DCU will have 15 games on Comcast Sports Net this season. That's the lowest total of any team in the league locally. That's two fewer than the initial announcement last year. How is that "unsurpassed" as the press release says? I know it's not easy to get TV time. I know this is their largest potential audience. I know more games may get added, but don't piss on my leg and tell me I spilled my beer. What a joke.
Playing devil's advocate for a moment... It's possible the "unsurpassed coverage" is a descriptor of the quality, rather than the quantity. (bwwhahahahaha) And it's possible the descriptor includes the following from the last paragraph: "Comcast SportsNet’s 2012 coverage of D.C. United will also be prominently featured on the network’s full lineup of daily news and entertainment programs, including SportsTalk Live and Geico SportsNet Central. Comcast SportsNet also provides complete coverage of United online at CSNwashington.com and CSNbaltimore.com." Playing reality's advocate now for a moment... Yeah RIGHT. But this is what I expect from the PR office of the club. And exactly why I dropped PR as a career option right after my first internship in one.
As I said in a thread in MLS N&A, people can spin it any way they want, but it's still BS. This league is moving forward by leaps and bounds media wise. Teams are getting games in HD on broadcast outlets, yet DCU is still begging for scraps from a cable "partner" who knows the team is incapable and unable to get anyone else to broadcast them. The good news is that since they do such a horrible job covering the team's games, we don't have to worry about blackout rules as much for MLS Live and Direct Kick. EDIT: Took out a part where I thought the release was from CSN.
If the team is in the playoff chase, I wonder how many later games may get put on Comcast or Comcast +. Hopefully we'll be in the hunt and hopefully they'll add some games. Also, They are unsurpassed in that no other outlet will carry more than 15 United games!
unsurpassed...I'm sure. I wonder how many games - if any - will have the announcers at the game? Maybe DCU should see if they could get a better deal with cable-access...party on! More seriously, it seems odd to me to show home games on tv when there are, by my count, five road games that will not be on tv this year.
Especially with augmenting Comcast/NBC's number with totals on NBC Sports' pending coverage, I'm shocked that the team can't get 100% of it's season aired. Home Dates Uncovered April 7 vs Seattle, May 26 vs New England, Sept 15 New England, October 20 vs Columbus- you could argue/use the home venue demand issue, but at this point it feels so antiquated and honestly just feels like covering up for a lack of results on the team's part. Road Dates Uncovered August 11 @ Kansas City, August 25 @ Montreal, Sept 1 @ Salt Lake, September 29 @ Portland, October 6 @ Toronto- Really, this part of the uncovered schedule is ludicrous, for the team and the league to be honest. And we can expect all of whatever US Open Cup tilts will add to those un-aired totals as well. You loose the argument that your soccer team is as marketable as the big 4 (NFL, MLB, NHL, NBA) until you bring the number of un-aired road games closer to zero. It's really that simple. Another point to question- Since NBCSports is picking up some of the MLS schedule along with ESPN2, is the MLS coverage from FOXSoccer just going away completely?
In terms of televising games? Fox Soccer will not show MLS league games this season (or in '13 or '14). They have CONCACAF Champions League rights at the moment, but are no longer an MLS television partner. MLS deals with NBC/NBC Sports Network, ESPN, and Univision run through 2014. http://goal.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/m-l-s-and-nbc-sports-announce-new-tv-deal/
I'm no comcast apologist, but come on... No one would watch those. They are weeknight games that people won't even attend... I think they'd get a third or less of the viewership of Comcast games.
I'd happily watch the Open Cup games, but those are not DC United's games to negotiate the broadcast rights for, they are not MLS games, those are USSF games --- different animal you have to arrange broadcasts with - and we all know the USSF could not care too much less about promoting the actual games, let alone showing them on TV.
I like the quality point. There's also the reality that 15 games (on CSN/CSN+) is a number that is not surpassed by any other individual provider or tv partner this season for United. (and there's also the chance, apparently, for more games being added to CSN's schedule later in the year -- as was done in 2011. that certainly would be great, were that to happen.)
Goff just posted: "It’s true, not every game will appear on your small screen this season. But by the end of the campaign, you will have been able to watch all but two or three, I’m told." http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...net/2012/03/05/gIQAdiYItR_blog.html#pagebreak
I guess it's all in expectations and age groups. When I was a kid -- '50's and 60's growing up in the SF Bay Area, the Giants only TV games were the road games against the Dodgers. Everything else was radio -- Russ Hodges and Lon Simmons. How spoiled we all have become when we expect home games that are not sold out to be telecast on a regular basis. Just sayin'. I'm reasonably satisfied with the media package. I've got season tickets so the home games are covered. I would like all the road games covered as well, but I do have a life and sometimes "away" weekends are no soccer weekends.
Sadly, we don't have any radio either, or at least not in English. That said, I would imagine that some of those later uncovered games will get picked up when all is said and done.
The end result was expected from the beginning. It's the constant effort by the PR office to pretend they aren't playing from behind all the time that's the main problem right now. They may be adding games, but that's because the team has no leverage to get their games on and no other suitors to broadcast the matches. They might have a better financial package than other teams, but that's because they're likely combing the stadium for lost change after each match. They shouldn't be announcing the TV package a week before the opener, completely blowing its impact out of proportion and then trading in a favor with the beat writer to explain how the situation they just triumphed as "unsurpassed" will actually be surpassed by the news that will come out in a few weeks or months.
Agreed, but this is a league-wide problem, and always has been. Chicago, KC, Toronto and the Galaxy still don't have local TV skeds, from what I can tell. RCN said MLS won't make Direct Kick available to them until Saturday 3/10, so I can't even sign up until a few hours before the first match kicks off.
KC has announced theirs. LA is in flux because they got a huge rights deal from a station that is still ramping up. I'll trade a little uncertainty now for 10 years, $55 million. Not sure about Toronto and I heard Chicago is announcing this week as well. So while DC isn't alone, it is still problematic and the continued overselling of stuff by the organization is getting tiring when it doesn't take much to see they are continuing to lose ground to the rest of the league. Kyle Sheldon can only BS so many people for much longer.
Not being the biggest problem does not diminish the fact that over-selling is stupid, untrue, and causes one to not believe a single thing they might say in the future. It diminishes their future effectiveness and stops bringing in fans at some point. I am snorting the Kool-Aid straight from the packet for this team and their Marketing/PR Dept still tries to drive me away with their stupidness from time to time. Not that I'm as bothered by this particular brand of silliness as monster is, but he does have a legit point (it happens). Though I guess I am not their intended audience - that must be easily impressed people on the internet with no critical thinking skills. It may not be that big of thing in general, but it breeds distrust.
Hey ********nut, show me where I said it was "the main problem." This is why you're a ********ing joke. You'd argue with yourself over what to order in a restaurant with only one menu item just to get your jollies. If you can't see that this team is regressing in its media offerings and the folks in Marketing and PR can't even find a creative way to spin it and have to resort to bullshit adjectives like "unsurpassed," you're completely useless to an honest discussion of the issue.
So can someone please give me a basic idea of which games are blacked out on Direct Kick, this is my first season as a potential purchaser? Will the games on Galavision be blacked out? CSN+? Or is it just the NBC, CSN and ESPN games?
partial answer: There are no ESPN games, so they're all blacked out - I assume NBC will be like the old ESPN games and be unavailable (they're already on a national channel most everyone with cable can get) - The games exclusively on Galavision will not be available, but it is possible either CSN or another team's local plan will carry the game and it may then be on DK - the only games Direct Kick gets are from the regional sports networks. Not sure how exactly the home blackouts will work - but in the past, if CSN were carrying a game in tape-delay, then the DK game from the other team's feed would be blacked out in the DC area. Can someone else please fill in the missing info?