Here's an on-target article in the NY Post today by Phil Mushnick. I realize that if you don't live on the East Coast you won't care too much, but anyway...
September 1, 2006 -- "THE plan for today was to come out smelling like a genius. I was going to predict that the marriage of sports to TV would, in the next few days, again deprive a New York audience from viewing a spectacular event that occurred in New York.
I intended to write that the U.S. Open, because a premiere match started and ended far too late on a work night - or any other kind of night short of New Year's Eve - again would turn an unforgettable match into a vague, unconfirmed rumor.
After all, what has been described as the greatest match ever contested at the Open, last year's five-setter between Andre Agassi and James Blake, was scheduled to start no earlier than 9:15 on a Wednesday night. It began at 10:15 p.m.
Even 9:15 would've been crazy, but maximizing prime-time ad revenues on both coasts is now considered far more important than actually allowing half the country to see the ends of the significant sports events on either side of those ads.
Agassi-Blake began at 10:15 p.m. because the Lindsay Davenport-Elena Dementieva quarterfinal was served as the TV prelim and ran three sets. Agassi-Blake, a can't-miss that became a couldn't-see, ended at 1:09 Thursday morning. New Yorkers would've had a better shot if the U.S. Open were played in London.
So the genius in me was prepared to issue a heads-up that this year's Open again would be memorable for a match that we can't recall. We'd again miss something special because it began and ended too damned late.
Then Agassi and Romania's Andrei Pavel beat me to it, Monday night into Tuesday morning. That one started at 9 p.m. and ended at 12:31 a.m. Again, we were told this was an epic, one we'll always remember. Had we only seen it.
Thus, Agassi, in less than a year, has played what have been described as two of the greatest matches in U.S. Open history, while people, a few miles away who otherwise would have been interested, fell into a natural sleep.
Agassi came very close, Tuesday morning, to playing his last point in the U.S. Open while we were sleeping.
Then we read and hear that tennis' popularity in the United States is on the fade. Hey, how do you think New Yorkers feel? We're inhabitants of what's now treated as if it's a small-TV-market village. We're Toledo, fer crying out loud.
That the finishes to the greatest games played in New York are now regularly going unseen in New York constitutes sheer madness, no?
What has been identified as the most astonishing game in both Jets and "Monday Night Football" history (in 2000, the Jets, down, 30-7, in the fourth, beat the Dolphins in OT) began at 9:05 p.m. and ended at 1:30 a.m.
I keep reading that it was among the most memorable games in the history of New York sports. And it was played right over there, in the Meadowlands. But I still don't know 10 New Yorkers who saw that game, live on TV, to its conclusion.
The Mets and Yankees appear headed to the postseason. Surely, something special, something that can't be missed, will go missed. The genius in me tells me so."
September 1, 2006 -- "THE plan for today was to come out smelling like a genius. I was going to predict that the marriage of sports to TV would, in the next few days, again deprive a New York audience from viewing a spectacular event that occurred in New York.
I intended to write that the U.S. Open, because a premiere match started and ended far too late on a work night - or any other kind of night short of New Year's Eve - again would turn an unforgettable match into a vague, unconfirmed rumor.
After all, what has been described as the greatest match ever contested at the Open, last year's five-setter between Andre Agassi and James Blake, was scheduled to start no earlier than 9:15 on a Wednesday night. It began at 10:15 p.m.
Even 9:15 would've been crazy, but maximizing prime-time ad revenues on both coasts is now considered far more important than actually allowing half the country to see the ends of the significant sports events on either side of those ads.
Agassi-Blake began at 10:15 p.m. because the Lindsay Davenport-Elena Dementieva quarterfinal was served as the TV prelim and ran three sets. Agassi-Blake, a can't-miss that became a couldn't-see, ended at 1:09 Thursday morning. New Yorkers would've had a better shot if the U.S. Open were played in London.
So the genius in me was prepared to issue a heads-up that this year's Open again would be memorable for a match that we can't recall. We'd again miss something special because it began and ended too damned late.
Then Agassi and Romania's Andrei Pavel beat me to it, Monday night into Tuesday morning. That one started at 9 p.m. and ended at 12:31 a.m. Again, we were told this was an epic, one we'll always remember. Had we only seen it.
Thus, Agassi, in less than a year, has played what have been described as two of the greatest matches in U.S. Open history, while people, a few miles away who otherwise would have been interested, fell into a natural sleep.
Agassi came very close, Tuesday morning, to playing his last point in the U.S. Open while we were sleeping.
Then we read and hear that tennis' popularity in the United States is on the fade. Hey, how do you think New Yorkers feel? We're inhabitants of what's now treated as if it's a small-TV-market village. We're Toledo, fer crying out loud.
That the finishes to the greatest games played in New York are now regularly going unseen in New York constitutes sheer madness, no?
What has been identified as the most astonishing game in both Jets and "Monday Night Football" history (in 2000, the Jets, down, 30-7, in the fourth, beat the Dolphins in OT) began at 9:05 p.m. and ended at 1:30 a.m.
I keep reading that it was among the most memorable games in the history of New York sports. And it was played right over there, in the Meadowlands. But I still don't know 10 New Yorkers who saw that game, live on TV, to its conclusion.
The Mets and Yankees appear headed to the postseason. Surely, something special, something that can't be missed, will go missed. The genius in me tells me so."
