Chicago Fire 2007 Campaign is Set
By Todd McClamroch in News on Feb 6, 2007 8:57PM
Major League Soccer and its many broadcast partners released the 2007 schedule today. In a first for MLS, every single game will be televised either nationally or locally. The league has partnered with many national networks, including ABC, ESPN, Univision, Fox Soccer Channel, Fox Sports en Espanol and HDNet to ensure 113 of the 195 games will be shown nationally. Unfortunately, many of these stations are not widely available without upgraded cable service.
The most accessible national partner, ESPN, will host "MLS Primetime Thursday" each Thursday during the season. Fox Soccer Channel will continue to show soccer on Saturday nights, in a three hour slot that will allow coverage of overtime and a pre- and post-game show. FSC will air 28 live Saturday night matches. If you prefer coverage in Spanish, those FSC Saturday night games will also be broadcast on Fox Sports en Espanol. HDNet will also air 27 Saturday night games. The Univision family of networks will be the national broadcast partners for Sundays with 25 regular season games assigned to TeleFutura and Galavision.
With the new schedule that features Thursday night games, Chicagoist was worried the Fire might host too many weekday games. We normally don't mind the trek down to Bridgeview on a weekend but doing it on a weeknight might be burdensome. Luckily, of the Fire's 8 weeknight games, only two are at Toyota Park; May 17 hosting FC Dallas at 7pm and July 12 hosting the Houston Dynamo at 8pm. The Fire will host eight Saturday matches and five on Sunday in addition to their two Thursday night games. Chicagoist was disappointed to see that the Beckham circus does not arrive in Chicago until the last game of the regular season, when the Fire host Los Angeles on Sunday, October 21.
Chicagoist asked Dave Sarachan during an online chat this afternoon if he was concerned about any stretch of games. Sarachan commented "Certainly the stretch of games that begin on July 1 through July 12, when you're playing Sunday-Wednesday-Saturday-Thursday, it will be a challenging stretch of games."
You can view the Chicago Fire's 2007 schedule on their website.