[Leica] The United States Grand Prix - this is a long post

[masonster at gmail.com (David Mason)]

We have to remember that there is a pro league in the US that has
surprisingly lasted 10 years and has actually seen its tv contracts
increase as well as seeing stadium built and being built specifically
for the teams. Having said that, soccer is my most favorite sport and
I follow the English leagues almost exclusively. It is very, very rare
for me to turn on MLS as I find the play a bit haphazard and the
atmosphere to be awful (if I never hear another one of those plastic
airhorns it will be too soon).


Dave

On 6/22/05, Jay <bonvini@optonline.net> wrote:
> Quite a few years ago, I was a shooter for ESPN doing behind the scenes for
> boxing and got to sit with Greenberg (spelling?) then a honcho with the
> group.
> I was an avid soccer player in Calif and wondered why soccer with the
> largest audience fan base in the world could not make a go of it in the
> States.
> I was told that since soccer is played with no time outs - it is continuous
> for 45 minutes with breaks only for injuries, that networks could not see a
> way to advertise during a game. In spite of most foreign TV being able to
> run ads around the periphery of the image, US networks felt that there was
> no way to make money.
> And advertising is where the nets generate their revenue.
> With the current interest slowly but surely increasing here in the States,
> maybe it is time to rethink?
> 
> Jay Ignaszewski
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: lug-bounces+bonvini=optonline.net@leica-users.org
> [mailto:lug-bounces+bonvini=optonline.net@leica-users.org]On Behalf Of
> Marc James Small
> Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 11:44 PM
> To: Leica Users Group
> Subject: Re: [Leica] The United States Grand Prix - this is a long post
> 
> 
> At 07:54 PM 6/21/05 -0400, Seth Rosner wrote:
> 
> >P.S., Marc James, the U.S. Grand Prix has taken place at a fair number of
> >different locations: Sebring, Watkins Glen, Detroit, Long Beach, I think
> >Miami, but never, never at Lime Rock. P.P.S. how many know (I know Frank 
> >D.
> >does) that in the early days of the modern world championship, the
> >Indianapolis 500 counted toward the F.I.A. world driver's championship?
> >Because its organizer, USAC, was the U.S. representative to the Federation
> >Internationale de l'Automobile.
> >
> 
> >P.P.S. Marc James, your gratuitous knock on U.S. soccer suggests that you
> >have no idea about what is happening on the playgrounds of American
> schools.
> >And why you persist in using raised-pinky effetist caricature language is
> >beyond me. But your analysis of American attitudes toward G.P. racing is
> >not.
> 
> Thank you, Seth, for your comments.
> 
> First, I was unaware that there has never been a US Formula One race at
> Lime Rock, and thank you for the correction.
> 
> Second, I did not make the comment that you thought I made:  I merely
> commented that soccer is seen as an effete sport by most of the USian
> populace.  If you feel differently, then "'splain to me" why soccer has
> been unable to mount a successful league in the US.  The short answer is
> that most USians view soccer as an effete sport, regardless of the number
> of kids playing the sport.  (My own son played soccer until he was 15, when
> he decided to concentrate on baseball.  Today, he is 23, and follows NASCAR
> and baseball to the extent that he can continously intone that the sport
> has been ruined by the American League's adoption of the DH rule, as I
> noted in an earlier post.  He does not follow soccer and has no interest at
> all in the sport.  I have a somewhat older former step-son who also grew up
> playing soccer and who dropped it and who has no interest whatever in
> following it today.)
> 
> My comment was not a "gratuitous knock":  it was a factual statement about
> the realities of the USian regard for soccer.
> 
> Marc
> 
> msmall@aya.yale.edu
> Cha robh b?s fir gun ghr?s fir!
> 
> NEW FAX NUMBER:  +540-343-8505
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
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