By Ridge Mahoney, Soccer America Senior Editor
There won't be national MLS telecasts on ESPN2 until the final day of the season, Oct. 17. College football has taken over Saturday afternoons.
The Metros played three games on Sunday afternoons in August. For September and October, when ESPN2 theoretically would have Sunday time slots available, they are playing on Saturdays except for the final game of the season at D.C. United. But the alternative is to buck the NFL with Sunday afternoon telecasts starting in early September.
Ratings for ESPN2 telecasts, boosted by D.C. and Freddy Adu appearing nearly every week earlier in the season, have been dropping. Games shown live in the past two months have drawn the following ratings:
July 10 (San Jose at MetroStars) 0.27
July 17 (Colorado at San Jose) 0.21
July 24 (Columbus at Colorado) 0.16
Aug. 7 (Columbus at New England) 0.14
Aug. 14 (Chicago at Colorado) 0.11
Aug. 28 (D.C. United at New England) 0.22.
The Aug. 21 (Chicago at Los Angeles, 0.08) and Sept. 4 (New England at San Jose, 0.10) games were shown on tape-delay. Ratings for the Sept. 11 game (Dallas at D.C. ) weren't available as of Tuesday morning.
U.S. national team telecasts in the past two months on the ESPN networks have drawn acceptable ratings: July 11 — 0.49 (USA men vs. Poland); July 21 — 0.26 (USA women vs. Australia); Aug. 1 — 0.34 (USA women vs. China); Aug. 18 — 0.36 (USA men vs. Jamaica).
CANÆT SEE TV: Not having Saturday afternoon MLS action on ESPN2 in the final few weeks of the season is bad enough, but when an important game like last FridayÆs Rapids-Wizards Western Conference showdown isnÆt on TV at all, the league is black-eyed once again.
Fans in both cities — as well as Direct Kick subscribers — deserved to see that game on TV, regardless of coverage by their regional broadcasters, which in the case of both Colorado and Kansas City is minimal. No highlights were available for airing on ôMLS Wrap.ö Instead, the Fox Sports World show aired a feature on the Wizards and a live phone interview with RapidsÆ keeper Joe Cannon.
The irony is that Rapids operator-investor Stan Kroenke built some of his portfolio by producing sports programming and recently announced plans to launch a new regional sports network. The Wizards traditionally produce the fewest regional telecasts in MLS.
Not until MLS mandates every game be televised can it represent itself as a major league. At least in this case fans would have the options of finding a Direct Kick outlet or ordering the game for home viewing from their local cable provider or DirecTV or DISH Network. And, ''MLS Wrap'' would have had highlights of a game matching the teams with the best records in the league.
With the money it saves by not producing ESPN2 games for a month, MLS could fill those gaps of non-televised games.