 |
| NBC's new broadcasting agreement with the EPL could make soccer relevant in the U.S. |
With NBC debuting its newfound relationship with the English Premiership on Saturday, the major television network, among others, is trying to capitalize on the most tantalizing run in United States soccer history and their timing could just be perfect, catapulting soccer into into the minds of millions more Americans.
Let's be real, the only people that really care about soccer are a part of a small contingency of individuals who somehow have been captivated by the world's, but not America's, most popular sport. I am in that group that thinks soccer is exhilarating, albeit in far different ways from the other four major professional sports in America. For the rest of the country, soccer remains a big joke. A Downey soft game both physical and psychologically. The number of the sport's "fans" grow every four years with the onset of the World Cup, but interest quickly dwindles after the tournament. Sure, a few fans are caught in the net and start paying attention to soccer, but by the end of that four-year event, most Americans are already drowning themselves in a bucket of NFL news or the beginning of MLB playoff races. However, things could be different this time around.
It's well document that the Americans are on a tear that has literally never been seen before. They're smashing their own record books to pieces, with precision football and the emergence of true team chemistry. Coach Jurgen Klinsmann already has to go down as one of the greatest coaches in USMNT history and he hasn't even coached them in a World Cup or a Class-A Gold Cup yet. The team is relatively young and growing by the minute and it's hard for even the biggest of soccer-haters to ignore what they're doing. But we saw this before in 2010, albeit maybe in a different (and less dominant) way, when the Cardiac Kids pulled off two magical wins to salvage what should have been an easy ride to the knockout stages. People were fired up by that American squad, but things returned to normal only days after the team's 2-1 loss to Ghana in the Round of 16.
This is certainly a more impressive U.S. unit, with a more high quality and more experienced coaching staff; they are undeniably better. Couple that with NBC and Fox amping up their coverage of international soccer and the door for soccer to creep into mainstream American sports talk has just been cracked open. Americans are obviously getting fired up for the World Cup and may tune in because of that, but both of these networks want it to be a long term obsession. My question is can it ever be?
If the U.S. continues its scintillating run of form and cruises through their last four qualifying games and NBC's EPL coverage is a hit then we'll be entering a possible "last chance" situation with soccer in America. Right now there is no reason for soccer not to explode, other than the fact this is America and we don't like ties or 1-0 games. We don't understand back passes or free kicks. There's no way we can get hooked on superstars who really have no stat sheet to work from. Come next August when the EPL starts up again, hopefully after a deep U.S. World Cup run, the growing popularity must be there or the sport will never take a foothold in this country.
America is America and if we don't want to like a sport, you're damn sure we're not going to like that sport. Unfortunately we'll be giving up on a great game and we'll be the ones who are missing out.
Either way, let's do this World Cup right U.S.A.
0 comments:
Post a Comment