I welcome the United States media near-blindness to European soccer, as it lets me enjoy English Premier League games on my TiVo. I have little need to watch the games live, even were that possible, because as long as I avoid using the world in world wide web, it’s child’s play to avoid getting scores from my other media outlets (print, television, radio).
This summer, a new women’s league here in the US will start play, and all their games will be broadcast only online. The New Jersey Wildcats are ducking the endless struggles of the WUSA (now defunct) in finding television coverage, and going straight online.
From Shelly Palmer in MediaPost (registration required, April 6, 2006 article):
This summer every Wildcats game will be available on demand by anyone in the world who has a broadband connection by simply going to www.NJWildcats.com or Google Video. Within hours of the game finishing, a 35-minute version complete with pre-game show, first half highlights, halftime show, second half highlights, and post-game recap will be viewable and downloadable to iPods by Wildcats fans from all over the world.
Each game will have ten 30-second commercials and will be totally free to the end user. In past years the team attracted only local sponsors and advertisers but this year, by distributing games over IP Video, they will reach further. “National brands had no interest in even talking to us, let alone spending money,” Wildcats co-owner Pat Ruta says. “Today the team is sponsored by Nike and is in discussions with Coke, Lowe’s, Anheuser Busch, Unilever, Johnson & Johnson, Subway, Bristol Myers Squibb, Merrill Lynch, Horizon Blue Cross & Blue Shield, Canon, and many more.”
No sense of who they are playing, but in a world where the NFL Network, MLB.com, and NBA.com are challenging their broadcast partners, I’ll be curious to see if this pipsqueak in the sporting world can demonstrate enough success for the coverage to spread from online to broadcast.
That media jump may not be required for the success of the venture, but it would be a public statement, and a more compelling analog to what VH-1 has done with iFilm.com in creating Web Junk. Note… you know you’re a geek when your friends have forwarded you many of the items which later appear on Web Junk.