SuperLiga has just kicked off – the prize is one million dollars to the winning team. Major League Soccer is in mid season. The Atlanta Silverbacks are making headway toward the top of the table and have just hosted two of the biggest teams in the hemisphere: Pachuca CF of Mexico and Club Atletico Independiente of Argentina and are scheduled to host Honduran champion’s Olimpia. Oh, and the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup is down to the semi finals!
So how about some local Atlanta television coverage? Nope.
The Atlanta Journal? Zilch.
The Marietta Daily Journal, Gwinnet Daily Post? Of course not.
Mainstream Atlanta media appears to be in soccer la la land. As a lifelong Atlanta resident and soccer fan – I’ve grown accustomed to the big goose egg that the Atlanta press produces.
So I was already feeling a bit stabbish – the only local sports news was about some college baseball team playing in a “world” series, only it was actually a “US” series, but I digress, - when a couple of poor of AJC salesmen had the bad timing to knock on my door. I told the poor fellas that I'd be happy to subscribe if they could show me five decent soccer articles over the last month. Look, it was not an impossible request. The Euro's had just concluded, Silverbacks are in full swing, MLS is in full swing, etc. Did I subscribe? Well I'll just say that they got the same amount of money from me that I felt their paper's soccer coverage is worth - zero!
But rather than bitch about it and do nothing (I have written the sports editor on occasion - but with the restraining order and all - I keed I keed) , I created this little blog with a couple of pages to fill the gap. So maybe I should be thanking those AJC lads!
3 comments:
One local sports reporter said on the news hour that you would never here him talk about soccer because he did not like the sport. That just about sums it up for the Atlanta media and soccer.
I've long since stopped watching local news anyway - so mass media coverage is irrelevant. Most of those guys are one step removed from Al Bundy anyway - reliving their high school football years every day.
My thinking is, it's really their loss. Considering the number of people who play soccer in the Atlanta, it's hard for me to put my finger on the reasons for the paucity of soccer coverage in the city's mainstream media outlets. Give it another ten years and I think it will be everywhere!
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