On May 30th, the Major Indoor Soccer League folded.  The speculation is that because the league by-laws allowed defunct teams to have an equal vote on all league matters (as long as they paid their yearly franchise fee) and by the end of last season, there were more former owners without teams than there were current owners with teams.  By folding the league and starting over, they ridded themselves of these owners without teams.

The problem over the summer was that the owners couldn't decide on how to reformat the new league.  At issue were the number of teams (of the eight remaining MISL teams, three were in the midwest [Milwaukee, Detroit and Chicago], four were on the east coast [Balitmore, Philadelphia, New Jersey and Orlando] and one in Mexico [Monterrey].), the calendar schedule and number of games, and the salary cap.  Also muddying the waters are that two of the cities - Baltimore and Philadelphia - may lose their arenas after this season.

Today, for better or worse (mostly worse), the soccer world mourns the creation of the Xtreme Soccer League.  This potential disaster has so far identified only Milwaukee, Chicago, New Jersey and Detroit as teams.  When a niche sport issues a press release with phrases like "the XSX is an energetic and innovative 12-month experience" and “To be a part of this lifestyle brand is a dream come true", no further comment from the blogger is required.  Except one...

Pray for us soccer fans.  Please.

OK.  The Milwaukee Wave lost their MISL Semifinal playoff series to the Baltimore Blast.  Enough talk of that.

The MISL Finals will be played in Milwaukee next Saturday, and yippie-skippy, the Blast will be one of the two teams.

What was more exciting is that LaRaze de Monterrey won the other semi series against the Detroit Ignition.  Monterrey won Game 1 last week at Arena Monterrey, but lost Game 2 in Detroit to set up the (Side note - do you think I have feelings about this?) stupid, moronic, dopey, childish Game 3, which is a "first team to score" format.

After returning home after the disappointing Wave game, I hit the internet to see who the Blast would be playing in the MISL Finals next Saturday.  Eventually it was learned that Byron Alvarez hit the series winner, and the Mexican side had punched their ticket to Milwaukee.

So Saturday afternoon, warm up by stopping by at Riviera Maya or the Oaxaca Grill for lunch, have a Tecate or Dos Equis, stop back at home for your noise makers, and get to the US Cellular Arena for the 6:00 PM start. 

If Milwaukee's sizable Latin contingent makes it to the game, the atmosphere should be electric. 

John Paul Dellacamera is a soccer announcer.  Maybe it falls into the category of "You never forget your first", but he is the easy choice as my favorite soccer announcer.

I first came across him in the mid 1980s, when I would watch the original Major Indoor Soccer League games on ESPN.  Dellacamera was usually working the games with Seamus Malin, and their chemistry was top notch.

When the original MISL folded in 1991, Dellacamera kind of disappeared.  I am sure he did some broadcasting somewhere, but he resurfaced when Major League Soccer formed in 1996.  I believe he was the broadcaster with the MSG Network for the New York/New Jersey MetroStars (now known as Red Bull New York - Did you read my post from earlier this week?).  But he also did some work on ESPN's MLS broadcasts.  Unfortunately, he always seemed to be on the second team.

He did broadcast some of the 2006 World Cup games, but I don't know if he was in Germany, or from a studio in Bristol, CT.

Over the past few years, ESPN's MLS broadcasts have had multiple changes to the play-by-play guy.  There has been Jack Edwards, Rob Stone (who now butchers the PBA broadcasts on ESPN), and Dave O'Brein (who does a far better job on ESPN as a baseball guy).  During this past offseason, however, ESPN and MLS got their heads out of their collective rears and assigned John Paul Dellacamera as the #1 guy on this year's broadcasts.

Dellacamera, teamed with former US National Team star John Harkes, still has that smooth voice from 25 years ago.  He knows when to raise his voice when the situation calls for it, knows the history of the players and teams and brings Harkes into the conversation when the game starts to slow down.  Harkes himself is a technician of the game, and while he may talk over the heads of the "common Joe" watching the game, in reality there aren't any "common Joe's" watching soccer on a Thursday night, so it works out fine.

So the next time you find yourself watching ESPN2 on a Thursday night, take in and enjoy the sounds of a classy, professional play-by-play guy.

Maybe a check into some of the lists (lower right of this page, but conveniently linked in this post) would give us an idea...

Al's Ramblings - This is my favorite Brewers info blog.  The updates are quick and an easy read, and usually the links contained within do the talking.  I like this blog even though I am in complete disagreement about the Brewers rise and fall of last season (Al says that the 24-10 start, or the slide in August are small cross-sections of a season, and the final record is almost always what it deserves to be.  I say that the 24-10 start shows how good the team can be, and the slide in August was a red flag that needed immediate attention.)

Professional Bowlers Association (specifically, the Message Boards) - These can be a lot of fun, like the discussion about the olden days, they can be serious, like discussion of the PBA Experience leagues, or (like 90% of the discussions), they can be a mystifying arguement where everybody will argue and contradict each other.  These are the most entertaining.

Pro Football Weekly - Simply, in my opinion, the best source of football news.  Not much hype, very few puff pieces, just football talk.  Quite a departure from ESPN.com, where they get off on being silly (Side note, great thing ESPN does, though, by publishing an ombudsman.  Too bad they don't pay attention to her.)

Wizard of Odds - Some people think I talk about gambling too much.  But I do it for two reasons; (A) I enjoy it, and (B) so do billions of other people.  Why are casinos going up and expanding faster than anything else?  With that said, if I am going to gamble my precious money, I want to go into a casino armed with as much information as possible.  The Wizard of Odds has more info on any game than any one can hope to digest (you've got to try to read the optimum Final Jeopardy strategy), but spend a couple of hours surfing this site and you are bound to find something to give you an edge the next time you go out to gamble.

Las Vegas Casino Death Watch - Just that... fans of "Old Vegas" won't be able to get enough of this.  Do a complete read.

Cheapo Vegas (and the related Cheapo Reno) - Even if you have only been to Las Vegas or Reno once or twice, it is fun reading these reviews of hotels, casinos and restaurants.

Big Soccer (specifically MISL and Indoor Forum) - For better or worse, the Milwaukee Wave and the MISL are hurting for media attention, and the best way to read up on the teams, players and the league are through the keyboards of othe fans.

Our Sports Central (specifically the Soccer portion) - Our Sports Central focuses on minor league sports, and links easily to the leagues and their websites, as well as linking to any and all related newspaper articles.  This comes in handy when the Wave plays a game out of town.  We might get a few sentences in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, but this site handily links me to the opposing team's more complete game article.

Czabe.com - Steve Czaban has a morning show on Fox Sports Radio, does a 30-minute sports segment on the Bob and Brian show on 102.9 "The Hog", writes a weekly column on OnMilwaukee.com and has a daily sports blog which is a nice five-minute way to start each morning.

UniWatch - C'mon, what do you expect?  The subtitle for this site is "The obsessive study of athletics aesthetics".  For a small fee, you can join the club as someone who "Get's It".  I "Get It".

The Amazing Race Sucks - Actually, I quite enjoy the show.  So much so, that there are three sets of required reading each week.  First is the interview with that week's Philiminated contestants.  Then during the week, a "regular" contributor posts a comical (often hilarious) review of the previous show.  Then before the next show, a very thoughtful discussion of the racer's edits... and trying to gleen clues as to who might be elminated next.

The Baby Name Wizard - Great fun to type in name after name after name after name after name to see the rise in fall in poularity (try William, Mortimer, Dakota and Conner.)

The Transport Company - Why-oh-why am I fascinated with busses?  Trust me, I ain't a green freak.  I believe it was because my parents would send me on bus trips around town to get rid of me (and I had to walk to the bus stop, barefoot, uphill - both ways).  That got me used to them to the point where, if possible, I would take the bus to the next door neighbor's house to borrow a cup of sugar.  But really, who can resist looking at photos of busses over the last 40 years?  It is like a window to the past.  Quick, without cheating... where was this picture taken?  This one is a gold mine.  I am getting giddy just looking at the photos!

Game Show Convention Center - Game show news!  Granted, a recent site revamp made it more clumsy than it used to be, where where else can you learn that 1 vs. 100 is coming back soon, or that Regis Philbin has been signed on to host Million Dollar Password?

Industrious clock - More accurate than your watch, I assure you.

Adomiable Penguin Fungo - How far can you hit the penguin?  Keep trying.  My record is about 325.

Roadside Peek - This is along the lines as reading about old Vegas or old busses.  When I first found this site, I spent hours looking at old road signs of bowling alleys, motels, restaurants, gas stations, etc.

Keep checking the side links, as I add more as I find them.

The Milwaukee Wave played a game which was broadcast live on Fox Soccer Channel on Friday, December 7th.  Only 2,690 fans thought enough about the Wave to show up.

The Wave really must have papered the house with free tickets in the Bradley Center era.  I am sure that some of the large attendance figures had a large paid gate, but I was at so many of those 15,000+ attendance games where there were hundreds of people in line exchanging vouchers for tickets a half hour before game time.  But with a crowd in the five digits, the game was a blast.  Fans cheering loudly, getting into the action, booing the usually poor officiating, etc.  Ten thousand may have gotten in free, but we had a great time. 

On one hand, when the Wave drew 7,000 with regularity (understanding that many were freebies), there was decent coverage in the Milwaukee Journal and Milwaukee Sentinel - oftentimes with a color game photo on the front page.  All of the TV stations used the Bradley Center video feed, and home game video was on the sportscasts during the evening news.  Having 40 to 44 games helped as well... if a schedule is too short (or too long of a gap in between games) it is hard to gather momentum.  But playing two games a week - and almost always having a home game every weekend - kept the Wave in the public eye.  I think that is a word-of-mouth that the Wave relied on.  (You can get a free ticket voucher and not use it, or you can get a freebie and because the team was in the public conscious, you decide to go to the game).

Then on the other hand, when the Wave moved to the US Cellular Arena, there weren't enough seats available to give out excessive free tickets... if you paper the house and then don't have enough seats to match the number of vouchers, that's not a good thing.  I also think that around the same time, the Major Indoor Soccer League and the team started taking a stand against papering the house.  I mean, moving across the streets cuts the average attendance in half?  Many folks in Internetland feel that the Wave took a step backwards because of the feeling that the US Cellular Arena is minor league.

So although I would gather that almost all of the 2,600 in announced attendance was paid (maybe even a similar number as from the BC days?), the lower attendance has become a negative trend that has gathered momentum... less attendance means less coverage from the media.  No more Bradley Center video, so less news highlights.  Soccer reporter Charles Gardner got promoted to Bucks coverage, and he really wasn't replaced.  Therefore, the MJS coverage is rinky-dink. Now the team plays only 30 games, and there is less "buzz" now that they've taken away five home games.  There might be three weeks in between games, and if you don't see them on the news, then it is easy to forget that they exist.

Honestly, I completely forgot that the Wave had a game the previous weekend against La Raza de Monterrey.  I buy my tickets at the door because they are always available, and I can rattle off more Wave historical and trivia stuff than almost anyone else in the city, and I forgot the Wave was playing a Saturday night game.  Talk about a lack of buzz.

Other than the reduction in free tickets, I think a couple of other things may have cut into the attendance:

(1) There is a full casino in town now that wasn't there in 1984 (or 1994, for that matter).  This is a big 8000# elephant in the room.  It is more likely that mommy and daddy will blow the discretionary income (if not the mortgage and car payment, too) at Potowatomi than going to a soccer game with Johnny and his friends.  Nobody wants to admit that they will deny taking the kids to the game so they can go gamble, but there is a reason that the Potowatomi Nation can't build expansions fast enough.

(2) The gawdawful game day presentation supposedly intended to make it an entertainment event.  When a person goes to a Bucks or Marquette game, and it takes 10 minutes to introduce the players because they show a highlight video, and have the cRAP music behind the introductions, you've forgotten about the intros by tip-off because you are there for a Bucks or Marquette game.  But when you see basically the same introduction at a Wave game, suddenly it looks so bush league.  Now throw in the T-shirt tosses into the stands, the constant PA commercials during the game and the music, the entire experience overshadows the game (Side note, I've gotten to accept music during the games.  My newest kick is the unlistentoable racket that is now played.  The ticket buyers are in the 25-50 range - regardless of the ages of the kids.  How about some sound that I can tap my toes to?  You know that stuff; it is called music, complete with words and actual musicians playing actual instruments.)

(3) Ticket prices.  Call it adjusting for inflation or whatever, but when $16 is your cheapest seat for an event that nobody wants to go to....  Years ago while at a Chicago Fire game at Soldier Field, I ran into Peter Wilt (then the Fire GM who previously was the PR guy for the Wave in their heyday).  We talked about not undervaluing the ticket, because of the prestige that a high-ticket price brings.  When the top-level ticket is $50, it gives the impression that it is a high profile event.  Conversely, if a cheap seat is $8, there is less value associated with EVERY ticket.  Whether I agree with that or not is irrelevant.  What is relevant that is if the Wave is getting 2,600 fans, there isn't a lot of perceived value at all and the lowest price tickets need to go down.  A lot.

I must say that it breaks my heart to see this happen.  Again, I am one of the very few that has been to at least one game in each of the 24 seasons, and so many life memories revolve around indoor soccer games.  One of my first dates was at a Wave game (tickets were $4 in 1984... I could afford that).  As I got older, I got to date a player's wife (well, I call it a date, maybe to her it was someone giving her a free meal).  My son and I started going to games in 1993 when he was too young to know what a ball was, but we still got to go to 10-15 games a year together for the past 15 years.  He and I can remember so many things - both great and silly - and the Wave has really bonded us.  I've gone through one wife (and My-Sugar-Na makes #2) and their divergent attitudes about the Wave. 

But now that the Wave has gotten so irrelevant that I am even forgetting when there is a game... Something has to change, and quickly.