"ESPN’s soccer productions will continue to emphasize player personalities and statistics more than past soccer broadcasts — an approach that brought a torrent of criticism following the United-Galaxy game, when mainstream publications and soccer blogs bashed ESPN for focusing too much on Beckham, with frequent shots of the player on the bench, warming up or playing without the ball." Sports Business Journal: http://www.sportsbusinessjournal.co...ticle.main&articleId=55979&requestTimeout=900
Too bad they didn't say the same for skycam, although there was considerably less on last nights broadcast.
TV ratings are flat for MLS, despite GoldenBalls and better ESPN promotion. I don't see any good way to spin that.
What does ESPN want from MLS ?.... At SC they bash soccer and MLS all the time, they're having an NFL guys and gals do they soccer bits for that 5 seconds that they talk about it. They stop running the ads for MLS long time ago. They care less about the game and MLS and they want to see big ratings ,because they spent $64 million on MLS.
Thank god we wont have to suffer through watching Beckham eat sunflower seads and tie and untie his shoes on the bench. That was ridiculous. I could also do without watching his skinny wife drink wine. On the up side, thanks to Beckham now when I turn on ESPN I get soccer instead of hot dog eating contests and 5 card poker playing. They used to try to pass that off as sports before they had Becks to talk about.
ESPN just needs to treat soccer like a normal sport, instead of a circus show by just focusing on Beckham. Show highlights of every game on sportcenter, break in a story to talk about the league and/or its players on shows like PTI. Yes, the general audience probably wouldn't want to see that, but at least sport is presented as a real sport, instead of something niche.
I'm glad they're dropping the Beckham Cam. I hope they eventually stop cutting the camera to the sideline reporter everytime he/she says something. Unfortunately, I'm afraid you can give up hoping for a more 'serious' approach to soccer/MLS from SportsCenter. I haven't watched it (outside of college football season) in years. But it seems it's all about the anchors - sports seem to take a back seat. But we shouldn't be too suprised; have you watched any 'News' shows lately? Soccer is such a great sport, and it seems there have been more MLS games that I have truely enjoyed this season than ever before. Yea, it'd be nice to see it get a fair shake from the self-proclaimed "Sports Leader"; but .... EDIT: Having said all that, the low ratings can't ALL be put on ESPN or SC. A rating of 1.0 is just not that good, no matter the excuses.
See guys, this is why you express your opinion on these boards and through emails and blogs. Don't ever stop fighting for better coverage.
What the hell did they expect? They've been trying to sell the game for years not by selling the actual game but by selling personalities (did you know Kasey Keller lives in a castle? did you know Brian Ching is from Hawaii?). So Beckham comes along and they think, "hey, he's married to a Spice Girl! That's even better than living in a castle or being from Hawaii." But the fact of the matter is Beckham isn't that interesting and people are not going to tune in to see what he's doing any less than they're going to tune in because Kasey Keller lives in a castle or because Brian Ching hails from Hawaii. I'm sure the lives and personalities of baseball players, football players and basketball players are just as interesting as the lives and personalities of soccer players -- maybe even just as interesting as Beckham. But I don't watch baseball, football or basketball on TV. Why? Because I don't enjoy those sports (probably because while I played soccer my father didn't watch any sports when I was growing up and consequently never "sold" those games to me) and no amount of personality driven drivel is going to change that.
We could definitely use an ESPN soccer drinking game around here. First of all, drink whenever you hear that Brian Ching is the first player from Hawaii to _______________ ...... Actually, never mind. In any game that Ching is involved in for Houston or the USMNT, we'd all need liver transplants by halftime.
The way I see it: the ESPN audience tuned in to the Chelsea game to see Beckham, on the bench or not. And over the next weeks he saw more playing time, but he hadn't a moment of magic, so people were still tuning in to see him. Well, now he's made his starts, scored a goal, assisted goals, and the general ESPN audience has decided by now that they either like him or not. Thus the need for constant Becksploitation (is that a first-timer? hah) isn't as strong anymore; we don't need to see what brand his seeds are if he's not making a start. I think they're finally realizing that Becksploitation isn't appealing to the reoccurring Primetime Thursday fan (or the press, apparently) so they're cutting back. Smart move by them, and a smart move toward legitimate soccer broadcasting and presentation in the future.
Hey, what's so bad about the Skycam? I like the Skycam, if there's one good thing ESPN has done for soccer it's that. But did anyone else notice there was a lot less "story telling" during last night's game. I was like "Holy crap they're actually commenting on the game! And no Beckham cam!" I say we stop whining about it.
Is there a specific reason you feel you need to lie to make your points? The Becks games have been some of the highest rated games in MLS history on ESPN.
I think "Beckham cam" is interesting for the occasional replay to show you what he's doing off the ball. If they want to get really fancy, show that non-stop on ESPN Classic while a game is in progress on ESPN2. But all those shots of the guy adjusting his socks got a bit silly ...
The story telling wasn't too bad, but they still ignored the play on the field. Wynalda went on these frequent long rants about how this player sucks that player is OK etc ... He treats his air time as if it was a talk show where he needs to inject opinion into every trivial thing ... Sometimes I think he watches a match waiting for anyone to screw up so he can criticize... Reminds me a bit of Andres Cantor and Norberto Longo when they did MLS games in the '90s.
Bingo. Next time some ESPN empty suit wants to say how disappointed they are at the ratings for MLS and how they expected so much more, maybe we could take him a little more seriously if they would tell THEIR OWN FREAKING ANCHORS to quit bashing the league and the sport every effin' chance they get. If they're serious about wanting to see the numbers go up, maybe they could tell Scott Van Pelt to put a sock in it next time he gets the opportunity/feels the need to make a smart-assed comment about soccer. Same goes for that dope Colin Cowherd and the rest of the ESPN radio idiots, too, because soccer/MLS bashing isn't just a problem on ESPN television. Maybe remind them of the financial commitment that their employer has put into soccer/MLS and that it benefits all of them if it does well. I don't expect these same morons to suddenly become shills for MLS, but just back off on all of the damn bashing of the sport. Until and unless that happens - and it won't, so don't hold your breath soccer fans - then shut the hell up about how disappointed you are about the ratings, ESPN. Take a look at some of the things IN YOUR OWN DAMN HOUSE that might be contributing to that. Better ESPN promotion, my ass. Just writing the checks and expecting things to improve because of minor improvements in promotion, at best, ain't getting it done - not while your own people continue to mock the sport at the same time. And if this is the way things are going to continue, ESPN can just keep the WNBA, poker, eating contests, and all the rest of their crap programming, and I'll happily stick with FSC, Telefutura, and Direct Kick for my MLS viewing.
FYP. Apparently MLS and ESPN like to ignore the fact that David Vaudreuil was from Hawai'i. Ching is the first non-white guy from Hawai'i in MLS.