Just found this off of SoccerAmerica.com via Ridge Mahoney. We've know for a few days that MLS Wrap was going to be cut down to a half an hour. But, according to Mahoney Wheelock and Harkes are out as well. Pretty suprising and disapointing news if you ask me. I know the two of them had plenty of critics, I'm just disapointed they didn't give the show more time to gel. I really think towards the end of the first season they really started to tweak the show and make it better. It's too bad they didn't give it more time. American soccer desirves a Baseball Tonight style show.
Maybe people are too distracted to comment on this, due to the Landon Donovan transfer rumor traffic surge, anticipation for the USA match, or perhaps just have a life with something better to do (unlike us losers )? As for John Harkes and Sean Wheelock, it's not a big surprise. Neither of them are based in Los Angeles and probably don't find it worth it to do all the travelling for a 30 minute show. I just don't know who they're going to replace them with. I just pray they don't give the job to Max Bretos or Christian Miles or Allen Hopkins. Worse yet, the 2 morons from the Fox Football Friday show. Now that the Rugby Club has dissolved, they may need to find something for Bretos to do to justify his employment. How about Matt Brown and Tony Vizard joining him? Seriously speaking, they may involve Sigi Schmidt in some way. They used him for commentary for the Honduras friendly. Also, now they have good competition from the "American Soccer" show on GolTV, which is great.
Man was he boring! I felt sorry for Allen Hopkins cause he kept trying to get him to have some sort of character but couldn't do it.
It's too bad that MLS Wrap will be changing, as it was an awesome show the last two seasons. Besides the highlights, I particularly liked the "News of the Week" segments and the interviews (whether in-studio or on the phone). Fortunately, those aspects will still be preserved, but in a different format. The new MLS Preview Show will be an hour long and will include previews, highlights and interviews (and likely a "News of the Week" segment). Each new episode will first air on Fridays at 8pm ET / 5pm PT and will repeat throughout the week. The newly-revamped MLS Wrap will be half an hour long and will mainly cover highlights of the MLS games played that week. Each new episode will first air on Sundays 12am ET / Saturdays 9pm PT and will repeat throughout the week. There will also be an FSC weekly half-hour show called Fox Soccer USA which will reportedly cover the semi-pro, amatuer and college soccer scene in this country. Along with GolTV's weekly half-hour American Soccer and The Soccer Files shows (both of which aren't MLS or U.S. National Team specific, but mainly cover them nevertheless), and that's a lot of U.S. soccer coverage that we could only have dreamt about only a few short years ago. -G
Funny that is news has come to light. I ran into Wheelock here in Jacksonville at media row during the Super Bowl. Looking back at the conversation I regret being as blunt as I was about my feelings about MLS Wrap (which are well documented, but for those not paying attention I thought it was a total disaster). Being in broadcasting myself, I never really blamed Sean & John for the format or programming of the show. It was obvious that they were working with very little in terms of TV people that actually understand the sport. Sean was very honest in telling me about just how little they had to work with in terms of manpower and how FSW had really just hung them out to dry. When I expressed the opinion that the show needed to be much more highlights of the games and way less of the gabfest he and John had going on, he agreed. He explained that the reason there was such a limited amount of highlights for an hour long show was because they didn't have the personel to watch every game and do the production work needed to really put together a quality highlight package for all but a couple of that week's matches. I also got the strong feeling that he and Harkes both disliked having to fill time with the "bits"; the emails, phone calls, and the giveaways. I think they felt really silly with all that, and truth be told - they were. So now that this news is coming to light, it seems that Sean has been successful in expressing he concerns and feelings into what MLS really needs in terms of a MLS show or shows. Good for him.
DOes anyone know where this leaves Wheelock in terms of his standing with FSW? We keep hearing about these new show(s). I wonder if they still plan to use him in that fashion or he's just out? Did you get a sense for that Hitman? To echo what you've said, having some expierence in broadcasting myself as well I think the most vocal critics of MLS Wrap and the show don't understand just how much time and resources it requires to produce a slick looking show. That being said, it's TV and what's on the screen is on the screen, it's not any viewers perogative to give a crap why something looks poorly produced. Personally though, like I've said I thought the show was improving and would've done well to just been cut down to a half hour to make it a tighter broadcast. I really enjoyed the show despite all of its warts and hope that it's newest incarnation is similar to it because I still think that format can work in American television. For all the people clamoring for an EPL-style review type show. That's fine but in my oppinion that stuff is tremendously boring. Soccer may lend itself well to showing longer highlights and more of the action than just the goals but a highlight should be a freaking highlight not a long form summary. I'll be very disapointed if the new Wrap is similar to that.
Couldn't disagree with you more. The EPL review show is absolutely fantastic. Typically you get 7-12 mins of highlights from each game. You see every crucial play. Highlights sell review format shows and not announcers (at least not the announcers at FSC). They have the same phrases day in and day out.
As far as I know, Wheelock is doing some USL games on FSC this summer, as he has done for the last several years. And anyone who says the biggest problem on MLS Wrap was the producer and not the talent is spot-on. I'd actually rather have an in-depth, tighter, shorter show a few days after the fact than the midnight eastern we-have-too-much-time-to-fill show they've put on in the past just so it's on the same night.
If Wheelock said/believes all the things attributed to him here about the format and feel of the show, terrific. Make the guy executive producer. But his on-screen delivery suuuuuuuuuuuuuuuucks, and the first thing he should do as executive producer is fire himself as talent. (His second step should be to relegate Bretos and Hopkins to fax machine/copier duty.) Perhaps when Rome figures out his 15 minutes expired in 2003 he can come over and co-host
Thing is that talent can be groomed or grow into a position. Format and editing just are what they are. Little hard to be smooth too when everything goign on behind the scenes is a cluster********.
Actually, according to the schedules I've seen from FSC, it will be a half hour long and will first air on Wednesday nights.
If they make a show, similar to like a Bundesliga review show or whatever, that will be a total bust as well. They need a studio show, with experts giving their takes on the games, like they do on Baseball Tonight, as someone mentioned. Don't just show highlights, talk about the games, give interviews, and such. 30 minutes might be too little for a full week of action though. But any change is good i guess, because the old format sucked as well. The idea was there, but it was run wrong.