I love soccer. I used to play soccer (my best sport as a kid, but when it conflicted with basketball, I made the no brainer decision to drop soccer. Those of you that have seen me play basketball know how wise of a decision that was). The fact of the matter, however, is that there are significant barriers to entry to soccer fandom. Few MLS games are televised outside of local markets. Few European games are televised and as a casual sports fan, why would you show any interest in people kicking a ball in Europe? Plus, soccer fans, the die hard, go to a pub early on Saturday morning to watch the Barclay’s Premier League (England’s top soccer league) games are a notoriously tough group for a casual fan to break into. Why is that? Years of the casual fan deriding soccer (“They don’t use their hands!” “Who would watch a game with so little scoring?!” and “Soccer is for girls. Men play football.”) led to soccer fans having their guard up to outsiders.
With all that being said, ESPN missed a glorious opportunity to spread interest in the sport to the masses. Let’s jump in the Hobbserver time machine and turn the clock back nine months to the World Cup. The American soccer team played some of the most exciting soccer in the tournament. They tied England 1-1 on one of the biggest goaltending blunders of the tournament (Robert Green, England’s goalie in the US match, is routinely serenaded by opposing fans with chants of “USA” during matches for his club). They played one of the most exciting matches of the tournament against Slovenia, rallying back from down two goals to draw 2-2 before having victory snatched from their hands when the referee called an insanely bad foul on the US to disallow Maurice Edu’s winner. The Americans being screwed in soccer became THE sports story for days. Why not? National pride was at stake. And then, needing a win to advance to the elimination stage, Landon Donovan scored The Goal in the 92nd minute against Algeria, snatching the most exciting 1-0 win most Americans will ever see (as an added note, the US had another goal unfairly disallowed in the first half of that game - national ire raised again). Even the American loss was exciting in a 2-1 loss in extra time to Ghana that involved just a tremendous amount of chances and solid, attacking soccer from the Americans. The point is this: in June 2010, the American Men’s Soccer Team became OUR team. Not just the soccer nuts, but the casual sports fan. And ESPN was there every step of the way.
But then ESPN somehow failed to capitalize on the momentum. Go to ESPN’s soccer website. They have different site devoted to every country and that country’s league. But on the American site, you see stories about Barcelona-Real Madrid. You see David Hirshey writing another editorial about Arsenal. You see articles about Manchester United and why Borja Valero has turned Villareal around. A soccer convert from the World Cup would not see anything on Landon Donovan, Clint Dempsey or Michael Bradley. Household names during the tournament. The hook to capitalize on a fascinating World Cup was never set. And soccer faded back into obscurity.
I frequently read a soccer website called Soccer by Ives. They write exclusively about American soccer. They write about the MLS (not all that appealing to me, and a topic for another day probably, but without a local team in Indy, and with the fact that the quality of the MLS was so poor when I live in Chicago, I don’t have a dog in the MLS fight and, as such, I don’t follow with that much interest) and the US Men’s National Team (USMNT). And every week, they have a feature called Americans Abroad. Americans Abroad gives a brief summary of what every American playing in Europe did that week. Why can’t ESPN have something like that? Why isn’t ESPN’s American soccer website writing glowing articles about Clint Dempsey (who, by the way, is one goal short of setting the record for Americans in the Premier League in a season - 10)? Or Stuart Holden (starting midfielder for Bolton in Premier League who has been nothing short of awesome this year)?
Click on ESPN’s American soccer website today. There are five main articles: one on Sir Alex Ferguson (manager of Manchester United), one on the upcoming Liverpool-Man U match, one on Premier League players and their run-ins with the law, one human interest story on a former US prospect, and an article about Real Madrid. Ok, you may say. You already whined about the lack of coverage of Americans on the American soccer website. So what? The MLS kicks off (literally... Ha!) on March 15! Yes, the MLS is a niche league. Yes, many soccer purists in our country thumb their nose at it. Yes, even I don’t really follow the MLS. But much of America’s recent soccer success is a result of the MLS. Dempsey and Holden got on European club’s radars by playing in the MLS. Landon Donovan built back his confidence after not one, but two disastrous spells in Europe by plying his trade in the MLS. Almost every relevant USMNT player can trace their roots to the MLS. Is it too much to ask the American soccer website to cover its domestic league 11 days before the season starts?! To quote the great Will Ferrell, “ I feel like I’m taking CRAZY pills!”
The simple answer is that ESPN doesn’t need to draw in the casual viewer and they don’t care that much about growing soccer to the casual fan (nor do they have a large financial stake in the success of MLS). The Premier League matches they show every weekend air at 10 am Eastern Time? You know what they usually compete with on the other sports channels? Bass fishing. The regular soccer fans give you that audience (and casual fans may have the game on in the background while waking up). ESPN really only wants the casual sports fan to care about soccer when the World Cup rolls around every four years. And they know that the combination of curiosity and national pride will bring the casual sport fan to the table... once every four years. This leads to some insane programming. Like the fact that a crucial US World Cup qualifier (I think at Costa Rica, but I could be wrong about that) in 2009 was NOT EVEN TELEVISED in the US.
I’m not here to force soccer on anyone (that may be somewhat of a lie. You will be forced to read about soccer at the Hobbserver. And you will like it.), but I am here to say that ESPN missed a perfect opportunity to help make soccer a mainstream sport in America. Here’s hoping that they don’t miss their next chance.
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