douglasmkelly's posterous

With the exit of The US from Soccer's biggest event, World Cup, this past weekend, I decided to finish writing this post about The ESPN. ESPN has touted the previous US game where they beat Algeria to go on to the round of 16, as having a viewership of 1.1 million people in the US. Before I lay into my diatribe, let me say that ESPN's free iPhone App is cool. It gives scores, schedule, and the brackets in real time. I wouldn't be surprised the pay-for-app has real time play by play like FIFA's site. I value the fact that they are covering World Cup with out all the life stories about the athletes like NBC does for the Olympics.

ESPN's initial coverage of the start of World Cup was ok. They hired some of the brightest commentators to help explain soccer to the uninitiated and comment on the matches for the avid fan alike. This year's World Cup is being played in South Africa, in case you've not heard. Most games started at 8:30 in the A.M. here (they're ½ a world away... I understand the logistics). I don't know about many of you, reading this today, but I'm in the US's EST zone. I'm generally working at 8:30a. Yes I know about TiVo, and actually have a machine expressly purchased to record TV, but it's not hooked up yet. Time issues.

So when I noted that many of the games were to be re-broadcast in the evenings, I was happy. I sat down in my favorite spot to watch the Netherlands play at 8:30 PM., and grabbed the laptop to work during the game. I tuned in to ESPN to see the game as listed in the schedule, but was delivered a college baseball game between Texas A&M and Dartmouth. "What the...." First I called Dish Networks. ESPN had listed notices during the games that they would be re-aired. They showed it in their schedule! Dish explained they had no control over ESPN's coverage of anything, but that they'd log a complaint on my behalf.

I went on to ESPN's site to ask why, in all things holy, they would do this. They responded with an automated boiler-plated message, that "We have all the Soccer World Cup Games" - Great! Just the message that I wanted to smooth my fur back down. I was given an email address in their message, to which I replied:

I live close to the largest population of Dutch people outside of the Netherlands. You aired a baseball game in an area that could care less about Texas A&M or Dartmouth. I'm sure there were about 7 people in the greater Grand Rapids Area (Near Holland MI), that tuned in just for that game, but how could they have know it was on, WHEN YOUR SCHEDULE LISTED WORLD CUP SOCCER?!!. I might be estimating high. There are at least 500,000 people in the West Michigan Area that are of Dutch Decent. You pulled your own listed coverage of the biggest sporting event in the world for something that only a few people care about: College Baseball. I could *maybe* see if it was between Michigan State and the U of M. I could see if it was The Masters. I could even see if it was a local high school tournament soccer game. I wouldn't have been happy, but wouldn't be this angry.

ESPN sent me a followup message Thursday saying the same thing. No apology. No explanation. Just "The Netherlands vs. Denmark match re-aired at 6pm ET on Monday, June 14th 2010 on ESPN Classic." That's it. One line. They didn't even refer to the above.

I know that ESPN is the largest sporting network in the world. But when you say you're going to do something, and you don't deliver, and then you can't even respond to concerns adequately, sometimes you have to talk about it. Yes, I consult people to write positive Tweets and respond to comments positively. To post things that you'd want your grand mother to read on Facebook. That blog posts should be constructive. I also comment on Customer Service on this blog. So let me tell you about some good customer service in all this:

The day after I called Dish Networks, where I had actually talked to a real person, they called to follow up! Seriously! "Did we fix all your problems?" So where ESPN fell down and still has yet to get back up with regards to Customer Support and Service, Dish has done a bicycle kick shot on goal. They let me know that, yes for more money, I could order an "Enhanced" package to watch the replay games on Classic. I know that's an up-sell. But the Customer Service is worth it.

So is the fact the ESPN is so big, and they're getting a million+ viewers mean that they need to disregard my issue? You tell me. How many of those 1.1mil were watching via Dish Networks? How many missed the Netherlands first game? Are we all going to let ESPN go on this one? I'm not. I value good customer service. I try to provide great customer service. Tell me, reader. Is customer service valued by you?

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