Time for America to Show Soccer Some Love

AP Photo/George Frey

Ever since the United States hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup, the nation has been hearing the same whispers:

“Soccer is catching on in America.”

However, the idea never really caught on. People constantly pointed out the growth of youth participants, but once those kids got to high school and football was more available to them, the trend tailed off.

The common response became “Americans will never embrace soccer.”

Silently, though, soccer continued to push forward. There was the spectacular quarterfinals finish in the 2002 World Cup, with wins against Portugal and Mexico, Major League Soccer’s signing of global icon David Beckham, and the U.S.’s Confederations Cup win this past summer over Spain.

It hasn’t been just American soccer that has drawn interest in the country either. Argentine and FC Barcelona sensation Lionel Messi graced the cover of ESPN Magazine in May and ESPN now owns the American broadcasting rights for the English Premier League and shares rights for the Spanish Premier League.

Little by little, soccer has started to make its way into mainstream American sports, and it just recently culminated in last Friday’s World Cup draw aired on ESPN2.

Coverage of the draw lasted three hours, 70 more minutes than the coverage provided for the 2006 draw in Germany. And that was only a teaser for what’s to come in June.

ESPN has sole broadcasting rights for this summer’s World Cup. In previous cups ESPN match commentators called the games from studios in Bristol, Connecticut. However this summer ESPN will send its commentators to the actual games in South Africa as part of a 150 person team.

They will air not only the games themselves, but features and player profiles in order for the audience to get familiar with the competing teams and players.

Don’t think these efforts will fall on deaf ears, either.

That World Cup the U.S. hosted in 1994? It’s still the single most profitable World Cup in FIFA history.

According to a report on ESPN.com from December 5, the latest ticket sales results saw 84,103 out of 674,403 tickets (12%) sold to the United States, the most for any country outside of host nation South Africa.

Even MLS is reaping some of the benefits as nine teams in 2010 will play in their own soccer-specific stadiums.

The U.S. is also bidding to host the World Cup again in either 2018 or 2022 (2022 being the more likely option)

All this begs the question, why do people feel that Americans do not, and will not, embrace soccer?

It will most likely never reach the status here that football or baseball has, but why does it have to? Why can’t it join them as part of a big five (NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL are currently the big four of professional sports leagues)?

Americans love sports. ESPN will air anything from football and baseball to bowling and professional bull riding.

Americans also like supporting their country. With a national team that is on the cusp of doing unprecedented things in this country, what’s to stop this nation from supporting this team and sport?

Why are the soccer-haters so profoundly against the sport?

I hope they know, for reasons shown above, they are continually fighting a losing battle.

Making a Monster

Photo Credit. Smith/AP

Basic rule of thumb for all athletes: Be careful what you do because someone will see it.

In this day of 24 hour sports news coverage, flip cams, cell phones that take video, and the Internet and YouTube nothing will go unseen.

University of New Mexico women’s soccer team player Elizabeth Lambert didn’t get the memo.

During a November 5, 2009 Mountain West Conference semi-final game against Brigham Young University Lambert, a junior, was involved in incredibly unsportsmanlike plays including elbowing a girl in the back and pulling another player down by her ponytail. Although she was involved in a number of heinous incidents on the field only got her a yellow card, but the video footage has resulted in further disciplinary action and made her one of the most infamous athletes in the country as well as one of the biggest sports villains.

ESPN aired the game footage as part of a highlight segment on SportsCenter and the video was then posted on its YouTube page.

To date, the video has been viewed 1,275,126 times and generated 1,889 user comments. No video from that same day has been watched even 8,000 times, the closest being the Play of the Day video featuring a LeBron James slam dunk, viewed 7,160 times (with five comments attached to it).

The footage forced the hand of the school to suspend the defender indefinitely for her actions during the game. The suspension was supported by the conference citing that Lambert violated its sportsmanship policy.

The video has made Lambert into a YouTube sensation and she will forever be notoriously known as the “ponytail girl”.

Lambert has finally spoken out on the incident and the video may have caused her to take a step back, review her actions, and force regret and sorrow.

“I look at it and I’m like, ‘That is not me,’” Lambert told The New York Times in an article published on November 17. “I have so much regret. I can’t believe I did that.”

Lambert does say some parts of the video are taken out of context, either because they were inadvertent mishaps or they were part of the physical give-and-take of the match. However, the video doesn’t lie: the ponytail haul was not incited and is despicable enough to stand on its own.

The Times piece does say that Lambert is seeing a clinical psychologist to better understand her actions and will speak to youth teams about sportsmanship and to learn from her mistake.

Still, her reputation has been tarnished and the video going viral has had an extraordinary amount to do with it.

The majority of the coverage has been focused on making Lambert the villain in this case, but some coverage should be given to spotlighting other “accomplices” of Lambert’s crime.

The referees should most certainly face some blame. The refs can’t see everything, but in a soccer game there are at least three of them, one in the middle and one on each sideline. How none of them noticed any of the fouls except for one trip is abhorrent, especially not catching the ponytail yank. Some of the fouls were also committed while Lambert was on the ball, so at least the center referee should have been watching. When you let this type of play slide, it only manifests itself into something bigger.

What were Lambert’s teammates thinking during all of this? While Lambert says it was a physical match, she went above and beyond to inflict pain. Her teammates have a responsibility to recognize what Lambert did was wrong, and at least get her to calm herself. Someone from BYU could have retaliated, on either Lambert or another New Mexico player, and the game could have been even uglier.

Also, responsibility and some blame should fall on the head coach Kit Vela’s shoulders. Lambert’s actions were reprehensible. How does Vela allow for her to stay in the game and continue to make infraction after infraction? The coach is the figurehead of the team, especially in college athletics, and should hold true to the school’s, conference’s, and entire NCAA’s sportsmanship policies. No player and no result should be above fair play. It is Vela’s job to recognize Lambert’s actions and pull her from the game.

Alas, Lambert is still responsible for her own actions. The moral of this story is to always be on your best behavior, even when you think someone isn’t watching, because they are and then they’re going to share it with the world.

Video from Youtube.

For the love of Tommy Smyth, say it ain't so!

AP Photo/Barnat Armangue

The Associated Press has published that Fox Soccer Channel has beaten out ESPN for U.S. broadcast rights of the Union of European Football Associations Champions League games. ESPN previously had the broadcast rights to the UEFA Champions League since 1994.

This has huge ramifications on the soccer coverage in America. According to the same Associated Press report, ESPN and ESPN2 are available in 98 million homes, compared to Fox Soccer Channel, which is only available in 34 million, as well as having no broadcasts in high-definition. Also, with ESPN losing the rights, they also cannot stream and replay those matches on ESPN360, which is also much more accessible than FSC. This would be like the newly created MLB Network buying the rights to broadcast the MLB playoffs and World Series.

FSC already has the U.S. broadcast rights to the English Premier League and the Italian Serie A, as well as sharing MLS matches with ESPN and other networks. Now they also get Champions League. Instead of beefing up its soccer coverage for an increasing market—just take a look at the expansion of MLS—ESPN has now lost some premier matches. In trying to improve the audience interest in the sport, fans need to see soccer played at its highest level, in order to create a higher interest, appreciation, and understanding of the intricacies of the game at the level that only teams like Manchester United or Barcelona can perform best. ESPN also has the best platform to reach out to soccer fans and non-soccer fans alike.

The Champions League, for the most part, takes place over the winter months, when MLS teams are in their offseason. Beneficial to coverage in this country, it kept some type of soccer on television year round, so that once the MLS season finished, the sport would not fade into oblivion. MLS also can’t draw the marquee players. Sure, David Beckham signed to the league, but MLS, because of roster rules and the salary cap, only has a few of these types of players for the entire league. Teams like Barcelona can afford to sign a whole team of marquee names, like Thierry Henry, Lionel Messi, and Samuel Eto’o. Broadcasting the Champions League allowed viewers access to the most famous names in soccer overseas that they couldn’t get anywhere else on television.

ESPN certainly has the resources to outbid FSC, it seems however, that they just cared not to, and that is a discouraging sign for the American soccer viewing public.

So what happens now?

Well, ESPN still has rights to the World Cup, soccer’s biggest showcase, in 2010 and 2014. Hopefully, it makes a play to keep those rights even longer, keeping the game’s biggest stage on the most accessible network. They also own the rights to U.S. men’s national team games through 2014, promoting the country’s finest players. So, international competition is still safe for another five years.

ESPN also shares rights with FSC for MLS, airing one game per week. It is a great platform for the league to get exposure. Without having the Champions League, ESPN may have more financial flexibility and broadcasting space to devote more of its soccer coverage to the MLS, which is great. However, what happens when the season ends? How does ESPN continue to promote soccer in the offseason, without games to watch? How does the network increase the sport’s visibility?

FSC is strictly a soccer station, and can devote all its attention to promoting the game. However, in this country, there is the visibility factor. Soccer isn’t as mainstream as football or baseball. Americans may not know who the best players in the world are because they’ve never watched them on TV. FSC isn’t available to every person in this country, and the non-fan that’s interested in checking out what the buzz is about isn’t going to buy a subscription to FSC to check it out. ESPN was good for bringing in the casual fan.

ESPN needs to strengthen its position in the soccer universe. How can the worldwide leader in sports have so little coverage of the world’s game?