Monday, August 04, 2008

KC Media Coverage (Editorial)

It seems like it's going to be another slow week for Wizards news. We have the rumors of the potential trade to fill Scott Sealy's roster spot, as well as waiting on the renderings of the Wizards stadium to be released. But nothing of any real substance to touch on. But isn't there news to report on, how serious is Wolff's injury? What's going on with our offense? Where's the attacking offense that Wizards fans were told to anticipate? These are questions that many Wizards fans want answered. Unfortunately, there isn't anyone really in KC willing to ask those questions.

Of all the team's in the league, KC probably has the worst media coverage of any team in the league. To get any current news on their team, Wizards fans have to either rely on Wizards related blogs (like the ones I link in my blog roll), along with the Wizards forum on bigsoccer. The Star, or any of the local TV stations are usually hours, to days behind news involving the Wizards. Meanwhile, almost every other city that has a team (and many that don't) have a writer, or a blog devoted to covering their team and the beautiful game. Whether it's Chicago, Chivas USA/Galaxy, Colorado, Columbus, DC United, Houston, New England, New York, RSL, or Toronto all have full time reporters covering their team and usually have daily entries on their blogs. Of the three teams not listed, FC Dallas has one of the best independent blogs on the net covering their team, 3rd Degree as well as one of the better team blogs. For a full list of professional blogs covering soccer in the US, check out this post.

That leaves expansion San Jose and our very own Wizards. As for why KC is worse then San Jose in covering their team, all you have to do is look at last Thursday's Wizards press conference. Having the day off of work, I attended the press conference, which while certainly not the only way to contact the team, is probably one of the easiest ways to ask questions of coach Onalfo. No one from the KC Star even attended the press conference, and the majority of the questions at the press conference were asked by Bob Rusert, of MLSnet.

Bloggers like myself and the others that are just fans of the team shouldn't have to be the main source for other fans to go to for news about the team. There should be someone, NOT working for the team, that actually feeds information to the fans, gets quotes from players and coaches almost daily, gives injury updates, etc. Someone that will actually ask some hard questions of coach Onalfo and Vermes. While I love what Hillcrest Road has started, in the end, it's going to be towing the company line, as it's a run by the team. Unfortunately it looks like the Star doesn't have any interest in giving the Wizards even a quarter of the coverage they give the Chiefs.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree, I love your blog, but would love to have a beat writer that gives us even half the information on our team that Goff does.

Anonymous said...

So true and so sad that the media here is that big of a joke. I can't wait till CO is back on 810 again so I can ask him some real questions.

Anonymous said...

Ah, the life of a Wizards Supporter

The DLC said...

It's even worse when you live in a town w/o an MLS team. Just gettting scores in the local paper is too much to ask in a lot of cases, much less any substantive news.

The Steve that everyone likes said...

Great post. I completely agree with you.

Anonymous said...

What about Pete Grathoff's blog? Oh wait....that hasn't been updated since December, and we all know there hasn't been ANYTHING happen with the team since Christmas. Oi.

Do us all a favor, Mike, and grill CO at the press conference, especially about Mr. Pore!

Mike said...

If I could make it every week, I'd certainly start to ask some questions, but sadly every Thursday, the job that pays the bills requires that I miss the press conference basically every week.

Anonymous said...

Great post. this definitively deserves attention.