UEFA Euro 2008 on ESPN/ABC

Next is who consider "over 80 countries" is enough to be considered a world event? where is this criteria documented as universal acceptance? Did you set a quorum of 80 for legitimacy?

The stupider than stupidest is "qualifying 205 out of 206 as world" Who set the threshold that 99.51% would be enough quorum?

Says who?

The Super Bowl exactly tells me otherwise. As a matter of fact, the objections of using the term "World Champions" in gridiron, NBA and baseball should tell you that. The "participation" exclusion policy of an event is why so many people are against the champs of NFL, NBA and MLB being called "world champs".

a billion people watch the Super Bowl? care to cite where you get that number from? If nothing else, it's more likely that a billion people watch India X Pakistan in cricket, and there were more people watching Yao Ming vs Yi Jianlian than watching Euro 04 final. So would these events qualify as world major event in your books?

What's an opinion and a very poor opinion?

- Warbuxx was toasted unless he could show us American TV has obligations to cover an event that primarily non-Americans considered "world major sports event"?
- American TV has obligations to cover an event that primarily non-Americans considered "world major sports event"? or
- Euro 08 was an event that primarily non-Americans considered "world major sports event"?

Silliness is just your opinion, as you cannot claim that my criteria is wrong. So it's your claim of my silliness vs my claim of your silliness, i.e. your opinion vs mine.

I have no idea what you are babbling. This context is not about people watching the games. There are certainly soccer fans in America. It is about treating Euro 08 as a "world major sport event" that broadcast of the games on a free or basic cable channel is a given, as in post #868:

"Grateful, Tapioca, to ESPN, for the great charity of following a major world sports event?! Who are all you apologists for ABC/ESPN's Heidi II? "

The argument is 4-fold:

1) Is the Euro a major world sports event? participation wise, definitely not
2) interest wise, I don't agree but that's an opinion. Just like you think the NBA is enough to be a world event even though it's broadcast only to 80 countries. My standard is higher.
3) should ESPN do something extraordinary to an event that some consider a "major world sports event" but only generate miniscule interest in America? definitely not.
4) should soccer fans be grateful to ESPN for televising this event that some consider a "major world sports event" but only generate miniscule interest in America? definitely.

Laos doesn't participate in cycling qualifiers? how do you know? Is Laos banned by the international federations?

And considering you have no clue on your babbling, your judgement of win or lose is the least of my worry...

 

Hi there folks. Welcome back to the World Semantics Championships, Round 3158. I’m Jim F Willaholabeam, and your play-by-play analyst today is Arthur Estemeyer. We join this round well on its way to the 1000th post and we’ve seen some classic pedantism already. Art?

Art: That’s right Jim. The highlights reel show a challenger making a comment about the Euro championships, being a major world event in sports. Seems reasonable to most people Jim.

Jim: At first glance yes, Art, but not to our resident champion.

Art: Right, Jim. There was that tiny window of ambiguity that the skilled pedant can exploit. “One of the world’s top sporting events” would have locked it down safe, but you make a little slip like that, with someone as skilled at pointless pedantic nit-picking as our champ, and you are in a whole world of trouble.

Jim: because it could be argued that being a European competition means it isn’t a world event, even if it is watched around the world?

Art: Right again, Jim. Even though such a point, and here’s the great skill here, is completely irrelevant and of no importance to any discussion anyone in the world is having, or indeed wants to have, it allows the kind of highly skilled conversation manoeuvres only a highly dedicated mental athlete can achieve.

Jim: Amazing, Art. You have to admire the dedication of athletes like the champ, who’ll go to such extremes, for no gain whatsoever.

Art: It’s sport art it’s purest Jim. No prizes. No glory. No respect.

Jim: And as these things just go on forever, he doesn’t get to even know what winning feels like either.

Art: Nope. Just a long quest to try and not let anyone see he’s a loser.

Jim: Such dedication. Well Art, it looks like we are going into the 100th period of overtime, with no result looking likely yet, so we’ll take a break and we’ll be back after these messages…

 

haha... brilliant!!

 

Ummm... if that's brilliant, I don't know how you would classify the statement you made yourself:

"Even in South America, very few people care about the Euros."

Can't wait...

 

Yes, great post. But I'll be much less witty and much more blunt: Is there really nothing mods can do to stop rangers00 from highjacking every single thread he contributres to?

We had a pretty good thread going for 80+ pages, with interesting exchanges, a good mix of facts, opinions, etc.

And then... rangers00 appears, does his usual trolling bit, waits for someone to bait and goes all out: an avalanche of lenghty, contentious posts in which he makes the same basic point over and over again.

I'm sorry, but that's pure highjacking: rangers00 is the author of more than 20percent of all posts between posts 896 and 976, and he has once again succeeding in turning most people away from a thread that many of us followed with a great deal of interest until he appeared.

Now flame me all you want, red card me if you must, but I've had it with the antics of one egomaniac forum member that constantly ruins it for the rest of us.

 

If I ran for moderator on a platform of "immediately closing this thread", would I get like 400% of the vote?

 

Let me second that motion. I was enjoying reading this thread until "Mr. Hockey ratings" showed up and talked to himself for about ten pages. I'm usually not sure who he's arguing with. Most of the time it seems like a conversation with himself.

 

Of course mods could delete his posts but rangers00 has frequently admitted that he prefers "roasting ESPN bashers" more than watching the World Cup final. It's clearly his #1 hobby. ( https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=3211044&postcount=12 )

Considering that, I think it would be a bit harsh to take away the one thing he has in life.

 

Considering that your interest is to argue with me here, whether you like to admit it or not, of course it would be harsh for you to take away your therapy...

 

As they say, laughter is the best medicine....

 

As they say, it takes two to tango. We all know your habits, no matter what you change your ID to...

And worse yet, you still dare not address your

"Even in South America, very few people care about the Euros."

which is clearly against the opinion of the camp that think Euro is a world major sport event. That's why getting personal is your only way out...

 

Hijacking? unless you agree with these people that it's ESPN's mistake on the Turkey X Germany telecast. That's the only reason that you don't want me to be blunt:

you whiners of ESPN do not deserve the Euro on a basic cable channel, it should be on Setanta PPV so that most of you will get priced out, thus wouldn't complain about the outage of the telecast since score updates on the Internet don't have outage...

Of course, the blunt is very tough to swallow. And thus people telling the truth are "trolls", "hi-jacking a thread". You all want to hear the sweet music. Let's see:

1) ESPN should devote more coverage to soccer
2) the Euro ratings reflect soccer is up and coming in this country
3) soccer will become mainstream in this country by 2054
4) upcoming World Cup audience will bust all the records...

Anymore?

Yeah, and you don't think people's whining about ESPN's screw-up during Turkey X Germany ruined this thread? that tells us how unsound your judgement is...

 

What’s there for me to address? As I already wrote, even when you have a point (which is what you started with some 15 pages ago in this thread), eventually you can’t stop yourself from entering "flame-war mode" and thereby becoming the laughing stock of yet another thread.

Well done … again.

And my comments about wishing the Euros remained on PPV came as a result of thinking back to the way ESPN covered the World Cup. Obviously ESPN listened to the complaints of viewers and dramatically improved coverage for this major international tournament.

 

whether South Americans care about the Euro, i.e. a direct response to someone's claim that the Euro is a world major sport event...

I wouldn't worry about laughing stock of yet another thread, as your nonsense earlier in this thread (that you want the Euro on PPV but not on ESPN) have monopolized the laughing stock.

And since my point is contradictory to your point (that Euro should be on PPV and have the majority of the American audience priced out), is claiming that I have a point an admission that you back out from your earlier stand?

ESPN's coverage "improvement" is irrelevant, as many of the people that bashed you (way before the tournament, and thus any evidence of coverage "improvement") already emphasized: they would rather watch the game with mickey mouse production and JOB/Balboa commentary on a widely available channel than on PPV.

Only a pea brain who says soccer would become mainstream in the U.S. in 50 years back in 2004 would rather see the Euro 08 on PPV...

 

errr...no. I still rather pay $150 for Setanta Euro 2004-quality production than ESPN WC 2006-quality production.

I thought your main point was that all this ESPN-bashing on their Euro 2008 production was ridiculous(?). If not, then maybe I'm wrong: you didn't even have a point to begin with.

Either that or someone who sees $150 for what it is: not that much in this day and age (especially with the pathetic US $ ). It basically amounts to the price of a parking ticket. I actually spent over $5000 on Euro 2008. And I'd do it again...

 

You, sir, are a sucker.

 

agreed. who does that, i love this game but 5,000 dollars in one month would leave my fam without alot.

 

That's why they say you are a sucker, which in my terms, == sheep. If nothing else, that $150 for Euro 04 by Setanta would miss the shootout part of Portugal X England, as Setanta didn't have a sensible distribution agreement with the distributors (you must allocate 3 hours for our KO games or no deal).

Whether you think I have a point on this ESPN offering is not my worry. My worry is that you are in essence supporting me regarding the Euro's world status, as I don't agree with the premise that it's a "world major sport event", while your post last year offered a shocking relevation:

"Even in South America, very few people care about the Euros."

You sure can be a sheep again. No one will stop you...

 

I am from central america, and believe me everybody cares about the euros, dont lie to yourself everyone watches, not WC final like, but definetly everybody follows it, and i have the Guinness world record book and the highest TV rating ever was for the 2002 WC FInal, so RAnger00 get ur fact straight.

And the dude fighting RAnger00, what is wrong with u, espn was not bad, the post game and mid game was crap but the game itself was solid, i lived in spain for 2 years and it was just as good for the in game commentary which is wat matters.

 

Where are you getting these numbers?

 

'BEIJING, Nov. 10 (Xinhuanet) -- Yi Jianlian vs. Yao Ming NBA game on Saturday morning is reported as "a game between Chinese Great Walls". The game attracted world attention and 250 million Chinese audience, according to estimated statistics of NBA.com.'

http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-11/10/content_7043802.htm

"The final between Portugal and Greece was seen by 153 million TV viewers globally,"

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2004/dec/23/broadcasting

 

Hundreds of thousands of people, that's who. E.g: the days leading-up to Russia v. Spain, 1100 airplanes landed in Vienna from Russia alone.

That's not the definition of behaving like a "sheep" (though your jealousy is definitely showing).
Most people didn't even go to Austria and/or Switzerland. The vast majority of fans followed from a distance (on TV). So I was going against the masses if anything.

Regarding your other point, strictly speaking you didn't say anything incorrect. It's just the way you keep hammering home your "point" makes you look like an utter idiot.

 

Now I don't know about the reliability of those numbers, so maybe you can confirm their accuracy. I just have this slight nagging suspicion that estimates from NBA.com might just be "estimates" along the same lines as those NFL superbowl "estimates" of up to 1 billion worldwide viewers.

 

Its different when u have saved up to travel to watch ur team compared to paying to watch on tv, i will pay any amount if possible to go watch Honduras in 2010 if they make it to the WC, but to watch on tv when it could be free just doesnt make sense.