Right City, Wrong Team

Having spent three years living in L.A., I know that the City of Angels is a great soccer market.  The area's beautiful soccer-specific Home Depot Center supports two MLS teams, the Los Angeles Galaxy and Chivas USA, and the city's parks are constantly filled will soccer leagues and pickup games (even in the middle of the afternoon of weekdays, when you'd think people would be working, but whatever . . .).  It's not surprising, then, that the CONCACAF brass elected to hold the Gold Cup Final in Pasadena's Rose Bowl;  after all, event organizers wanted a location and venue where they could sell 93,420 tickets. 

Unfortunately for fans of USA Soccer, however, the Los Angeles area wasn't the best selection.  Given the city's large, growing and soccer-obsessed Mexican population, the Rose Bowl was filled with as many, if not more, Mexico fans for Saturday night's matchup between the border rivals.  For the U.S., it was, in a way, the greater of two evils.  Early games against Canada in Detroit and against Panama in Tampa Bay failed to draw a good crowd, and tons of empty seats were clearly visable on TV.  While the final was completely sold out and impressively loud, it was the green, red and black-clad Mexicans who provided most of the passion, not the fans wearing red, white and blue.  Even the post-match ceremony was conducted in Spanish, which U.S. goalie Tim Howard called a "disgrace."

Time Howard didn't get much support from either his defense or from the home crowd.

Many soccer commentators have noted that the U.S. missed a big opportunity to put itself on the soccer map with a victory over a talented, deep and young Mexican side on Saturday, and that definitely seems true.  A Gold Cup championship not only would have guaranteed the U.S. a spot in the 2013 Confederations Cup (where the U.S. last made a big international statement in 2009), but also would have generated some additional soccer buzz well in advance of the 2014 World Cup.  Instead, the Gold Cup final showed that U.S. soccer isn't quite ready to compete with the world's soccer powers, either on the field or in the stands.

That's Not Funny

Those of you who know me understand that I love TV comedy.  I can't remember the last time I tuned in for a TV drama (I never even followed supposed "can't miss" shows like Lost or Mad Men), but every week I make sure to catch 30 Rock, Family Guy, It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and a bunch of other sitcoms.  That's why I look forward to the NBA Draft every year; it's usually a perfect blend of sports and unintentional comedy that I can't stay away from.  This year, though?  Not only was the NBA Draft void of (many) exciting college names and filled with relatively unknown international prospects, but the draftees didn't come through with the hilarious antics that I have come to expect from them.

Ever since I was a kid, I understood that the NBA Draft was a night to celebrate either a) borderline criminals sporting gaudy suits and flashy jewlery or b) extremely awkward European guys.  This year?  Somehow the NBA Draft was filled with seemingly high character college players (Knight, Walker, Fredette, Butler), and the international guys seemed, on the whole, to be good ambassadors for their home countries.  Even the outfits were subdued, with almost everyone wearing traditional suits and ties.  Where were all the vests?  The bow ties?  The giant watches?

Conservatively dressed, high character guys selected in the top ten?  What kind of NBA Draft is this?

Perhaps most disappointingly, the reaction following another characteristically brutal Knicks first round selection was lacking.  I've been watching the NBA draft for at least fifteen years, and pretty much every year the script reads like this: the Knicks make an awful first round selection (Sweetney, Frye, Hill, Weis) that David Stern announces proudly, followed by the Knicks-fan-laden theater erupting in boos, profanity and confused looks.  As a Knicks fan, I always came away crushed by the pick but pleased with the strong fan reaction.  This year, though, the Knicks did their part (Iman Shumpert?  Really?), but shockingly the fans let me down.  Sure, there was some booing and collective dropping of jaws, but not nearly to the extent of drafts past.  I think the temporary move of the draft from Madison Square Garden to the Prudential Center in Newark, NJ might have had something to do with it, but I was still underwhelmed by what is traditionally my favorite part of the broadcast.

As usual, the announcing combination of Stuart Scott, Jay Bilas and Jeff van Gundy provided viewers with some (mostly unintentional) comedic moments and, as usual, Bill Simmons has done a great job of capturing the highlights in his running diary.  On the whole though, the NBA Draft became a lot less comical and whole lot more professional almost overnight.  Maybe it was the looming lockout prompting rookies-to-be to take the event more seriously?  Perhaps the temporary move from MSG in Manhattan to The Rock in Newark dulled an otherwise ultra-flashy event?  Maybe NBA players are becoming more mature (yeah, right)?  Whatever the reason, the 2011 NBA draft just didn't tickle my funny bone.

Still Standing, Fifteen Years Later

After watching the Braves take down Toronto on MLB Network last night, I flipped over to ESPN2 to catch the start of the special WNBA 15th Anniversary game from the Staples Center.  On the first day of summer back in 1996, the New York Liberty and the Los Angeles Sparks played the first ever WNBA game.  Today, the league has twelve relatively stable franchises and, despite its share of struggles, is a mainstay of the American summer sports landscape.

I'm not going to go on about how the quality of basketball in the WNBA is surprisingly good, or about how recreational players like myself should appreciate the game because it's more similar to what they can actually do on the court than NBA or NCAA men's basketball - we all know I've done that enough here already.  Instead, I'd like you all to take a moment to realize what an impressive milestone fifteen seasons is for an upstart sports league like the WNBA.  Fans of the NFL, MLB or NBA may find it easy to scoff at a league that's been in existance for "only" a decade and a half, but the disasterous track record of other, similar start-up leagues reveals how rare the accomplishment really is.

Compare the WNBA to other women's sports leagues.  The WUSA (soccer) made it just three seasons, and it's replacement, WPS, is struggling to get through its third. What about men's leagues, or more popular sports?  We all know how the XFL experiment faired, and I'd be surprised if the UFL makes it through a decade (despite bursts of tremendous popularity, even the USFL folded after five years).  Some people cite the WNBA's association with the NBA as the chief reason or the former's existance.  Well, what about NFL Europe, which folded in 2007 after just 11 seasons?

The WNBA 15th Anniversary broadcast was filled with clips of highlights from the league's first fifteen seasons, and featured some of sport's biggest stars (including Magic Johnson) sharing their favorite WNBA memories.  Regardless of what you think about the WNBA, women's basketball or women's sports in general, we should tip our proverbial caps to the WNBA.  While the WNBA is still a somewhat niche sport which may never be able to truly compete with MLB, golf or NASCAR for viewers, the league has established itself as a legitimate professional sports league, and that's certainly something worth celebrating.

If a Puck Drops in the Forest . . .

As you may have heard, the Boston Bruins won the NHL's Stanley Cup earlier this week.  Then again, you might have only heard about some rioting in Vancouver and not have had any idea of what is was all about - after all, the NHL isn't exactly easy for people to follow these days.  Despite what NHL pundits are calling an extremely extertaining playoff season and a championship series that matched two strong hockey markets against one another, it still seems like sports fans have all but stopped tracking the NHL.

It's upsetting, because ice hockey is a wonderful sport.  The problem is that the NHL has consistently been damaging the game over the past decade.  First there was the NHL lockout, which drove many fans away.  Once the game returned, the league had an unfortunate string of Western and Southern Stanley Cup champions (Anaheim, Tampa Bay, Carolina) which did little to bring in the core hockey fans in the northeast and Great Lakes regions.  This season, though, it's harder to pinpoint the NHL's excuse.

As a result of the league's horrendous national TV deal ("split" between NBC and Versus, with the majority of games on the latter channel), sports fans have to work hard to find playoff hockey.  With so much competing sports content airing on ESPN and the broadcast networks, the question comes down to how much do fans really love hockey, especially when their team isn't playing?  Although I love the game and love the Islanders, I found it surprisingly hard to get myself to watch Bruins-Canucks.  Every time I flipped the game on, I would drift back to baseball on ESPN, the NBA Finals on ABC, and, one time, "Say Yes to the Dress" on TLC (Is he joking . . .?).

Highlights were even hard to come by while watching SportsCenter.  At various points earlier in the series, the Stanley Cup Finals was buried below the NBA Finals, regular season MLB action, the French Open, NFL and NBA lockout updates and more.  After the series ended with a Boston victory, the riots in Vancouver got more air time than the game highlights.  If the NHL wants to compete for viewers with the NBA, let alone MLB and the NFL, it needs to focus their strategy on making hockey content more available to the typical lazy sports fan.  Whether it's a more agressive online media strategy or a renegotiated TV deal with the newly-united NBC and Comcast, the NHL must stop forcing its fans to work as hard to watch its games as the players do on the ice.

Equality for the American and National Leagues

Though there's lots of great MLB action going on right now (and, despite a ton of injuries, my Braves are playing quite well), it seems all of the baseball-related news is focused on the potential for realignment.  Recently, league officials revealed that the MLB is considering restructuring the league and divisional systems. Currently on the table: moving one team from the National League to the American League, removing the divisions and allowing the top four or five teams (regardless of geography) to head to the playoffs.

The argument against a system where both the American and National Leagues had fifteen teams was always about Interleague Play; with an odd number of teams in both leagues, Interleague would have to be scattered across the entire MLB season (to avoid two teams sitting idle for days at a time), and many fans and experts don't like the idea of teams ending the year with games against teams from the opposite league.  This argument against a move is predicated on Interleague play being something "special" that should be reserved for a few select weekends during the middle of the season (such as this coming weekend, when Interleague play resumes).

At this point, though, how is Interleague play special?  While Mets vs. Yankees and Cubs vs White Sox might be entertaining for those teams' fans, as a Braves fan Interleague means virtually nothing to me.  The Braves playing the Angels or Tigers adds nothing over a game against the Pirates or Padres.  While it is exciting to see the Braves play a divisional rival like the Mets or Phillies in late September, with an odd number of teams in the NL East Atlanta often closes the season against Colorado or Arizona anyway.  Why would ending against Minnesota or Oakland be any different?

MLB has two choices when it comes to Interleague play, in my opinion.  The first option is to scale it way back, restricting Interleague to one or two weekends a year to showcase geographic and historical rivalries.  The second option is to keep Interleague as robust as it is, but at the same time stop pretending that it's some magical part of the season.  Once fans get over treating Interleague as a novelty, we can embrace a logical fifteen-team-per-league system that spreads Interleague over the course of the season.  This latter plan is more fair for all of the teams involved, and makes a hell of a lot more sense than any other option currently on the table.