WORLD CUP! French or Italian wine?

FWIW, the All Blacks thumped the Wallabies 32-12. Game one of three for the Bledislow Cup in the bag.

2004 di Lenardo, Cabernet dal Vigneto dal Vieris, Gonars, Graves di Friuli. Go Italy!

With no possible commercial breaks, soccer cannot become big in the US. Follow my thread?

Back when the USA hosted the World Cup, this was a major controversy for the USA television coverage.

FIFA, IMO to their eternal credit, said "you either televise the whole match, with no commercial breaks during the action, or you don't televise it at all." Eventually the US television coverage managed to line up a set of sponsors who agreed to have their logo discreetly displayed in the upper left hand corner of the TV screen, continuously, while the match was in progress.

So every US football fan saw who was responsible for bringing them the World Cup match coverage, UNINTERRUPTED, all the time that their eyes were on the screen. I see a win-win situation here. Sponsors get their logos on the screen for 20 minutes or more at a time, continuously. Fans get uninterrupted coverage of the game.

There was a time when all television programming was sponsored that way. You had the "Texaco Drama Hour" or whatever, and the title sponsor ran some commercials before the show, and after, but the program itself was uninterrupted.

These days, even "Public Radio" has commercial breaks 3 times an hour. Sigh.

-Paul W.

[James Roscoe]

Obviously there is enough interest in the US for a commercial broadcaster like ABC to do the final game. All the rest of the English games were on ESPN whic is cable and has to be purchased, despite having commercials too. When, and if, European football becomes popular enough in the U.S. for the commercial broadcasters to televise all the games, let alone the U.S. League games, I'm sure a way will be found to make it profitable for everyone, especially FIFA.

[Robin Garr]

Obviously there is enough interest in the US for a commercial broadcaster like ABC to do the final game. All the rest of the English games were on ESPN ...

I don't think that's quite right, James ... a number of the earlier games were on ABC. Certainly all the US games, and I think a couple of the other key early games. Weren't all the Final Four games on ABC, too? A similar hierarchy seemed to prevail between ESPN (the more important of the other games) and ESPN2 (which caught the less important games).

It only took me a few minutes of listening to the announcers nattering on ABC to send me over to Univision, as in past World Cups. That said, I didn't think the ESPN announcers were bad, but it's enjoyable to watch the games on the Spanish channel. It's good practice in Spanglish, and the announcers are having so much more fun.

[James Roscoe]

The semifinals were denitely on ESPN. I don't know about the earlier games. I am one of those people who find soccer on TV generally boring. I played a little in college and I coach some at Rec. League level, so you would think I'd be more interested. Give me a real football game any day!

I played a little in college and I coach some at Rec. League level, so you would think I'd be more interested.

That really gets to the heart of the issue of soccer in the US, doesnt it? In our era James, soccer was just starting to take off at the youth level. I remember having a highschool team but baseball was king for the 6-12 yr old set. Now soccer is the sport that most every kid starts at 5-6 yrs old but that grassroots level involvement hasnt translated to commercial growth for the sport in the US. MLS games have the attendance of a Marlins (or Expos) game. Why is it that most of the rest of the world has this infatuation with soccer but it just doesnt catch on in the US? Do we have too many other "more entertaining" options? Is it just a boring sport? Or is our attention span too short? (said the guy that watched the entire Sox-Sox 19 inning game yesterday)

As a loyal inhabitant of Red Sox Nation, I would rather watch soccer than a 19 inning baseball game; even if the right Sox won.

[James Roscoe]

I guess in the U.S. there are a lot of alternatives, and American football is king. Football is tailor made for commercial television. It has plays in small bites. It's violent on the field instead of off the field, unlike European football.
It's really basketball, America's second most watched team sport that in my mind is soccer's chief competitor as the fluidity of the two games are so similar. If you allowed goal-tending in basketball, the scores would even be the same. Hockey is the other sport that comes to mind when thinking about competitors for soccer. Baseball and American football really have little resemblance to soccer other than that they're team sports.