Most sports writers strike me us utterly lacking in the intelligence department, but I cannot think of one who would find himself so utterly unprepared to defend why he draws a paycheck than Gene Wojciechowski. Oh, he’d sputter out responses along the lines of, “I’m a real american sports fan, and I’m too really, people cannot handle me” and the like. However, the fact of the matter is that he has written multiple columns on Beckham and the MLS… and they have been terrible.
His latest masterpiece contains the following arguments:
- someone said no MLS team could make it through the Premiership. Of course, that person is Stephen Cohen of World Soccer Daily, and he has said repeatedly that he thinks football has a “bright future” in America. Furthermore, you add the guarenteed 60 million pounds sterling tv money to DC Unite’s payroll for making the Premiership, I’m thinking they’d find a way to at least be a relegation battler.
- People don’t go to MLS games. FALSE. In terms of overall soccer attendance, MLS is ALREADY an average league in terms of tickets sold. Oh, and by the way, the CONCACAF Gold Cup final pulled in a higher rating than the Stanley Cup finals. The most watched ESPN2 program EVER was a World Cup match last year.
- World Cup’s cool, but how many people watch MLS on a weekly basis? First, see above. Second, how many people watch ESPN’s crap Big East Monday college basketball game? I can’t imagine that the annual Maryland-Georgia Tech Thursday college football game has lit up the ratings either. I guess Americans hate College Basketball and College Football.
- Beckham can’t save soccer. I’m sorry, was soccer dying before Beckham got here just because the guys who work at ESPN don’t watch it? If this truly was our standard, than I shudder to think of the fate of things such as reading and mathematics.
My larger sense of anger with this, and columns like this, is that the writer is very critical of a sport he knows nothing about. He has formed a conclusion in his mind before he has learned anything, and he has sought out only the data that confirms his prejudice. In return, he receives a pat on the back, a place on ESPN.com’s front page and a lot of money. ESPN has soccer writers, and they are decent ones at that. If you want to get a reaction on the Beckham story that’s honest, read Andrea Canales, or listen to Stephen Cohen, or read Ives Galarcep, or Fank Della Alpa. But American journalists writing about MLS and citing comments in British tabloid papers, who also know nothing about MLS, is not going to create any value.
Unless Mr. Wojciechowski is operating under the “takes one to know one” school of identifying worthless things, he ought to refrain from considering himself a qualified judge of MLS.
July 15, 2007 at 1:31 pm |
Of course, the funniest part of it all is the quite simple fact that, regardless of your personal beliefs about soccer, it is guaranteed to be ESPN’s bread and butter within twenty-five years (unless the company actively chooses to lose its “worldwide leader” status). Changing American demographics and the necessity of growing the brand worldwide make it an absolute certainty. I’m also fairly certain Wojciechowski knows this and is just bitter, making his column even more amusing.
By the way, at the point where my mother (who pays attention to absolutely no sports beyond a casual interest in UMD basketball and a casual interest in the Orioles if they’re doing well) asked me over brunch today about David Beckham because he and his wife are so prominent in the fashion industry and she wanted to know if he was actually a cool soccer player to watch… Well, I think we can safely say this is a good move for MLS.
July 16, 2007 at 2:07 pm |
Beckham sucks! All he does is score and set up scores….his one major skill is sending a perfectly placed ball about 6 feet 7 inches high into the box, which is only useful if you have some moron whose only skills are being really tall and scoring on headers. England could do so much better by playing more possession types, just as all teams would.