In the ongoing saga of soccer and Sports Illustrated, the current edition (w/ Lance Armstrong on the cover), the is another letter to the editor about soccer, asking that the WC not be like the Super Bowl (as if the two are even close), mention of the All-Star game, and a little blurb on Gazza going to DC. Has SI heard out cries for a just a little more respect, or is this a quickly fading phase?
hopefully not. My sources tell me the Mathis and Donovan SI covers did "pretty well" at the newsstand (pulling about what Tiger Woods did with his most recent cover). Hope to have more concrete info soon.
I will subscribe to SI when the offer "Inside Soccer" more frequently or add a "Soccer Plus" bonus section to subscribers. I will not until then. But what did the letter say?
That's fine, but make sure you buy them on the newstand when they do have those sections (and let them know why you're buying it). Newstand purchases (from what I understand) drive content a lot more than subscriptions.
Re: Re: SI and soccer I bought all of the issues in the last months with soccer featured. The writing in the magazine is good. It is a far better read than ESPN the magazine. (Sorry Jeff.)
I bought two copies of each the Mathis and Donovan covers. I bought one for myself and I framed the cover of the other.
In the magazine with Lance Armstrong on the cover there is a mention of Gazza's trial with DC United. Also in that issue there was a list of ways to improve baseball and one of them was having a World Tournament similar to the World Cup.
I'll say it again. 2002 marked the arrival of international soccer as a mainstream sport in US media.
There was also a long article about the WNBA, and I'm paraphrasing here, but they talked about the catch 22 - the WNBA would do better if there was more media coverage but the media coverage is reflective of the perceived interest of the league. They even admitted they'd barely covered it. Replace WNBA with soccer, and you get the same discussion that people have been having on here since the birth of the boards.
At the risk of turning this into yet another baseball thread, they always have this suggestion. What was interesting was SI's suggestion last summer that baseball have a US Open Cup style tournament for all professional baseball clubs. I wouldn't mind seeing that. Sachin
An international baseball tournament would be a total snooze. First, I'm sure such a thing already exists - we just don't send our best players. Second, what on earth would the tournament look like. USA Cuba D.R. (man what a team they can field) Japan Korea Venezuela Nicaragua Panama Mexico Colombia I'm already stretching the bounds of decency here already. Once you get past the first six teams it really falls off the charts. Sure there is some minor interest in Australia, Russia, Holland, Italy, etc. - sort of like America has an interest in Rugby. We send a team and they get the crap kicked out of themselves.
(Apologies for turning this into a baseball thread.) First off, this was also true of basketball in 1992 when the Dream Team killed everyone. There was interest in Spain, Italy, and some former Soviet Republics, but everyone else was awful. Now look at the state of world basketball. I am not suggesting that there's a causal relationship, but international exposure in middling baseball countries can only help the game. Second, and this is nit-picky, Australia has produced an enormous number of players who have played in the US, the most famous being Graham Lloyd and Dave Nilsson. They may not be up to the level of DR or Cuba, but they're certainly way beyond Russia, Italy or Holland.
SI's suggestion was to have a six-team tournament: USA, Dominican Republic, Venezuela, Japan, either Canada or Puerto Rico and an all-star team of the best from the rest of the world. That would be a competitive tournament.
World View Finally some World Cup coverage aobut countries other than the U.S. (Seize the Day, July 8). You've already Americanized every other sport; please, don't turn the World Cup into the Super Bowl. -Gabriel Venditti, Palgranve, Ont. Also in this SI, a good shot of the Red Sox kicking the Orioles' asses.
Re: World View I guess articles on Bora, Owen and Maradona in the past six months aren't enough. Sachin
Ah. my fellow Americans...let me quell your pain... Most of us remain so damn ignorant, in infallible lockstep only with what Brokaw, Jennings and Rather (or, more specifically in this case, Eisen, Scott, Patrick, and Rhome) decide to tell us about the world... The GAISF is the association comprised of most, if not all, the world governing bodies of sport. just because we decide that the NBA or MLB national championships (yes, I know about Canada and the NBA and MLB, but its still pretty much a natonal championship) are "world championships" doesn't mean that are...not at all. Indeed, almost all of the world governing bodies have a true World Championship for their sport. Check it out. http://www.agfisonline.com/en/members.phtml There is nothing wrong with the IBAF's current Baseball World Cup format. For SI to "propose" a world championship is the height of ignorance. And all this from a pub that reps itself as the be-all and end-all of sports...no wonder we can't get knowledgable soccer coverage without it becoming an "interest piece"...
Re: World View I love this sentiment. I mean, to what does it refer? Baseball? How can you Americanize that? Basketball? heh heh heh What sport have we Americanized? Seriously, name one. Maybe they're referring to stuff like ice dancing, I don't know. When someone spits out this, it's a pretty clear sign that they can't think, but only regurgitate undigested s***.