Here is a true story about the last time U.S. played Mexico. Landon
Donovan (a pic from that match) was chosen that week for the SPORTS
ILLUSTRATED cover, even though that week also included the NBA and
NHL Championship games, and Tiger Woods' victory in the U.S. Open.

from our own files and authorship.
originally written exclusively for Soccer-Football Fans Worldwide
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sffw

refers to SPORTS ILLUSTRATED June 24 issue.

This is a story from Sports Illustrated's own offices:

On last week's cover was Landon Donovan of the U.S.
National Team, and the Cover Story was about the
U.S. 2 to 0 victory over Mexico. S.I. hits news
stands on Thursdays, and the prior Monday is the
deadline to decide the cover.

The day before the last-minute deadline was
Sunday and Tiger Woods was winning the U.S. Open.
This was taking place only a few hours before the
U.S.-Mexico match was to begin, but that match
wouldn't be over until Monday a.m. New York time.

The week of this issue also included
The Detroit Red Wings winning the Stanley Cup
and the L.A. Lakers winning the NBA Championship.
All of these things took place in the same few days
with stories to be included in this issue.

The Stanley Cup or NBA Championship would
vie for the cover, but then when the S.I.
editors saw Tiger Woods doing so well,
they were considering at the last minute to put
him on the cover.

BUT...
hours after Tiger won the U.S. Open,
and got a HUGE TV audience (for golf),
the U.S. was in the process of destroying
the Mexico national team in the World Cup,
and went on to their first round-of-eight since 1930,
the first World Cup (which only included 13 teams,
and no Qualifying rounds at all).

While a record 20 percent of U.S. viewers watched
Tiger win, some soccer-crazy cities were recording
40, 50, even 60 percent of their citizens watching
the soccer match in the middle of the night:
at home, in stadiums, pubs and house parties.

S.I., in their wisdom, in the wee hours of Monday
morning
rushed a cover story and included a photo of Landon.
They knew that this victory WAS historic!

The other 3 sports championships that week were
reduced
to postage-stamp size pictures on the cover,
and the big headline and story was all about SOCCER!

S.I. obviously saw that this WAS THE BIG STORY
that week, even though there were these other
3 sports championships normally followed more
by their own subscribers.

S.I. wouldn't have put SOCCER on the cover
if it wasn't the biggest, most important
sports story that week, and as a business,
they wouldn't have put that out on the
news stands if they thought it wouldn't sell, now
would they?

We're glad that the mainstream press is finally waking
up.
Thank you, S.I. / Media Watch at Yahoo