Chuck Pearson's comment to an earlier post reminded me that I should say something about this...
In news that shouldn't surprise anyone, Oliver Tse is putting his SoccerTV.com site up for sale. Oliver has moved into the poker world in recent years, from freelance reporting to becoming an agent to professional players. He has been extremely successful (again, no surprise to me) with three of the nine players at the WSOP Main Event Final Table represented by his management company, including the Main Event winner.
Oliver has performed an invaluable service to the American soccer community with his website. When it first came online in 1994, it was not easy to find soccer matches on TV, and the matches were seldom well-publicized by the networks. It has since become very easy to find soccer on cable/satellite TV, and perhaps SoccerTV.com is not as indispensable as it once was. But we all owe him our thanks, and in doing so we should reflect on how far soccer has come in this country.
Perhaps my favorite OT commentary was his rebuttal to Michael Hiestand's column in USA Today on soccer being a niche product, which was published in Soccer America. They've since placed it behind a subscription wall, but the piece states very powerfully just how many people watch soccer in this country and how they demand that broadcasts of their favorite sport be presented in a professional manner (like any other pro sport). If anyone can point me to a link I'd appreciate it.
UPDATE (8/2/07): Oliver was kind enough to post the link in the comments. Thanks!
Link to my rebuttal to Michael Hiestand
http://socceramerica.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=Articles.showArticle&art_aid=20212&passFuseAction=PublicationsSearch.showSearchReslts&art_searched=tse&page_number=0
Posted by: Oliver Tse | July 31, 2007 at 08:30 AM