We all know it’s called football most everywhere except in areas where a wildly more popular version of the game is played (say hello to the USA, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Canada). Soccer is not a bad word and it sure as hell not an American word. Soccer is an old English acronym for the game that is more than useful and appropriate to use without looking like some scorn Floridian who feels like his home state is some kind oi soccer hotbed when in reality it’s not much more than a retirement destination for New Yorkers, a vacation spot for snow birds and what most, mouse ear wearing kids consider The Magical Mecca of pre-teen pop stars.

Besides that, another strong and thoughtful article Kartik.

Just like fans in Korea, Japan, etc. all have domestic leagues. It pails in comparison that the EPL gets there. ESPN is about RATINGS. If MLS is good or not is completely independent of people watching EPL/La Liga. There’s no correlation.

MLS has a tough job. Yes they can offer live soccer to US fans. But I know no one (not saying they don’t exist) who would rather sit down and watch MLS instead of Euorpean leagues. Go to a pub showing the CL Final. It will be packed. No one gives a shit about the MLS cup.

ESPN UK is miles apart from what we have here. They have discerning UK viewers there wary of what Mickey Mouse and America are going to do their league. I doubt you’ll see any of that here except maybe to have commentary. I’m not sure ESPN will want to use the TWI woorld feed guys. Might be the guys in Bristol.

I think it would be smart to run a promo before, at halftime, and after the game for the MLS Game of the Week also where to watch Bundesliga and La Liga matches over the weekend and whatever futbol programming ESPN has this coming week. I would also promote what people with 360 can watch if you don’t get it and do the classic call your local cable operator if they don’t have 360 promo at the end putting pressure on the cable companies to pick it up.

What I really hope is that ESPN will do an 1/2 hour to hour long pre-game show using pieces produced for their pre-game show on Saturday Afternoon in the UK as well as produce other pieces talking up the history of the league, superstars present and past, and legendary stories of the league trying to show fans that if you watch the league this season there will be moments like this that you will always remember. I would be interested to hear from people in the UK who have ESPN and ask them how slickly produced are the futbol pieces they have been doing if they started a SportsCenter or at least during the pre-game, halftime, postgame, and the rest of the futbol programming the show during the week. The big difference I see in ESPN and FSC is the ability for ESPN to produce much better up close and personal pieces during the pre-game than FSC which uses talking heads as well as highlight packages that aren’t that slick like what ESPN produces for their programming here in the States in the leagues they cover.

I would also find as many North American Mainstream Sports Stars that are futbol fans and have them cut a promo about that they can watch the Premiership on ESPN and who their team is and favorite players. Guys like Ochocinco, KG, Steve Nash, and Kobe would fit the bill as guys that are big sports stars that are also futbol fans that would be great to use. Hell throw in a Dirk commercial for their Bundesliga coverage if he is a fan of a side in Germany. I could see Joe Blow Sports Guy that is open minded to watching futbol could be enticed more by seeing a guy like KG getting up and out of bed putting on his Chelsea Jersey and flipping on ESPN 2 for his Premiership action. Or Kobe having a kick about with Messi proclaiming his love for Barca.

I remember reading that ESPN Press Pass was going to go 5 days a week at some point. Is that an online property, is it airing somewhere on the ESPN Family of Networks, or has it not debuted yet? What I hope is that ESPN would maybe at midnight on Classic would simulcast an hour long of their ESPN SportsCenter UK where AWA Wrestling Classics are. I am a fan of classic pro graps but even I realize that the AWA was pretty awful by the time that ESPN picked it up outside some of the Midnight Rockers stuff, Curt Henning/Jerry Lawler feud, and a few random things hear and there as the rest of the programming is pretty worthless. An hour long version of ESPN SportsCenter UK or an ESPN International SportsCenter would be sweet as again I could see them produce much slicker pieces than what Sky produces that we see on Through The Night even though I do hand it to SSTTN as they do a great job of running down what is going on in the Prem and the Championship in getting all of managers pressers and news from the different clubs. Also since they are covering the Bundesliga, La Liga, MLS, and the Mexican League could give the news, highlights, and scores. With it airing at Midnight on the East Coast it would provide a good lead in for the night owls that watch the 2nd airing of the FSR and Sky Sports that airs from 1am to 3am.

Anyway, we got to give them a couple of weeks to get their coverage in order. I mean again today during the 6pm SportsCenter we got the Burnley/United highlights showing the Burnley goal and the Carrick PK miss following up seeing the highlights last night of the Chelsea/Sunderland game as well as the Celtic/Arsenal game on ESPN NEWS and that is a CL game that ESPN doesn’t have the rights to anymore. We have come a long way and it would be absurd for ESPN not to promote all of their futbol properties during each of the games they air as well as have commercials that ESPN has all this futbol on all of their different networks as I really expect them to really blow it out at the World Cup this summer with all the of the production it sounds like they are putting into the event.

Of course in time we shall see but we do need to give it a couple of weeks…………………