The Beautiful Game

I wasn't going to do this, but a note in Saturday's Orlando Sentinel proved too karmic.

Dave Darling, the Sentinel's media columnist, noted that his defense of ESPN World Cup play-by-play announcer Dave O'Brien has drawn nasty notes from soccer fans in Central Florida.

On that note: "Having announcers who do not know the proper names of the positions on the field and who mispronounce the players names is aggravating, frustrating and annoying to real soccer fans and that should be your market."

The above comes from an online petition that protests ESPN's choice of play-by-play announcers for the 2006 World Cup in Germany. As of this writing, the petition had nearly 4500 electronic signatures attached. There are two salient points here: first, the belief that "real soccer fans...should be your market," and second, the number 4500. We'll get to both of those in due time.

The petition is obviously aimed at O'Brien, the former Marlins announcer who has called Major League Baseball for 15 years and admittedly had never called a soccer game until six months ago, when he was named to ESPN's A-team at the World Cup. Soccer fans in the states have noticed; hence the petition, and Darling's busy in-box.

Like I said, I wasn't going to do this. I had grand plans to give you a minute-by-minute account of Sun Sports' coverage of the Miami Heat championship parade on Friday, which I co-hosted with Jason Jackson and John Crotty. Summary: it was hot. Jerry Greene noticed.

My attention is drawn away from my beloved basketball and into the maelstrom of futbol thanks to the two articles above, and thanks to Jamie Shapiro, the senior studio producer at Sun Sports who is enough of a soccer fan to have traveled to Germany to see the USA-Czech Republic match. When he got back, he forwarded me a blog entry regarding ESPN's coverage of the World Cup. As a mere curiosity, I forwarded the entry to several people I know, mostly soccer people, including one ESPN employee who is directly involved in said coverage. Not surprisingly, my ESPN friend was not amused - not after working 16-hour days for the last month, not after spending the previous three months of his life burying himself in World Cup research. This internet chatter on ESPN's soccer coverage represents the relatively small but unfailingly passionate futbol fan base in the US, the hardcores who are never satisfied with our treatment of The Beautiful Game, no matter what the network - although ESPN, like Microsoft, is always an easy target.

I traded e-mails with my ESPN contact on this subject, the contents of which will remain private. Also, Jamie and I talked about the Dodgy blog at length. I feel the need to explain a few things.

ESPN, and Sun Sports, and every other network in America spends millions of dollars on market research every year, begging the viewing audience for insight into their likes, dislikes, and desires when watching sports on television. The results of this research are constant:

1. Give us more stats and information.
2. Give us more profiles and "behind-the-scenes" access.

Since the idea is to draw viewers, which boosts ratings, which makes money, we - the TV networks - all program accordingly. In other words, we program to the wishes of the audience. I encounter many people in my daily routine who believe that television is capable of creating demand from thin air - we put it out there, you watch it. That's true perhaps ten percent of the time. Nine times out of ten, TV is reactive. We give you what you tell us you want. Exhibits A and B are "Gator Postgame" and "Seminole Postgame."

Should "real soccer fans" be the "target market" for the World Cup? If I were in charge of programming for ESPN, or Univision, or any other World Cup broadcast partner with an American audience, my logic would be as follows: no.

Real soccer fans are going to watch no matter what. The trick, as I have explained in this space before, is to draw in casual sports fans. Fact is, there are WAY more of those Middle Ground viewers floating around than there are "real soccer fans" - or real hockey fans, or real paintball fans, or real Ultimate Fighting fans, or any of the other sub-groups that pound the table to demand better coverage. Note the 4500 signatures on the petition.

4500 doesn't move the ratings needle. The Middle Ground does. There just aren't enough lifers out there. The casual fan base is a much, much bigger number, so to be fiscally responsible, a network must program for them, even if the hardcores consider it insulting. That's smart business. It's also the democratic principle of majority rule.

Here's my social commentary: soccer has immense appeal in European and Latin American nations because the game closely matches the social mores and attitudes of the audience. There's a flow and rhythm to soccer; it's not a game that can be defined by statistics. It's passion and emotion and hubris. In short, the game is appealing to the sensibilities of those who watch it.

We lost? A Gallic shrug. We won? Time to party. Soccer is a happening. This does nothing for most American sports fans.

Americans lead the world in tight sphincters. Witness our obsession with sunblock, Bird Flu, car seats, political correctness, no-smoking laws, etc. Unlike most soccer-mad nations in Europe and Latin America, we worry. It's what we do. Therefore, when we watch games, we want to have some sense of control over them. To that end, we like stats, and we like to think we know everything there is to know about the figures we're watching, because that empowers us and soothes us with a sense of competence. Major League Baseball, in my opinion, remains popular in this country - despite its inept central leadership - because it's the most stat-friendly game in the world.

In programming the World Cup with an American feel, ESPN is doing what the target demo demands, that target being the casual fan who may or may not tune in to a World Cup game. If enough "maybes" become viewers, the needle moves, and the Cup is profitable. So they gotta do what they gotta do, including having play-by-play guys explain the rules and refer to statistics that lifers (especially Euro/Latin audiences) find utterly meaningless and distracting. The World Cup is drawing tremendous ratings on cable, but ESPN is taking a beating from that hardcore audience.

Of course, it's a terribly trite cliche' to blast ESPN. For that matter, every time I read a post on GatorCountry.com or RenegadeReport.com killing Sun Sports for showing too much/not enough Gators/Seminoles, I have to remind myself of who's doing the talking, and the ratings that we get during college football season. We can't please everyone. I find that psychological aspect of what we do both frustrating and fascinating. For the football fans - and the futbol fans - who wish for something different from television networks, here's the only sure way to affect change: tell your friends to watch the kind of programming that you approve of. Tell LOTS of your friends.

TV networks react. They react to viewership above all else. The Chevy Florida Fishing Report went from one hour to 90 minutes after its second season because the demand was too loud to ignore. Our college football coverage has been expanded in each of the three seasons of Chevy Tailgate Saturday because the viewers responded. If you watch it, we will deliver it. That's the golden rule of TV.

Petitions don't work. Blasting a network's choice of announcers doesn't work. Boycotts don't work. Ratings work. You watch, we react. You just have to generate enough numbers to move the needle. That's the democratic process in action.

Like I said, the challenge lies in the fact that to date, there aren't enough "real soccer fans" out there to significantly move the ratings needle. Until that happens, networks that air soccer in the States will do so with an "American" feel, for the reasons outlined above. They're trying to win the Middle Ground. For those who find this distasteful, save your e-mails - you still might get what you want.

If, based on their Americanized introduction to the game, enough of the Middle Ground decides that soccer is worth adding to their viewing schedule, they might just turn into "real soccer fans." If that happens in large enough numbers, the networks will react accordingly. And come 2010, the "real soccer fans" will get the World Cup coverage they crave.

The game's the thing. Not the coverage, the game. If American audiences like it, they'll watch it. No matter who's doing the talking. In the meantime, don't kill the messenger.

Or, as Darling suggests, turn down the volume. After all - it's just TV.