Here goes....
I don't normally do this, but I'll try and give my thoughts on yesterday's article 'Don Garber to give Impact a media boost', written by CSN's Ben Rycroft.
Let's make things clear. I'm from Montreal, and have been supporting the club for a few years now. I'm probably not the oldest and most die-hard Impact fan there is. I attend the games at Stade Saputo when I can and watch the team through the various mediocre streams when they're on the road.
More recently, I've decided to follow the team a bit more closely and try and do my part to help increase media coverage around the team.
I'll say this and I'll say it again until it changes: The Montreal Impact deserve better coverage.
And it should start now. Not in Fall 2011. Not in 2012. Now.[PRBREAK][/PRBREAK]
So far, I've heard of the following excuses:
Fair enough, I concur that writing an in-depth article about FC Tampa Bay might not be the most exciting thing in the world. And I agree that 2012 will definitely be a bigger season than this year.
However, I feel that these excuses are just a mere reflection of the general media interest for the game. Most journalist stick to writing articles based on the press releases sent by the club. Some of them barely know the player's names. They don't know which position they play. (And I'm not talking about the new arrivals. I'm talking about the players that have been here for years).
Now, I'm not saying all journalists should be soccer fanatics, but it definitely helps. The arrival of Patrick Leduc with La Presse and Radio-Canada should be a good addition to the media team. We also have a few very good soccer journalists here in Montreal with the likes of Pascal Milano (La Presse), Philippe Germain & Frederic Lord (RC), Matthias van Halst (previously at Quebec Soccer).
By having a serious coverage, I feel that we can build towards a strong and sustainable interest for the club. Yes, the club. We have interest in the game, we just need to have all the soccer/football/futbol-loving Montrealers show their love for the local team.
It won't be easy, but we all need to start somewhere.
Coverage should be based on the fact that we have our own professionnal soccer club, here in Montreal. Let's forget that we are still in the 2nd division and let's focus on our team, our city. It's about time we take it seriously. The club has been starting to take it seriously and have been rewarded with a spot in the MLS (rewarded, not so much. They did pay a lot of money for this...).
Let's build a genuine and passionnate approach.
The more we talk about the club, the team, its players, its history, the more people will start taking this seriously. Let's have an actual interest going into 2011 which will just get better come 2012.
55K at Olympic Stadium? Were we lucky?
As for Ben's comments regarding the 55K at Olympic Stadium, well, I gotta say ...hmmm I don't know what to say, really....
We had 55K for the Santos Laguna game. Great. Amazing. We had 40K for the Milan game. Amazing.
But how many people did we have when the Impact hosted Toronto FC last season? Oh, and we had 7000 at last year's league semifinal. Not so great.
It's not really about luck. It's about interest. People need to get interested to the team. Genuine love and passion is not easy.
So was it solely based on luck? No. But I'd like to see how many fans from the Santos Laguna or AC Milan game went to Stade Saputo for a game...