Friday, February 23, 2007

The drive in

I was cruising into my non-soccer job on Thursday and was listening to a replay of The Football Show from the night before on my Sirius satellite radio. Sirius has fairly good coverage of soccer, excellent actually compared to terrestrial radio. I don't usually get to listen to a lot of it unfortunately because I'm either not in my car or too busy doing something else to listen to the radio.

Anyway, Giorgio Chinaglia and Charlie Stillitano host this show and they had on someone who is involved in soccer in New York. Forget his name but his dad was the president of US Soccer at some point in the past, like a long time ago. Anyway, the three of them were complaining that US Soccer is too centralized in terms of the power decisions that are made and that about 4 people hold all the power in US soccer.

Chinaglia, who seems like a crotchety old man, just complained about everything and said the federation should invest money in youth soccer. The guest corrected him and said they do spend more than a million per year on youth development programs and Chinaglia took his words back. Then, this guest said that he wanted for the president of US Soccer not to have another job, which seemed like a direct swipe at Sunil Gulati but he then said he spoke to Sunil before he presented this idea at some meeting and told him it wasn't personal.

When I got to my job, they had moved on to talking about Inter Milan-Valencia. Listening to soccer talk on the radio was a cool way to start the day.

I'm still waiting for an all-MLS talk show, though. Perhaps Andrea and I could start one and call it Sideline Voices. Now wouldn't that be something?!?

7 comments:

Toddzilla said...

That show with Stillitano and Chinaglia is pretty entertaining. Giorgio never lets the facts get in the way of a good opinion, so it ends up being a lot like you say...he'll make some bombastic statement, and someone will correct him. It's a good listen, though.

It would be great if you two had an MLS show - I know I'd listen if that happened.

Anonymous said...

Try your show out as a podcast.

L.B. said...

I'd actually thought about doing something like that, you know, for kicks. Also, I got a spiffy new digital recorder that I can download recordings onto a computer. I guess I have two questions (since I'm not the most up-to-speed on that kind of technology):

1) How would you go about podcasting something like this hypothetical radio show?

2) How would you go about making these interviews I have downloaded available for people to listen to? I have this really good one of Cobi Jones talking about the US-Mexico rivalry that I want to save and put up because I think people will enjoy it.

I'd appreciate any tips I could get.

A.C. said...

Ackk, Luis, you're displaying our tech ignorance to the world!

Anonymous said...

Anyone even remotely considering paying attention to Chinaglia should watch "Once in a Lifetime".

Toddzilla said...

Actually, there are a few ways to podcast. Honestly, the best method is to ask someone you know that does it. I know that sounds like a cop-out, but if you aren't tech-savvy, that's your best best. It's not that it's terribly difficult or anything, that just makes it easier.

Either way, the biggest issue is having the online space to host your audio files. You likely already have it over at LASN. I don't know how your the LASN system works, but if there's a tech person involved with that network of sites, you might ask them if there's a way to host those files. Just a thought.

Once you have that covered, recording and posting podcasts is a breeze. There are a number of free tools online that you can use. I could help point you in the right direction when you got to that point, as I'm sure others could.

Marmaduke said...

I have to agree with Guy (who I haven't seen since the last Cyberrays game *sniff*).

Set yourselves up a podcast! I only found Sideline Views a few weeks ago, but I'd definitely check out an MLS podcast.

It's easy:
the
PodcastingNews
folks tell you how

It's just a blog with links to MP3 files. Feedburner will create all the tags necessary for itunes (or whatever).

The only trick is that blogger doesn't let you upload files, so you either have to find somewhere else to host the actual MP3 files.

For what it's worth, My vote is for a bunch of short segments. I rarely can find time to listen to 30-60 minute shows.

Good luck.

-john
jmeppley
(at)
gmail