Disqus - Latest Comments for dave

Re: ESPN Launches Ads to Promote Euro 2008 TV Coverage

dave — Thu, 29 May 2008 21:48:43 -0000

I doubt the ESPN ratings are going to be terrible because England and Scotland aren't in the Euro 2008 finals. Fans of England and Scotland will still want to watch. It doesn't have to have spectacular ratings for ESPN to do well; it's not like there's a lot of other good sports stuff on ESPN in June.

Re: MLS Needs to Bow to CONCACAF International when Scheduling

dave — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:14:11 -0000

MLS is very famous for being stupid and stubborn and just not "getting it". But MLS has shown it can learn, so don't give up hope. It isn't a good sign that MLS points to attendance figures in MLS during the World Cup being good as reason not to take time off. MLS needs to figure out that there's more to the story than just attendance figures.

Re: The Start of Something Very Big?

dave — Thu, 29 May 2008 22:45:59 -0000

I find it amazing that with all the Beckham hoopla, the best shirt sponsor that LAG/AEG could find was...Herbalife. Unbelievable. Nice move by DC United; those shirts would look even better with two red hoops (a la the Washington DC flag).

Re: Rough Times For Soccer in the US?

dave — Thu, 29 May 2008 23:55:30 -0000

I have to agree with Jonathan, a lot of the business criticism here is a bit wide of the mark. Yes it would be better if MLS were getting wider TV exposure, and yes it would be better if average attendance was going up faster, but overall MLS is on much sounder financial ground than it was ten years or even just five years ago, and talk about moving franchises is not warranted.

I can testify from personal experience that the situation in New England is one of benign neglect. There is effectively zero marketing of the Revs. I constantly run into sports fans here who are entirely unaware that the Revs even exist. Yes a soccer specific stadium accessible by Boston public transport would be nice, but the stadium situation is not the only problem.

MLS is getting closer to becoming profitable because of new owners getting into the league (in San Jose, Houston, Colorado, Toronto, Seattle, Salt Lake, etc) and the building of SSS that will make clubs financially viable long term. The problem in New York is simply on hold until Red Bull Park can be finished.

The problems elsewhere aren't due to new owners, but to old owners (Kraft, AEG, HSG, etc) who are more interested in their other businesses (football or entertainment/concerts, etc). I am grateful to HSG, AEG, and the Krafts for keeping MLS going for so long when things looked bleak, but at some point they need to step up with whichever club is their remaining MLS club, and put some real effort into marketing it and running it properly. We know they can do it, they just haven't really bothered to.

Re: Sentimental Favorite St Louis Launches MLS Bid

dave — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 19:48:26 -0000

USL is doomed to being the second tier league (which isn't a bad thing) since even the new clubs coming into USL (ie, Tampa Bay Rowdies, and the new Pachuca club in Arizona) are obviously angling their USL franchises as a stepping stone towards getting into MLS later on.

Unless soccer becomes a lot more popular and MLS stops growing and thus there is a pent up demand for soccer in markets MLS is not serving (this is unlikely in the near future), I don't see USL becoming the "AFL" to MLS's "NFL".

"However questions about Miami linger because of the failure of the Fusion. However that failure had more to do with bad management than a bad market."

Boy is that ever true. Due to the MLS contraction of 2002 it has become commonly accepted "wisdom" that there's something wrong with Tampa and Miami, that pro soccer doesn't work in Florida, "they tried it and it failed", yada yada yada. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Due to the size of the Miami market, and the solidity of the FC Barcelona reputation, I think Miami is almost certain to get an expansion team. My second favorite would be St. Louis; sure they are a small market but they have been at this MLS expansion bidding process for a long time now and I have a hunch that they've gotten it right this time. St. Louis will be a good addition to MLS for geographical and historical reasons; my only minor quibble is the location of the stadium is not ideal (urban stadia are preferable, usually), but that may not be an issue.

Re: usll

dave — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 01:17:49 -0000

What on earth are you banging on about? What "poison"? Be specific, please. This piece is nothing but a lot of vague generalities. Oh and this is a howler: "They must figure out how to market soccer, the beautiful game, to American sports fans and not just soccer purists and/or soccer enthusiasts." You mean like indoor soccer? "Soccer" marketed to people who don't like soccer? Please. We have more than enough "soccer purists and/or soccer enthusiasts" in this country to make MLS and USL successful. Market to THEM.

Re: TiVo’s Evan Young Discusses the Details of the new TiVoCast Service

dave — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 23:32:22 -0000

Does TiVo really get a cut from any of the TiVoCast shows?

I have a hard time believing Rocketboom or Cranky Geeks or any of these TiVoCast shows are paying anything for the "privilege" of being on TiVo, esp. since they know that most TiVo users can and do use podcasts. TiVoCast is a convenience; it isn't something most people are going to be willing to pay for when free podcasts are available.

Re: What's In a Name? or I Hate "MLS"

dave — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:24:30 -0000

I agree I don't like the name; Major League Soccer just draws more attention to the fact that it isn't really major league; sort of like Major League Lacrosse, Major League Rugby, Major League Cricket, etc.

I say go back to the North American League name (now that Canada is in the league) but drop the word "soccer"; there's no reason why you have to include the name of the sport in the league name, and dropping it neatly avoids the whole soccer vs. football controversy.

NAL: the North American League. Learn it, live it, love it.

Re: The Mexican Dilemma: Why a Bad El Tri is Not Good

dave — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:48:56 -0000

Who cares about the Mexican media soap opera; they go through this sort of thing whenever El Tri is not performing up to the rather unrealistic standards that Mexican fans expect. It will pass. Even if Mexico underperforms this year, that won't last. Mexico isn't going to somehow magically turn itself into Nicaragua, in futbol terms, so this is a rather pointless "what if" question.

Re: What's In a Name? or I Hate "MLS"

dave — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 16:52:27 -0000

"League of North America" unnecessarily complicates things. Even you recognize it with your comment about the "of". The North American League will do nicely. NAL.

Re: Morning Briefs

dave — Tue, 03 Feb 2009 16:14:43 -0000

Every four years, more and more Americans watch the World Cup (adjusting for variables such as what time zone the World Cup is in of course). This in the long run helps MLS. If USA hosts 2022, that means we'll have 2010, 2014, and 2018 to build on; all of which will be in fairly favorable time zones (especially 2014 in Brazil) for USA TV viewers. If Team USA makes modest gains over those three World Cups, it will help even more.

By 2022, people 28 and younger would not have been born when the World Cup was held in the USA in 1994; people, say, 28-40 years old would be unlikely to have had any real memory of the 1994 World Cup. That's a generation and a half, or even two generations of Americans, with no real memory of the last time the World Cup was held in the USA.

The timing is perfect. 2022 is still 13 years away: MLS itself is only 13 years old; that means it will have doubled in age by the time 2022 rolls around. Can we even begin to imagine the improvements MLS will have made by then? And if late next year we learn that the USA will host in 2022, can you imagine what that would do towards attracting more, and bigger, investors and sponsors to MLS? Things are going pretty good now, but the USA hosting the World Cup in 2022 would give a huge boost to MLS's long term prospects.

Yes I know followers of the international game don't automatically become MLS fans, but more and bigger MLS investors and sponsors means larger salary caps, more DPs, bigger, deeper squads capable of winning international club competitions, and ultimately better credibility for MLS which will attract even the hard core "Euro Snob" fan.

Re: Soccer on Versus?

dave — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 16:04:09 -0000

Yes and ESPN is in a lot more homes than Versus; that's why it is considered a major setback for the NHL to be on Versus instead of ESPN. I agree there's lots of problems with the way ESPN covers soccer, but there's no assurance that Versus would do any better. As long as MLS can stay on ESPN it's getting much wider coverage than it could ever get on Versus.

Versus might be a good fit for USL, though.

Versus might also consider going after some of the lower level European football leagues; these can't be very expensive to acquire the TV rights to (unlike EPL, La Liga, Serie A, etc.).

They might also look at other sports that have almost no TV coverage in the USA (except for Setanta, which few people have access to): rugby union, rugby league, aussie rules, GAA (gaelic football and hurling), cricket, etc.

With all the sports channels we have, the actual variety of sports we can watch in the USA is pretty limited.

Re: The USL Project: Charleston Battery

dave — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 00:56:08 -0000

"I almost missed this: apparently the stadium has an on-site pub."

How could you miss this? It's the first thing most of us soccer-snobs (who are also heavily beer-snobs) talk about when anyone mentions the Battery and Blackbaud. Also Charleston is a very historic city; you are really missing out on not visiting. The food is outstanding as well.

As for the name being "minor league"; well, it's a minor league soccer club. The name fits. The kit and badge are very traditional soccer though.

Re: San Jose Stadium Land Update

dave — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:22:09 -0000

Well it's going to take some time for San Jose fans to recover from getting kicked in the nuts by having their team taken away from them (ask Tampa fans or Miami fans what that feels like), it's going to take some time to get the fans to come back. Provided the stadium can be expanded, 15,000 is plenty for now.

And no, New England is NOT dead. Things move slowly in Boston area politics. The Somerville stadium is tied into proposed air rights over an MBTA maintenance facility in Somerville and an extension of the existing subway system (green line IIRC) into Somerville. That's a very complicated political puzzle to put together, and it ain't going to happen overnight. Revs fans should be grateful that they don't need a stadium any time soon; unlike DC United fans, they have the luxury of time being on their side.

Re: MFUSA: The USL Project

dave — Fri, 10 Apr 2009 01:52:31 -0000

Not in the league this year, but coming next year: Tampa Bay Rowdies. Might as well jump on our bandwagon now, while there's still room! :-)