Avoiding the Drop

When the United States has any success in soccer, it inevitably brings out the articles about whether or not soccer will ever “take hold” in this country.  Everyone’s got an idea about what it might take or what America will need to do to get it’s populace to embrace the World’s Game.

I’m not sure there will be a tipping point with soccer in this country, a true watershed event that will turn the tide.  I believe that two of the major events that needed to happen have happened.  One was the arrival of David Beckham to this country.  Despite his overall lack of quality on the field, Beckham’s arrival re-ignited ESPN’s fires in terms of the sport.  Clearly, page views have gone up, and despite MLS’s every attempt to keep the average consumer from seeing their league on television, both ratings and attendance increased in his wake.  It got America talking about soccer again.  The other thing that happened to help soccer in an inadvertent way was the NHL’s descent into madness by leaping away from ESPN and into the arms of Versus, and subsequent loss of younger viewers.  The NHL, while still somewhat popular, made itself incredibly hard to find on television by leaving the comfort zone of ESPN.  Soccer didn’t do anything overt in this regard, but it was there, a lot of people now old enough to make viewing decisions remembered playing it as a youngster, and it fits very nicely into viewing habits by being a two-hour long event.  That plays a part in every consumer’s decisions these days, value for money.  ESPN already had a foothold with the surprisingly popular (to them, anyway) UEFA Champions League, which does remarkable mid-week viewing numbers.  The audience was there, it needed to be cultivated.

Like it or not, ESPN is one of the driving forces in this country’s sporting populace.  It is considered Ground Zero in terms of breaking sports news and covering sports events.  It thinks a lot of itself, it at times tries to create the news and become the news rather than report the news, but nevertheless, it shapes sporting culture in this country like no other outlet does.  If ESPN embraces soccer, it will push the sport fully into the American sports fan’s mindset, and that is enough of a tipping point right there to have the sport “make it” here.

If an American were to emerge as a world-class superstar at the game in terms of Tiger Woods-level domination, that would help the sport’s popularity tremendously as well.  Americans at their heart of heart are truly patriots, they love this country above all others and will root for ANY American wearing the colours.  It would show the world that this country could compete at its highest level in the World’s Game.  The highest organizations in the world of soccer hope and pray that the US gets better at their game.  This is a lucrative market for them and they want to be here with their brands.  Certain clubs, such as Chelsea of the Barclay’s Premier League in England, already have branded stores in this country and are making their brand known through their associations with the sneaker companies.

For those of us that love this game, we need ESPN to keep up their current tack of buying up soccer television properties, but we also need them to improve the quality with which they produce and talk about the matches.  We need them to dedicate themselves to not treating soccer like PBA bowling.  Observers realize that there will be a clear problem with them broadcasting European-based matches with Saturday and Sunday daytime start times, as they will directly conflict with both college football and professional football coverage.  They will need to get this sorted out so that soccer doesn’t become an afterthought or second-class citizen in their hierarchy.  This will be a slow bedding-in process with this sport in the psyche, but it will take hold.  It’s too beautiful not to.