This blog is not a major news outlet!
By: Tom | April 27th, 2007
The Fire front office has hurt my feelings. Considering the clear need for MLS to shore up its fanbase, and for the Fire in particular to communicate with their fans, I thought it might be a nice idea if someone at the Fire front office answered a few questions here on this very blog once a month or so. I wrote to them with this suggestion, asking for John Guppy, the GM, but leaving open someone more junior stepping in instead.
After a few weeks delay in hearing back from their media relations department, not only was my response rejected, but I got a sharp kick in the ribs too, as I was reminded this blog ain’t exactly the New York Times. I was told that Mr. Guppy only deals with “major news outlets”. The implication was, we must presume, that The Offside is hardly such a venerable institution.
True enough. At least we know now that The Offside will need more than its current 300,000+ monthly visits to be worth a few moments of Mr Guppy’s time. After all, “major news outlets” in the United States are falling over themselves to cover Major League Soccer. You just can’t pick-up a newspaper today without finding page after page of soccer analysis and interviews with obscure MLS executives.
Never fear, loyal reader, for such a stomping from the heavens cannot derail your intrepid and in no way bitter Fire blogger. With or without Mr. Guppy, this blog will pursue Q & As with folks who care about the Fire and their fans. Watch this space.
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Category: Off the field
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Comments
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Bollocks! Tell Mr. Guppy that some day we will own the Chicago Tribune. On second thought, given the Tribune’s economic situation I think we’ll pass.
Fight the good fight, Tom.
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Well, that deserves a Spicoli, “Yooooou dick!”
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Perhaps Guppy could learn a little from the new ownership group at DC United who not only made themselves available for the lesser media outlets but also attended preseason tailgate parties as well as the season kick-off party for the club’s supporters – all before the first game of the season.
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Although Wilt was before my day (neophyte, I’m a neophyte), I still miss him. He continues to tailgate with the fans. You should tell Guppy that The Offside – Chicago is at least as well respected as the Sun. Surely, then, he would love to be quoted, just after the page three girl.
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That’s interesting, Mickey. I’d love to hear how other MLS teams treat bloggers and other lesser-known media outlets as well.
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Don’t get discouraged. Keep covering the team, writing quality stuff, and they may change their minds. We’ve been fortunate to get a few DC United interviews via the front office, but I think part of that is that we established that we’d been around writing for awhile (over a year before our first interview) and that we were going to treat people with respect. So keep at it!
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Thanks D, I see your point about it taking time to develop a relationship. It is their jobs on the line at the end of the day, not mine (since I have no future as a professional soccer reporter anyway), but it did seem like a simple way to reach out to some fans.
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Tom: Yeah, it would be, and from everything I see here you’ve done at least as much as we had to deserve an interview. they may also just be wary about blogs which appear and shut down (especially post Wynalda-Fulham USA). I’ve seen a lot of soccer blogs start with promise and then vanish into the good night. So I think longevity will help you in the end.
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My first impulse was to write something like, “Well, fuck them too,” but there’s a pitying side to this. If I split open the sitemeter on my personal site, I could show MLS honchos about a dozen reasons per day why they want blogs covering them closely – and all those reasons are called “Google searches.” They may not get that people search for news – especially soccer news – in that manner, but they’ll be better off when they do. Successful searches beat the hell out of coming up empty or having to dish personal information as one often has to when reading regular media.
I had tried something similar with the Revolution FO back when I was on that beat, but decided against it in the end; seeing as I’m not local, I would miss a lot of the easy mingling opportunities, which is why I don’t think I’ll try in covering the Crew either. The Revs’ media people were nice enough, but they sounded dubious enough that I didn’t think my attempt would fly. Seeing as you are a local (or I think you are) this strikes me is both short-sighted and a bit typical from the league.
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D – definitely agree, it’s hard to establish credibility on a blog and it’ll take time in that respect.
Jeff – certainly, in this day-and-age, MLS teams need to realise people go much less to the major media outlets and more to the internet. Following your comment I googled for “chicago fire” and “mls” (to exclude 8 million sites about the 1871 fire!) and this blog came up fifth in the results. That’s after six weeks of existence – there just aren’t a lot of people covering the Fire.
And yep, I’m local and not going anywhere soon so we’ll see what happens.
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I think what we have all seen is something that has happened with blogs; as you all most likely know there was a fight between political blogs and traditional media a few months ago. One of the things that we are competing with is the fact that we are perceived as just “fans” writing “stuff” on the internet and have really no impact upon the sports world. Rather, they believe that the traditional media outlets dictate sports.
This in effect has been changing, as more people are using the internet for new sources and there has been a push to ensure the validity and structure of blogs. Just look at the increase of Soccer blogs in the past 6 months. As D made a mention, we are going to have to stick around and showing our staying power so as to influence the FO. If we increase our readership and are able to prove our impact upon soccer, then there might be chance for change.
What is sad is to see an MLS owner completely turn their backs on a potential connection to the fans. It is the fan that will keep this league afloat, because without fans MLS will die.
Keep up the good work Tom!!! We are all behind you!
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I am very suprised by their response. Who in MLS can afford to have such an attitude? Disturbing….
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David – I seem to remember you wrote once on your blog you’d been in touch with the Chivas USA FO. How’d they deal with you?
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Wow, that is an incredibly short-sighted decision by John Guppy. Doesn’t he realize that your 300,000 visits per month are by people who only care about soccer? It’s not like some daily paper that distributes to 300,000 per day, perhaps 1% read the soccer articles. Your entire readership is soccer fans!
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Tom: well it is going really slowly, I have been playing phone tag with the PR department and the ball is in his court. The thing that made it easier for me was that I worked for them two years ago. But alas, I am still finding it difficult as the FO is not the most organized. We shall see what happens this coming week.
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who the hell does he think he is? is he pretending he’s running a big time top four sports team in chicago, or an epl side? he should embrace the fans and welcome any opportunity to reach out to them. snubs like this are very telling in terms of the guys values and character. total marketing stroke. makes me feel a little better about having moved away from chicago.
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United States
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