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two weeks pass...
xpost it sucks that MLS is so dramatically stepping in it this year, like it's completely turned the season into a sideshow. I'm still going to and enjoying my Orlando City matches because frankly, this team is the most important thing to me in this city, and they've grown almost as close to my heart as the Miami Dolphins, not to mention how many friends I've made through going to games. But the ability to enjoy the matches is being directly impeded by the Garber administration.
MLS Pass I have mixed feelings on. Because I'm a season-ticket holder, I get it for free. prior to it being around, it was a lot harder to watch Orlando City road matches. the subscription service prior to ESPN+ was too pricey, whereas ESPN+ was awful because it blacked out so many games (including ones that it wasn't supposed to). I didn't have cable, so I essentially kept creating fake email accounts to do endless free trials on Youtube TV just to watch games. so in a sense, that's helped me.
otoh, the broadcasting teams are indeed bad and they are rotated, so you wind up having broadcasters that don't know the teams they're announcing as well, and if you find a pairing you like, it might be three or more matches before you get it again. and they were basically just doing free PR for the league and Messi right after he joined - it was a farce. the MLS section of the Apple app is 25% Messi. It would have been better had they not reduced live TV airings as much as they did, whereas now you essentially have to be match of the Week to be shown on cable TV. and, of course, those local broadcasts wouldn't be cheerleading for MLS or at the very least, suppression of critical voice against MLS decisions like MLS Pass has been. so it's hard to argue with the article above. essentially 'state-run media' for MLS.
prior to Messi, the league still was not run well, what with the overexpansion, the ever-shifting playoff format, the much-too-large playoff field, and the reluctance to ease up on some of the roster restrictions to at least increase roster sizes or make it easier to have depth so that these periods where fixture congestion does happen, it doesn't essentially force you to give up on trying to win one of the matches to compete in the others. but it was definitely improving, eye test wise, better caliber players were coming over here younger, retirement league reputation still present but fading a bit.
watching Miami matches, I mean, I'm not a 'OMG FIXED' conspiracy theorist, but because of what a sideshow he is here, you start to wonder. obviously superstar calls aren't exactly unique to MLS, and Messi's only ever had 3 red cards called on him in his career, Busquets only 2, but there have multiple matches where one or both of them should have been sent off, and weren't. In the LA Galaxy match, not only was Busquets not sent off as he should have been, a Galaxy player was sent off for a second yellow that was such a horrendously bad call it was rescinded on appeal, and said send-off allowed Miami to equalize. Last night, Nashville went up 3-1, only for the goal to be chalked off due to offside. they don't have the same quality offside tech in VAR in CONCACAF as they do in like Premier League, so it was more manual line drawing and eye test than than automated system, and it did not appear clear and obvious he was offside, nor was it clear that he was involved in the play. of course, Miami equalizes minutes later, so it goes from a 2-legged match with Nashville ahead 3-2 with Miami essentially ahead due to away goals rule, 2-2. and let's face it, what ref is going to send off Messi knowing the death threats he's going to get from fans who are supposed to attend the next match, upset that they wasted their money on tickets?
keeping the same playoff format, like...the best of 3 format was terrible last year, and they kept it for no good reason. the team that won Game 1 pretty much won every series, and it dragged out the round so damn long.
the referee strike, although not entirely MLS's involvement (since it's a PRSA/PRO lockout with MLS partnering with PRO) has also been bad, though not as bad as feared, but naturally I never like union busting. and they've had to go to VAR to reverse decisions about twice as much because they're just not used to this league and its speed, or refereeing in general. they almost assigned a Messi/Inter Miami fan to officiate Orlando's game before a Twitter account called it out and the ref was reassigned.
meh. Guardian otm about Apple.
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Friday, 8 March 2024 18:32 (one month ago) link
In completely ideal conditions it's at least an hour drive for me to go to Fire games now, and though I made that kind of drive all the time when I lived in the city and the stadium was in the suburbs, with the games happening at Solider Field it's an absolute shitshow getting in and out. The fact that it's an NFL stadium right in the middle of downtown makes it a target, so security is nuts. Despite being right in the middle of everything, public transit, especially the train, doesn't stop at the stadium, you're looking at a 20-30 minute walk to get to the nearest stop. It's also huge, mostly empty, expensive (parking is ridiculous) and did I mention security is nuts? Like, big-dudes-with-guns-roid-raging-at-tailgaters nuts? The fun, quasi-DIY atmosphere of their old stadium is pretty much gone.
A lot of my friends have stopped going for these reasons, if not the fact that the team has been mostly garbage for more than a decade. Also I guess we got old, can't day drink at the tailgate and sing the whole game before riding a bar-sponsored bus back to the city any more, lolz.
I'm nearly certain they're calling the games remotely, at least some of the time if not all.
― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Friday, March 8, 2024 1:48 PM bookmarkflaglink
wouldn't surprise me, given how often I scream at the screen for something inaccurate they said that someone at the game couldn't possibly have been stupid enough to say.
my friend J0e can't go to the games as he lives too far away and he'll be in our group chat when we're at games, telling us what the broadcasters are saying, and we'll usually react - 'are they high?'
― CEO Greedwagon (Neanderthal), Friday, 8 March 2024 19:33 (one month ago) link