Is Carolyn Bivens Running the LPGA into the Ground?
I enjoy watching LPGA events just as much as that of the PGA. In certain cases, I prefer the LPGA. For example, given the choice between watching an LPGA major or a non-major PGA event, I always choose the LPGA.That was the situation I was expecting to face this weekend as I sat down on my comfy leather couch. I took a sip of my tasty beverage and powered up the old boob tube. I knew that the LPGA's 2nd Major, the McDonald's LPGA Championship, had just started.
I flipped the channels to find the television coverage. NBC - nada. ABC - zilch. CBS - the Barclays Classic. What's the dealio?
I checked my trusty TV Guide. My worst fears were confirmed. None of the major networks were televising the McDonald's LPGA! Instead, the Golf Channel was covering all four rounds. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Golf Channel. However, I had to drop it from my cable service after it moved into the premium sports tier and pushed my monthly cable bill over a Benjamin.
Regardless, I was just dumbfounded that no major broadcast network picked up the final rounds of an LPGA major at a minimum. Since I had nothing else to do, I jumped onto the internet to find out the scoop. According to the article, "The McDonald's turns to TGC" by Jay A. Coffin in the April 18, 2006 issue of Golfweek:
I flipped the channels to find the television coverage. NBC - nada. ABC - zilch. CBS - the Barclays Classic. What's the dealio?
I checked my trusty TV Guide. My worst fears were confirmed. None of the major networks were televising the McDonald's LPGA! Instead, the Golf Channel was covering all four rounds. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the Golf Channel. However, I had to drop it from my cable service after it moved into the premium sports tier and pushed my monthly cable bill over a Benjamin.
Regardless, I was just dumbfounded that no major broadcast network picked up the final rounds of an LPGA major at a minimum. Since I had nothing else to do, I jumped onto the internet to find out the scoop. According to the article, "The McDonald's turns to TGC" by Jay A. Coffin in the April 18, 2006 issue of Golfweek:
The McDonald's LPGA Championship will receive four more hours of coverage this year but it will not be shown on network television for the first time in nearly two decades. After 15 years on CBS, the tournament announced April 17 a three-year deal with The Golf Channel, making it the first major championship on the LPGA broadcast solely by the network.Had the major networks simply lost interest in the LPGA? Apparently not. According to "Major savings?" by Ron Sirak in the May 26, 2006 issue of Golf World:
Jon Miller, NBC's senior vice president of sports, said when NBC learned CBS was giving up the McDonald's (because tournament officials wouldn't agree to the network's request for a 3 p.m. Sunday finish), he called the LPGA and told commissioner Carolyn Bivens his network would like to take over the telecast.Unfriggin'believable. Sure, it's cheaper to broadcast an event on The Golf Channel, but the revenue opportunities are a lot less as well. Also, with the emergence of new and exciting young female golfers such as Michelle Wie, Morgan Pressel, Paula Creamer, etc., isn't this the best time for the LPGA to invest in the tour's exposure? These future golf stars deserve the spotlight of broadcast network coverage to capitalize on a new wave of viewer interest. The Golf Channel's miniscule audience just doesn't cut it. How could the LPGA let this happen? Someone clearly dropped the ball big-time. Ultimately, Bivens must take responsibility for this sorry state of affairs. If her blunders persist, she will lose the support of the players, including one that's not yet a member but may be key to the LPGA's future: Michelle Wie. Many people have been critical of Michelle Wie's limited LPGA schedule. The fact of the matter is that Wie is not an LPGA member and is limited to playing a maximum number of eight LPGA events this year. Not only is Wie playing as many LPGA events that she can, but she actually entered a much more difficult U.S. Open Sectional qualifier to be able to play in the McDonald's. She could have easily skipped the McDonald's to play in a much easier U.S. Open Sectional qualifier that would have almost guaranteed her chances to make history at Winged Foot. That's a pretty big sacrifice. How much more could Wie do for the LPGA? Outside of maxing out LPGA events, Wie plays in the best events that she is invited, whether it be a men's or women's event. Considering that Wie lives in Hawaii, it makes a whole lot of sense. If Carolyn Bivens continues to penny-pinch the LPGA into obscurity, maybe Wie would be better off to remain a part-timer on the LPGA. Why play on a tour where only a fraction of the population can view it? I wouldn't blame Wie if she were to bypass the LPGA altogether. I'd be in favor if it meant that I could watch her more often. Bivens needs to increase the LPGA's visibility, not lessen it. If she can't grasp this obvious and simple concept, she is totally clueless and needs to step down immediately. After only ten months as the queen bee, Bivens has already seen the departure of seven senior LPGA executives, two of them she had hired. Asked why she bolted from her post as the senior vice president of golf, Deb Richard responded, "I've lost faith in the leadership." Let me translate that cryptic message for you, "Carolyn Bivens is running the LPGA into the ground and I'd better bail out now before the $hit really hits the fan." Ty Votaw, you are sorely missed.But Miller says Bivens told him McDonald's officials had already decided to go with The Golf Channel; when Miller pressed her on it, Bivens told him the decision was "out of the LPGA's hands."Why would any tournament, particularly a major, opt to give up broadcast network coverage? Money is the most obvious answer. A source familiar with the situation, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said McDonald's saved $1.2 million a year by going to The Golf Channel instead of a network. Unlike the PGA Tour, the LPGA buys network time for its tournament broadcasts, then sells the commercials itself to try to recoup its cost. The source told Golf World it would have cost $1.5 million to put the McDonald's on CBS (or, presumably, NBC), but just $300,000 on The Golf Channel.
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Here’s the bad news for the Heat: they lost Game One. And here’s the worse news: Josh Howard shot 3-of-14, Dirk shot 4-of-14, Jerry Stackhouse was 4-of-11, the game was played at a fairly slow and sloppy pace, which probably favors the Heat, and 
Oddly enough, 
8 months or so ago, I decided I’d give soccer a shot. Prior to that, I had been kind of an asshole about the sport… I said it was boring and girly and the rules were dumb… all your standards. Really, it wasn’t that I didn’t like soccer, it’s just that I liked being an asshole in regards to soccer a little bit more.
I don’t recall exactly what it was that spurred me to give soccer a real chance. But it didn’t have anything to do with the MLS, Brandi Chastain’s sports bra, or Freddy Adu. But I somehow ended up watching some Saturday morning/afternoon Premiership games with my buddy Danks, and a bearded, drunk Columbian guy who woke up on Danks’ couch around time for kick-off. This all happened at the beginning of this past Premiership season.
Going into it, here were some of the things I’d have to overcome:
1) The time situation. I still really don’t understand this one. I don’t know why it’d be such a problem to give fans an idea of when the game is going to end. If there’s four minutes of injury time, fine, put four minutes on the clock, and let’s play until it hits 0:00. How it seems to work, though, is that someone will arbitrarily decide how much more time should be added, and then the ref will blow his whistle whenever the hell he feels like it.
2) The soccer people. This is a big one. My problem is not with the crazed international fans of soccer… but rather, with the American soccer fans who act like they’re more cultured and refined people than any of the unwashed inbred hicks who don’t watch it. They know who they are. They say “football” instead of “soccer,” “kit” instead of “uniform,” “pitch” instead of “field,” and heap scorn upon you if you don’t. And it’s not that it’s at all wrong to say those things, but for these douchebags, it’s what it’s all about. Being different and cool and unique and special because they know terms that you don’t. I don’t even know if they like the sport, they just like being a part of the special soccer fan club. Fuck these people in the auditory canal. I think it’s important to understand that you don’t have to like or become one of these bastards to enjoy soccer.
3) Letting go of my desire to make fun of soccer. It should be the easiest thing, but is probably actually the hardest. It’s just easy to make fun of soccer. I didn’t understand and didn’t attempt to, so when told me about an awesome 1-0 soccer game, I said, “Hey, 1-0, that sounds awesome,” and then called them women. Easy and fun, just like that. And if you have any desire to try and enjoy soccer, you’ve got to drop that completely. Stop looking for things you don’t like. It’s not as easy as it sounds, to clear your mind of all that, especially if you’ve been anti-soccer for a long time. And I was. And if the effort isn’t honest, it’s not going to happen. If you sit down in front of a World Cup game and say, “Fine, I’ll give this damn thing a chance,” and you turn it off after 20 minutes, then all you’ve done is waste twenty minutes.
I hate to skip ahead in the story, but it really was as simple as this: I started watching it, and I kind of liked it. And before I get too far ahead of myself, let me just make it clear, in case it isn’t obvious enough, that I’m no soccer expert. I can’t expect to even come close to fully understanding the sport after just one season of viewing. But fortunately, I don’t have to have a complete grasp of the sport to enjoy it. I’m just giving you my experience here, and I’m not claiming it to be anything past that.
So with that out of the way, I started watching, and here’s how it went down. And I really hate to sound like one of the guys who are really adamant that you like soccer, because I really don’t care if you do or not, but… the skill and creativity involved in soccer at highest level is pretty staggering. A lot of these guys can control a round ball with their feet as well as you or I could with our hands, and that’s just freakish. A guy like Thierry Henry has a ton of different ways to fake and move the ball, and all of them seem to defy the laws of physics. The things that Ronaldinho can do with a soccer ball, in my opinion, are not exceeded by what Steve Nash can do with a basketball or what Tom Brady can do with a football.
Soccer’s also the closest thing to basketball, in my estimation, and you know that I love the basketball. It’s very similar in terms of guys filling individual roles and having to know and stick with those roles. You’ve got your scorers, your playmakers, your defenders, your attacking defenders… and if any of them try to do something outside of their role, the whole play will break down. It’s about getting the ball into position, seeing the field, making smart and accurate passes, taking the best shot you can get, and, when appropriate, letting someone’s individual creativity and talent take over.
And if you can start to appreciate that, some of your pre-conceived criticisms disappear. For instance, the time thing. It hasn’t been an issue in a long time. Yes, objectively, it’s still a little bit goofy. But after a while, it’s not an issue… you just accept it as a part and tradition of the game. And instead of a clock deciding that a goal or a point or a touchdown was one-tenth of a second too late, maybe it’s preferable for the ref to just let it get to a reasonable stopping point and blow the whistle himself.
And the “low-scoring” criticism, I don’t think is valid. It’s just something that people say because it’s easy to say. It’s an easy shot to take. I don’t believe that Americans reject soccer because the scores are too low. The same people who use a 1-0 score to poke fun are a lot of the same people who will tell you that a 1-0 “pitchers duel” in baseball can be exciting, or that a 6-3 football can be an enthralling “defensive struggle.” And once upon a time in America, there were some hockey fans. I just don’t believe that the lack of scoring is a real issue. If people wanted to adjust to that, they could, without problem. They just choose not to.
With all this said, however, there are still some things I don’t like about the game… but none of them are enough to make me dislike the sport as a whole, and I certainly list more than a few things I don’t like about the NFL, NBA, or MLB, too. But here they are:
Flopping/diving. Some of these guys make Vlade Divac look like Jake LaMotta in Raging Bull. The flopping is out of hand. And it’s not like NBA flopping. If Erick Dampier flops, he’s back on his feet in three seconds. Soccer players go the extra mile. It takes much less to indunce a flop, and when it happens, they like to lay on the field for six to eight minutes, even after it’s clear they aren’t getting the call. They’ll stop at nothing. A guy will lie there, scream, cry, have a priest come and administer last rights, be carted off in an ambulance, and pretend to not respond when tey use the heart paddles on him, begin funeral planning, and then he’ll be back on the field in 10 minutes without a limp. Pisses me off.
When a game is bad… yeah, it’s bad. A match where neither team can sustain a possession is pretty much unwatchable. The ball bouncing back and forth in the midfield, with aimless headers and intercepted passes, nowhere near the goal… that’ll put you to sleep. I guess you could say this for any sport, but… bad soccer is really bad. I do recommend, if you’re going to try to give soccer a chance, that you watch the highest level possible.
A word on hooliganism. And obviously, I don’t approve of the violence committed by crazy bastard “soccer fans.” And that’s the issue… the hooliganism really doesn’t have anything to do with soccer. When gangs of British hooligans brawl, they’re not brawling to defend the honor of their team, or out of any real disagreement… they really just like to get liquored up and fight. And hey, who doesn’t? Would it really shock anyone if the SEC decided to adopt the idea of “firms” of violent hooligans? A group of 40 Vols fans meeting 40 Gator fans behind a barn somehwere and going toe-to-toe with fists and clubs… that has to have happened at some point. Instead of the media calling it soccer violence, I’d rather they just covered it as a whole other sport. Have standings and everything.
So that’s where I am: still with a few minor issues, but still learning and very much enjoying. And if you’re one of the 90% or so of readers that hate soccer, or don’t want to give it a chance, I’m certainly not trying to tell you that you should like soccer, or that you’re dumb if you don’t. If you don’t like it, I’m sure you have your reasons. Certainly, not all sports appeal to me. But I do believe that a lot more of you could be soccer fans if you wanted to give it a real chance.
But, like I said… it’s not my intention to push you in that direction. Just letting you know that the option exists, and it might not be quite as intolerable as you think.