canadiankick97 Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 You hit it spot on Massive Attack. These things just happen. There's not a lot you can do Can't you just tape-delay the game? Or just bring a radio with you to the game? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 quote:Originally posted by BHTC Mike A very noble sentiment to be sure but unfortunately that's not how modern sports works. The NHL is the weakest major sports league in North America precisely because it followed that sort of strategy from the 60's to the 80's. The NFL on the other hand, nearly from its inception, has catered to the needs of TV. The result is that the NFL is now more popular than baseball and has become a Sunday afternoon cultural institution in the US. Furthermore, I would argue that it is really only the hardcore supporters (like those on these boards) who are likely to travel from Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal. These are the sort of people willing to do what it takes to see their team yet will still likely make up a small percentage of the fans there. I would bet that most 'casual' fans will be from the Kingston area and they would certainly have no problem with an evening kickoff. In the final analysis 10,000 people in the stadium means nothing compared to a nationwide TV audience. It's all about exposure and with the game going up against a match as big as France-England that can't do anything but hurt exposure. Whether the NHL is the weakest major sports league is up for debate (and depends very much on what you define as "major"), but I doubt it is primarily for the reasons you are stating. A lot of it has to do with the fact that isn't "the American game", not exactly grassroots stuff down south, and wasn't even before the advent of television. That is a debate for another day & forum, but I don't think the argument transfers well to soccer, since this isn't a regular "league" we are talking about but a national team that doesn't play regularly in any sense of the word. The fact is Canada vs. Belize isn't going to be a huge audience grabber anyway because, outside of the "who the hell are Belize in soccer" factor, the men's team isn't as popular as we like - largely because they don't play enough home games, hence my belief that the needs of the people attending the match at home should come first in this instance. And I'm not saying that most of the crowd will be from Toronto, Ottawa & Montreal, but by all indications a lot will (its one of the reasons the CSA has chosen that venue, when they could easily play this game out west - its to tap into the eastern market from those 3 big cities), and I don't see any need to discourage them from coming by holding it on a Sunday night so that a few of them can watch England vs. France. The fact is we are going to have to compete with the European Cup that weekend, there's no getting around it. I can't see people on a nice summer weekend in June spending the entire day indoors watching soccer on tv, if the belief is we should televise live games in the evening to ensure we totally avoid Euro2004 during the day. Having said that, I don't doubt that Sportsnet will decide to have the match tape-delayed anyway for the very reasons you guys are stating - to avoid conflict with Euro2004. Considering how many times we have seen Canada matches tape-delayed (even the Women's World Cup matches, with their big ratings, was subject to this) it shouldn't shock us if it happens again, and we shouldn't be worried about the timing of the broadcast of this match conflicting with Euro2004 until we know it actually will, and that's a big if in my book. I can sympathize with those who are actually attending the match who want to watch England vs.France live on tv, but again I think the convenience of the people attending from out of town must trump that. BTW, I hope the Stanley Cup will be over by then as well, otherwise by the same argument we are going to have to hold the match at 2am in order to avoid Stanley Cup final matches held in the evening - and we'll have to cancel the game altogether if Game 7 goes into overtime. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
torontosupport Posted February 19, 2004 Share Posted February 19, 2004 quote:Did you hear me say that Canada vs Belize is at 4:30 not 2:30? Read everyone elses post except mine, yeah thanks. I love your posts. I long for them, even! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
northboys Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 quote:Originally posted by Ed Haven't had a home game in over 3 years and you clowns are complaining it conflicts with a Euro 2004 contest. Stay home and watch your Euro games on TV and give up your spots in Kingston for Cdn supporters. Absolutely right on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mtlfan Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Call me narrow minded but when my national team is playing I have no other interest in what else is going on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Crampton Posted February 20, 2004 Author Share Posted February 20, 2004 Just checked the CSA website and they have the game listed as 4:30 canadiankick97 so you are correct. I wonder how many people are unaware of this however since the press release (I'm holding a print-off of it in my hand) definately says 2pm. So France-England from 2:45 'til about 4 in a pub and then head over to the Canada game. This I can definately live with... (muted) hooray for the CSA since maybe someone there looked at the schedule confict. Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Crampton Posted February 20, 2004 Author Share Posted February 20, 2004 quote:Haven't had a home game in over 3 years and you clowns are complaining it conflicts with a Euro 2004 contest. Stay home and watch your Euro games on TV and give up your spots in Kingston for Cdn supporters. Always good to see people elevating the level of discussion. quote:Either you're a real supporter, or just a poseur. I'm now a clown and a poseur. Hooray for me! You know attacking the people who by and large agree with you over most of the important things sure is the way to start a movement. Oh yeah, and let's ignore the broader issues of whether or not the scheduling conflict will/would hurt the CSA's chances of promoting the national team. It's my way or the highway. quote:I just wish that all the people being sucky about the time and date would just shut the f.uck up and live with it. Life is full of things that we can't control. Just f.ucking live with it.Except that this is something that the CSA can control (to an extent). Possibly they choose to do this and move the kick-off from 2 to 4:30 (which is pretty much what I was proposing). quote:Whether the NHL is the weakest major sports league is up for debate (and depends very much on what you define as "major"), but I doubt it is primarily for the reasons you are stating. A lot of it has to do with the fact that isn't "the American game", not exactly grassroots stuff down south, and wasn't even before the advent of television. That is a debate for another day & forum, but I don't think the argument transfers well to soccer, since this isn't a regular "league" we are talking about but a national team that doesn't play regularly in any sense of the word.We'll end the debate there then but I think if you read any good history of the business side of the NHL you'll find that their biggest consistent mistake was emphasizing the gate over the TV audience - there's a famous story about the Chicago Blackhawks owner that I'll save for a future date. quote:Having said that, I don't doubt that Sportsnet will decide to have the match tape-delayed anyway for the very reasons you guys are stating - to avoid conflict with Euro2004.This is a very good point that I hadn't considered. Kind of shows you were the MNT is in the pecking order when it comes to the Canadian soccer audience - even with all the work Dobson and Forrest do trying to promote them. Sad really. Could you imagine this happening in any other countries? quote: Call me narrow minded but when my national team is playing I have no other interest in what else is going on.Good for you but when it comes to the MNT there's probably not enough people to fill half of Richardson stadium who think like you do. The Voyageurs board is hardly representative of the average Canadian soccer fan and even less so of the average Canadian. Mike. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ed Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 Mike, sorry if you were offended by the clowns remark. You do make a few good points but I mean from my point of view, the FIFA calendar just doesn't have that many openings and any complaint about conflicts is really not worth talking about. If you had come on here and said how do they expect us to watch the game when the Ottawa Senators are playing god know's who, you'd expect no sympathy. My point is we have not had a home game in 3 1/2 years for Christ's sake. At least you didn't trot out the founding nations sentiments. F* moi. Your last sentence is absolulutely dead on of course, but the point is this is a Voyageurs forum where you are posting and we are die-hard Cdn national team supporters. I seriously could not give a rat's ass if England is playing. Don't expect any sympathy from this quarter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sstackho Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 As an aside, has anyone noticed how much more civilized things tend to be on this board as compared to the old board? I have a feeling this thread would have degenerated into a massive flame war on the other thread. Why is that? That being said, the time conflict concern is a very valid argument. It won't be for some of the diehards, but it will impact some of us. I have one friend who is not a big Canada supporter who was planning on joining a few of my friends on a road trip to Kingston, for the hell of it. With this conflict, he probably won't go. And that's a bit sad. I most certainly would love to watch all of England - France, and really wish it didn't conflict with the Canada match. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gian-Luca Posted February 20, 2004 Share Posted February 20, 2004 quote:Originally posted by BHTC Mike We'll end the debate there then but I think if you read any good history of the business side of the NHL you'll find that their biggest consistent mistake was emphasizing the gate over the TV audience - there's a famous story about the Chicago Blackhawks owner that I'll save for a future date. Mike. Again, I don't doubt the importance of tv (and yeah, I know all about Cowyboy Bill Wirtz and his love of having no home games televised in Chicago for the sake of selling tickets), I'm just not sure that the same criteria that applies to a pro sports league can apply, or apply in the same way, to a national sports team - especially with the Canadian national men's team, which has unique problems all its own. From personal experience I noticed that many "supporters" (ie. die-hard fans) became supporters after they attened their first live Canadian soccer match - myself included (I was interested in the team & followed them before, but became a proper "supporter" once I saw them play Costa Rica live in WCQ back in 1985). As we haven't held a home match for nearly 4 years, we've been depriving ourselves the ability to generate more hard-core supporters, and given the problems that Canada has had in the past with being outnumbered or outshouted by opposition fans in our own park (though thankfully that has lessened over the years) I do think it is vitally important that we increase the number of supporters that will show up anywhere & everywhere in the country in large numbers to ensure that we provide the psychological boost that our players representing our country need (rather than the reverse potentially demoralizing effect of being outshouted or outnumbered by the opposition's visiting fans). This isn't really as much of a consideration for professional team sports, where $$$$ is much more of a consideration. I realize that you can become a die-hard supporter by watching a match on tv for the first time, but I still think that for Canadian soccer in particular making it most convenient for a pro-Canadian crowd to attend is most important (and I can see other people becoming die-hard supporters watching on tv because they see a huge throb of fanatical supporters cheering on the team & celebrating each goal & saying to themselves - hey, that look cool). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DJT Posted February 21, 2004 Share Posted February 21, 2004 I think it's fair to say that it would be in Canada's best interest to try to avoid conflicts with Euro 2004 matches (while still taking into consideration other factors like those brought up by Gian-Luca). Ideally Canada should not have to worry about when other matches are taking place (though this is not unheard of even in other countries; recall, for example, the Switzerland vs. Canada friendly was played at an earlier hour in order to avoid conflicting with the Champions League final). But the reality of the situation is that we need to take every advantage for exposure that we can get. For this reason I think it's unfair to dismiss and criticize concerns about the kickoff time on June 13. Individuals here may care about Canada and not the other matches, but look at the bigger picture. Anyway, the Toronto Lynx match scheduled for that day has been mentioned in this thread, but no one has mentioned the Calgary Mustangs vs. Montreal Impact match (also a Voyageurs Cup match, incidentally) scheduled for that day as well. So let's summarize (all times EDT): [12:00 PM - Switzerland vs. Croatia] [2:45 PM - England vs. France] 4:00 PM - Calgary vs. Montreal 4:30 PM - Canada vs. Belize 6:00 PM - Toronto vs. Atlanta It seems to me that, as it would be in the best interest of Canada to avoid Euro 2004 matches, it would be in the even greater interest of Calgary and Toronto to push their matches a bit later. Remember June 11, 2000? That day there were three Euro 2000 matches (Italy vs. Turkey, France vs. Denmark and Netherlands vs. Czech Republic (great match)), followed by Canada vs. Cuba in Winnipeg. The Canada match was played at 8:00 PM EDT so there wasn't a conflict issue with Euro 2000 and Sportsnet broadcast it live without such concerns. But at 7:45 PM EDT was Toronto vs. Montreal (4-0), which was also broadcast by Sportsnet at something like 11:00 PM EDT --- playing that match at that time together with poor weather resulted in poor attendance (Rocket Robin recorded the announced attendance as 1,823 but estimates it to have been about 600) and it seems to have been a big waste of resources to broadcast it at that hour after a day full of soccer on TV. Anyway, just a flashback. quote:Originally posted by sstackho Portugal is 5 hours ahead of Eastern time. The only exception to this is the occasional week in which Daylight Savings Time kicks in at different times. There is another exception: the Azores are 4 hours ahead of Eastern time (but of course they have nothing to do with Euro 2004). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.