand why e-mailing them and letting them know of my disappointment is a bad thing. At least they'll know I was watching their channel.

 

E-mailing them is fine. I don't have a problem with it in general. I dislike the vitriol-filled e-mails, the theatening ones that will do more harm than good. And the nice ones just won't accomplish much. But I'll probably send one too.

 

They talked about shifting stuff when there was war coverage possibly during March Madness or something like that. They were going to be CBS fallback, IIRC. But I also thought they would make money off that deal. There's the rub.

 

Well this is the main problem, isn't it?

Guys like Ace have a point-- we shouldn't be complacent and assume that the league can't do any better. If it doesn't know that something important is bothering fans, it can't do anything about it. Whether it's in the league's power/budget to change the TV situation, I honestly don't know (though, like you, I doubt it).

The problem is when you get BS-fueled hystrionics sent to the very people that need convincing of soccer's value. I can't imagine that this is anything other than counterproductive.

Especially in this case. IF ESPN paid for MLS's rights, writing them would be productive-- they'd realize that they have to give more (i.e. promise no pre-emption or move games to Classic, etc) for the same contract.

But, because MLS is paying ESPN, everytime you write ESPN, you're essentially giving them better ammo against making those sorts of promises for the next time they sit down to negotiate with MLS for similar amounts of money.

 

I got screwed. I wasn't watching the game, I taped it. And I didn't watch the tape until after 9pm on Saturday. By the time the change was made, the replay was over. O well.

 

Are you sure this killer sandwich belongs in a thread entitled, "Reality?"

 

Contracts are contracts and unfortunately the MLS does not have a good contract with ESPN/ABC. The thing I was disappointed in was the fact that I have the MLS Direct Kick subscription. Even with this package, I was still not able to flip over to a pay channel or something through the package and watch the rest of the game. I was sure I would be able to. Must be another contract the MLS has with the ESPN deal. Contracts. It's all about contracts.

 

And they certainly aren't going to bump the Belmont Stakes for a WNBA game when they can simply bump a match that less 1% of America is watching. so stop sending hate mail to ESPN. I doubt they had any choice in the matter.[/QUOTE]

I think you need to re-compute your figures, from what I'm hearing its the wnba that has less than 1% of the viewing audience....

 

You are correct. The DK package is for local broadcasts only, which is why FSW games (whicvh use feeds of local games anyway) and HDNet do not show up on there. Plus, they need to arrange for satellite time ahead of the fact through a third party in order to get the games on the DK package.

Believe me, MLS wishes it were simpler, but it just isn't.

 

I'm not bothered by it as much as I am the two LA Gals games that were supposed to be on DirecTV that weren't. The one this weekend showed a boxing match instead. I don't bother to call them anymore because they make it as inconvient as possible to do so, and they won't refund anything anyway, and apparently can't fix it for some reason. During the first week, I called to complain, mostly to just complain. I told them I was from LA and had only bought the package for that (not true, of course). When she offered me a month of Showtime to compensate, I told her "that's no good, I only watch soccer."

I didn't have the patience to do it again this weekend unfortunately. IMO, we should email or call them about every slight, if we have the energy. Eventually, it will soak in.