MLS Draft

It's long past time that I got back on track with this blog. So here we go.

Last Friday, I sat in front of my PC here at work and entered information onto the Matchnight.com database on the MLS SuperDraft. Three things happened as a result of this event, as far as I'm concerned.

1. Matchnight.com and MLSNet.com were both dragged to a near standstill by the people who were trying to access them to get draft information. Very frustrating and very encouraging at the same time.
   
2. The importance of the internet for American Soccer fans has been perfectly displayed by event Number Two.
   

One of the big criticisms I have of the Columbus Crew is that the website is generally the last to get informed about the big news happening in Crew-dom. Preference on story notification is given to the Columbus Dispatch and whatever TV stations have deigned the story at hand worthy to cover. Meanwhile, the internet, which most Crew fans use to get their information about the team, is treated as a low man on the totem pole. We get the information last - whenever the Crew decides they can get around to us.

And that's just wrong.

We need to be current about all Crew news before any other media outlet is, if at all possible. How does it look when the Dispatch is covering a story that we haven't posted yet because they haven't sent us the press release? Bad. And we've fielded complaints about that at many times. And we've told the Crew this many times. But for some reason, they just continually treat us as a second-rate source. And treating your own media outlet as a second-rate source is never good.