Was anyone else bothered by the way the schedule was put together for this season? I really did not enjoy seeing the same teams for 4 weekends in a row. I believe this happened with the Revs and Metros and Quakes. I can't exactly pin the nail on why this annoyed me so much but I like to see different teams. I basically missed out on the entire season of a couple of teams. Where was Dallas and Kansas City? I think I saw Dallas play twice and KC once and I didn't miss a single Soccer Saturday. I could be wrong but I'm pretty sure. Another idea I have for improvement for next season involves the stadiums. I think it's good to open the season at Crew stadium and also in the future, LA's new stadium. After that, through most of the season, it doesn't matter which stadiums the games are at. It doesn't until football season. For the last 6 weeks of the season or so, I think all the broadcasts should be held at Crew stadium, LA's new stadium, Spartan stadium, and RFK to avoid the football lines. It would also be great to start doing a broadcast of the Rapids' Fourth of July game every year. That would be one hell of an atmosphere for soccer on the t.v. I know most of you have seen a broadcast of a champions league game. If not, it starts in like two weeks so make sure you tune in. But anyways, I think MLS needs to take note of the way they show highlights of the other game. I'm not talking about at halftime where they show all the goals, but I'm talkin about during the game. An example would be like having Real Madrid v. Anderlecht at the same time as Arsenal v. Leverkusen. If the Real game was being shown, every time a goal occured in the other game, the broadcast of the Real game would show it at the next stoppage in play. What if they schedule two games to be played at 4:00 each Saturday. Then MLS could do this same thing. I think it's a pretty cool idea. Tell me what you think of all this. Maybe I'm the only one bothered my the schedule. And maybe I'm the only one who thinks this is a good idea.
This I believe is a very good idea. I like how the CL does those in-game updates, It's nice especially for fans that don't have the shootout and can't get highlights from other games. All your points should be taken into consideration for next year's TV schedule.
They do the same thing in England too. It was interesting when they had the commentators for both games talking to each other about what just happend. So, I also think it would be a cool thing for MLS to do. It bothered me too seeing the MetroStars playing every weekend. They need to put more of the other teams on. I'm glad that they are gonna play a soccer game this thursday on ESPN2! I hope they get good ratings, lol.
The problem with showing the highlights from other matches during the Soccer Saturday match it that it is usually the first game of the day. The game on ESPN 2 will start at 4 pm eastern, and the rest of the matches start at 7:30 pm eastern, and then the games in California start at 10 pm eastern. There'd be no highlights of matches to show on ESPN, but it would be nice to see highlights of other games on the Shootout Package.
Yeah, I'm bothered by it. Especially now that "football" has started and MLS is moved to primetime Thursday nights. What are people going to watch...soccer or the Rachel/Joey/Ross thing? Besides the die-hard soccer fans, folks will tune in to Must See TV. What a shame.
Re: Re: Schedules, broadcasts i know tell me about it. friends suck anyway! they are running out of storylines. at least soccer will get more expose in that primetime spot. lets just hope people get interested in it when they channel surf. thats how i found out about the MLS and thats saying something...
Ignoring for the moment that crowd draw is better in the evening than the afternoon, you are ignoring production costs. What makes you think MLS is willing to pay for TWO ESPN crews, TWO announcing crews, etc. etc. etc. You have just doubled MLS's costs for the sole purpose of giving you some interesting highlights in case the game you are watching bores you. Not too likely, I don't think.
Couldn't just one of the games be "soccer saturday" and the other one be on a local channel or shootout similtaneously and they could just show the highlights of the opposite game using that local feed. ..although.. come to think about it the problem with have two different games broadcasted at the same time would be people would be forced to decide between which game to watch and thus it would reduce ratings for both games by cutting the audience in half.
In Italian soccer, all the clubs play on Sundays around the same time. The TV people choose one game to show and whenever something that's worth being highlighted about from another game, they do a split screen and you get to see it. In addition to that, they have soooo many programs on the day's highlights. I know English Premier is like this too (with all the programs). But, that's the thing, it's Italy and England! There, soccer has been "the thing" for many,many,many,many years. and a few more. Here in the US, we're not at that stage, and it'll be awhile until Major league Soccer will be. That's why the broadcasting and schedules are so shitty. This past Saturday, Aug. 31, there was no soccer on ESPN2 or ESPN, which ever, because of stupid football. I had to wait until 1 AM to watch Metros vs. Galaxy. Next season, I'm getting the Shootout Package.