As far as the Dwayne DeRosario thing goes, yep! I'm not suggesting that you should feel bad about it. The original post used exaggeration to illustrate the entirely valid point that Dallas is not exactly a world hotbed of soccer knowledge and culture. My response merely pointed out the irony that the specific example cited - if tested - would not necessarily show San Jose in a better light. I felt it was important to acknowledge it before Dallas fans (or trolls) could jump all over it and use it as another stick with which to beat Quakes fans in our time of mourning. Djibril Cisse is a French striker who plays for Liverpool, by the way, while Rafael Benitez is a Spaniard who manages the same club. So now you know!
makes me sick just thinking about it. They basically acted like the team didn't exist. But, when Sharks hockey came back, after that nasty lockout business, they just splashed NHL all over their rinky dink sports section. The merc was definately MIA on the Quakes and, IMO had a least a hand in the teams demise.
There again we have negligence on the part of our i/o. You've got to have that commercial angle pounded in again and again so that the press people understand why the team is important. The more coverage, the more people, the better the attendance, and the more business for their papers, etc. Other than the fine work done by Dylan, there was little done to pump up the team in any of the local papers.
One of the problems is that we have writers like Mark Purdy, (who professes to be a fan of soccer) but, who says that with the NFL, NBA,MLB, and NHL you are seeing the best these particular sports have to offer, however, not so with MLS, which he ranks as the 12th or 14th best league in the world. It is obvious he feels that since we are not being entertained with the best that soccer has to offer it is not worth covering, (unless the coverage can heap scorn and ridicule on the league). I think he has also made it up in his mind that MLS will never reach the standard of the top leagues in the world. This may be true, but it does not mean we won't be seeing a quality product.
Mark Purdy, Gary Radnich, Rick, Tom & Ralph will never like soccer. We can't indoctrinate the sport in them because they just weren't raised with it. Maybe John Sharader and maybe a Brandi Chastain in future. They know a little something, but that's about it as far as Bay Area Sports casters are concerned. The MLS is certainly not the same level of the SERIE A,B or C for that matter. Well maybe C1 or C2 which isn't all that bad to tell you the truth. It might resemble a 2nd tier English League or English 1st division. I tell you this however, the Quakes played a spectacular level of soccer last year. By American or MLS standards, they certainly were the class of the league. It's a rotten shame it all had to end. Oh well I guess its always nice to go out on top.
The "it's not the best in the world" argument gets old, and fast. The media cover Stanford football, San Jose State football, and other college and high school sports. None of which come close to best in the world. They cover the NBA, and team USA hasn't won a major international championship since, when? NBA may be the best in the world at inducing insomnia. If there is a decent level of quality, excitement and passion, it's worth covering. The rising quality of MLS, its effect on US soccer, the fact that the US player is the eternal underdog on the world stage and yet is succeeding, and the intensity of the crowds (including some big crowds), the connection to the local community, all of this made the Quakes a legitimate story. But the local media failed to catch onto it. If only Ann Killion were the editor, and not just a columnist. Olson50, no apology necessary. I was just ranting. Besides, Dallas is a great area for soccer -- one of the leading areas for youth soccer and they've produced great players. Plus the potential is even bigger. I don't begrudge Dallas or Houston or the state of Texas any success they have had, or will have. The only reason a market like Dallas hasn't been ultra successful is that the marketing has been poor, just like San Jose. Pure and simple.
It would be interesting if someone called Purdy on his claim to be a soccer fan. I wonder how much he really knows about European soccer, etc. His "not the best in the world" argument may just be an excuse that allows him to rationalize his lack of interest in the Quakes. Some of the other guys just completely ignore the sport (Kawakami, Geracie), and some seemed to actually be openly disdainful of the team and its fans (John Ryan, who characterized Quakes fans as being pathetically disconnected from reality for dreaming of a stadium that involved public financing, and then later characterized the "soccer elite", meaning supporters of the pro team vs. those involved strictly in the youth leagues, as "arrogant" people who seek to use the youth leagues as a pawn in order to get what they want for the pro team). The fact that the MN considers itself a Bay Area paper, and that the Bay Area has not one but two MLB teams and not one but two NFL teams was probably a significant factor in the level / placement of the coverage. Houston has one MLB team, one NFL team, one NBA team, and now a 4th pro team. So the MLS team is one of four pro teams (unless I'm missing some) and by my count the Quakes were one of seven pro teams in the Bay Area (counting MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLS).
On the other hand, the Bay Area has four daily papers, while Houston has but one. Granted, three of them are in San Francisco and Oakland, so I wouldn't expect them to put a lot of effort into covering a South Bay team, just like I don't expect the Ft. Worth Star-Telegram to cover FC Dallas all that well (even if their FCD beat writer is one of the best beat writers in the league). But if San Jose's only daily paper doesn't feel the need to cover a San Jose team, well, that's an issue that needed to be solved with that paper. They cover the Sharks well and I seem to recall people saying that they cover the Sabercats well, so why not the Quakes?
My understanding is that the Sabercats are owned by Fry's, who is one of the major advertisers in the SJMN. There are usually large ads for the Sabercats in the sports section of the SJMN during AFL season. So the speculation is that the SJMN is providing Sabercats coverage above and beyond what is expected based on the interest level of the readers, because of their relationship with the Sabercats owners. Edit to add -- even with this, the Sabercats coverage does not come close to any of the "major league" teams, and it was probably even less than the Quakes used to get -- when the Quakes won their MLS Cups, they got front page coverage in the sports section, I don't recall seeing the Sabercats on the front page when they won whatever titles in the AFL. Of course, I cancelled my SJMN subscription a while back so maybe that's changed.
There was a time when the "Murky News" was a San Jose paper, as opposed to a more "regional" rag, as it considers itself today. I don't know the numbers, but I believe the SJMN sells a lot more advertising than any of the other major papers in the area. Just like a SSS, a newspaper is about advertising $$ first, news second.
ElJefe, which four newspapers do you count? The Oakland Tribune absolutely sucks. IMO, it is one of those classified papers thinly dressed up with a paltry front, local and sports section. It has not been a decent paper for decades. Also, the San Francisco Examiner is nowhere near what it used to be. It is published in "tabloid" (think The Enquirer in layout and size, not in content) form and has spot coverage at best of anything outside the city limits with exception to the large national stories. So this really leaves us with two really regional papers: The San Francisco Chronicle (any relation to Houston's?) and the Mercury News. The Contra Costa Times, while much smaller is a decent paper too but maybe it cannot be considered regional daily. I think both papers are as good as you can get in the Bay Area. During the Quakes meltdown last month, I struck up an email "conversation" with a SF Chronicle sportswriter. In a nutshell, he told me soccer does not get more coverage because the general public does not want it. Makes some sense, no? I should have asked how many requests they get for more soccer coverage. I think bottom line is, outside the World Cup, the occasional Champions League scores and some soccer related story on a stadium tragedy or weird bet on a game, soccer is not covered with the respect and dilligence afforded to other sports. It's just not in our journalistic blood yet. Sometime I think that rather than harp on the current crop of writers, some of us should try to write for these papers instead! It is the only way to get decent coverage.
Ya know, I recall hearing/seeing a lot more coverage of the Sabrecats for a couple of years. I would regurlary see highlights of their games on the local tv news. Much more than for the Quakes. Ring a bell with anyone else?
The Chronicle and the Merc are the two predominant papers. Contra Costa Times is pretty strong. The Trib has seen its best days -- it's now part of a group that owns the Herald and other dailies in outlying areas. Some might not seem like much but the Bay Area is so spread out -- a lot of them have their own beat writers for the major sports. None of them really did what you'd call a bang-up job with the Quakes. San Jose Mercury News San Francisco Chronicle Contra Costa Times Oakland Tribune Daily Review (Hayward, San Leandro, San Ramon) Tri-Valley Herard (Pleasanton) San Mateo Daily News San Francisco Examiner (free tabloid) Marin Independent Journal Santa Rosa Press Democrat
Yeah, and when you consider yourself a Bay Area paper, you need to cover the Giants, A's, Niners, Raiders, Warriors, Sharks, and (previously) Quakes along with Sabercats and all of the local colleges, etc. They cover the two MLB and two NFL teams well and pretty much equally, often side by side. It would have been nice if they had put a little more emphasis on the Quakes since they are a San Jose team. And FWIW the coverage actually improved this year. It wasn't all that bad (sorry Quakes05). It was disappointing that some of the columnists were not very supportive of the team and in some cases even derisive. But in any case I don't think the coverage was a significant factor in the team's fate because attendance probably wasn't a major factor.
I think this is a gross miscalculation on the part of the traditional press, in a region where there's such a high number of people with such close ties to Europe, Mexico and Latin America, as well as a young population that simply doesn't care as much about baseball as the old press would like to think. The TV numbers for the World Cup are going to shock these guys.
Perhaps it is a miscalculation by the press. However, FWIW, I think the Internet and cable TV make up for the dearth of printed coverage. Besides, their are lots of small weekly foreign language local papers that cover sports and soccer in particular from their respective countries of origin. I can walk into any taqueria in the Bay Area and pick up a paper with coverage of MFL and Latin American soccer. Hell, the local Univision station has much better coverage than all of its English language counterparts combined!
I don't think the World Cup shocks the mainstream media anymore. It seems that, in the US media, it has moved from being seen as a niche event that some freaks care about to being the big event where a niche sport temporarily breaks into the mainstream. This essentially puts soccer in a similar boat to cycling, horse racing, and numerous Olympic sports, but doesn't do much for ongoing coverage of the sport on an ordinary basis.
Noah, BnB: What I'm saying is that the momentum for the 2006 World Cup is going to be huge, at the very least on the high end of what they're expecting, maybe much more. It's a wave they think they're ready for, but they're not. Just my opinion, of course. But in the US, the good feelings from last time around, plus the rapid rise of US general interest in Euro soccer, plus the general feeling from soccer fans that the sport is out-of-the-closet (sorry), plus Tivo and plasma and HDTV, is all going to combine to make this World Cup the biggest one yet by far for the US -- bigger, even, than '94, when most people didn't know what to make of it. The odd hours in 2002, artificially held back the explosion. I think the explosion is going to happen in a big way in 2006. fwiw, I think this will be a great development for MLS and SSV/the Earthquakes community as US corporations that want to expand their international business will want to establish some soccer credentials.
I (obviously) saw the Merc coverage as abysmal. There was a great story here that was simply missed. Our 05 Quakes had to overcome incredible odds to play their best season in 10 years. The Merc could've done a hell of a lot more to support the home team. Instead, they masked their disdain and ignorance by writing about virtually anything else they could find, other than the incredible sporting story happening right under their noses. They never got behind the team in any meaningful way (Ann & Dylan exceptions noted), and, I think that Purdy and his gang were simply derelict in their duty. I realize this is all mute by now, It just gets me fumed to think how these guys essentially stood by in silence as our Earthquakes were twisting in the wind.
an Kawakami...what a goofball, how did this guy even get a job as sportswriter!? His stuff is just weak and pathetic...no passion, just boring. Never wrote a single word on soccer...a fact that I bet he prides himself on.
You may well be right. I have certainly noticed Sabrecats coverage, but don't know how much greater it is in quantity. But, if it's true that the Sabrecats do receive more coverage, it only advances the point that Bill and others have made, that being a major advertiser in the media gives you more clout in that medium's "sports news" section.
So? Didn't really help the WUSA, did it? The popularity of World Cup and event soccer (like when Man U comes here to visit) is known in the media. It just doesn't mean much for MLS or local soccer.