By Craig Kwasniewski
Bouncing around the web I found a very interesting quote from Guardian Unlimited columnist Paul Kelso. For those unfamiliar with The Guardian, it is a English newspaper that leans toward the left. It's a good read if you want to keep up with European sports and REAL world news (ie. not Foxnews).
Anyway in his look back at the World Cup (First half good, second half not bad either) Kelso, known as "Digger" (whatever) wrote:
Biggest gripe Fifa's directions to referees. With the letter of the law being applied and the benefit of the doubt going to sides in possession, games occasionally resembled basketball, where any physical contact is automatically a foul.
WOW! We are now seeing the after-effect of the D-Wade debacle from the Finals. Even soccer columnists (sorry futbol) are noticing how bad the refereeing is in the NBA. And this is from a guy who covers a sport that invented and perfected flopping with stretchers and "magic spray."
David Stern are you listening? I don't want to see Wade, LeBron, Melo, Arenas all shooting 3,000 freethrows next season. Scoring 40 ppg. isn't all too entertaining if 26 of them are from the line. I hope that the Finals were just a product of shitty officiating and not a sign of things to come for 06-07.
Damn, Dick Bavetta just whistled me for fouling Wade.
Amen.
Posted by: Dean Wermer | July 11, 2006 at 02:08 PM
I'm afraid it could be a sign of things to come for 06-07 since the TV ratings were quite good for this years Finals....eek.
Posted by: JenM | July 11, 2006 at 02:42 PM
The ratings were better than last year, but not good enough... the World Cup got better ratings. Hopefully, this means that Wade won't get the Jordan calls next season... I hope.
Posted by: Craig | July 11, 2006 at 05:25 PM
Well of the course the World Cup got better ratings than the NBA Finals, thats a given. I'm guessing under 50% of us Americans watched our team fail miserably at the WC. How manny Brazilians watched their team, like 85%? Its pretty much like that for every other country besides the USA. Tally that up and manny more people are watching the World Cup. Opposed to however manny Americans, Europeans, Germans and a slew of Asian's watching the NBA finals.
Posted by: Madcap Vagrant | July 13, 2006 at 07:22 PM
I'm was actually surprised that so many Americans watched the World Cup. Being a closet soccer fan, I hear all the time that soccer (futbol) is boring and will never succeed in the US. Plus, with Stern obviously looking to increase ratings by giving LeBron and Wade 35 free-throw attempts a game, he needs to find a better way to seek ratings because his marquee event, The Finals, did not beat what is usually considered the 6th or 7th favorite sport in the US.
BTW - Count me as one of the 50% who saw the US fail miserably at the WC. I was actually in Gelsenkirchen to see them get rolled 3-0 by the Czech Republic. Tough match to watch in person.
Posted by: Craig | July 13, 2006 at 09:28 PM