Clueless in Connecticut: how ESPN is standing on MLS’s neck

What drew me to this league just a few short years ago was to hear and read its games and teams discussed as they are in any other sport. Reading the MLS power rankings for the first time was a revelation. I knew almost none of the names, but seeing them as I might see, I dunno, Chase Utley mentioned, started to alter my brain chemistry to store MLS alongside the NBA, NFL and MLB as American sports leagues roughly equivalent to each other. The league will succeed on a wide level only when that mental attitude starts becoming the norm among American sports fans.

This is why I am so mind-bogglingly frustrated that ESPN is still doing everything they possibly can to reinforce the mental notions of soccer as something inherently foreign, inscrutable, and above all different from other sports.

Now, let’s get one thing clear before I continue. As much as I would love to see MLS all over the ESPN family of networks every week, I understand that broadcasting more MLS games than they do now would be a bad business decision for ESPN. One look at the ratings and the advertising dollars commanded by MLS versus their competition for coverage is all even the most diehard fan needs to know that the league is not in that class yet, not by a long shot. So while ESPN’s lack of broadcast coverage frustrates me, I can’t hold it against them just yet.

But I can bemoan the condescending, ham-handed way they cover the league in their highlight shows and elsewhere. To see Scott Van Pelt (I think it was) so genuinely baffled at the size and craziness of the crowd at the opener at Seattle – and then to openly express that bafflement to the audience – made me nauseous. This is to say nothing of his having to guess why one of the players was spot-shadowed during the highlight and getting it wrong. Just picture that for a moment. Could no one have prepped him for ten seconds on what was coming and what to say? What the hell is wrong with these people?

I’m going to take a moment to say that SVP is a top, top guy. I’m sure he doesn’t think he’s any better prepared to narrate MLS highlights than he actually is. But his bosses have obviously assured him that if he messes up on something like the spot-shadow thing, very few people will know or care, and the truth is they’re right.

I also acknowledge that their walling off of the so-called “ESPNSoccernet” site from the rest of ESPN.com is no longer quite so blindingly obvious. But assigning it a different name is geared toward sending the message that soccer fans and sports fans are two different things in ESPN’s eyes.

And speaking of which, hey, here’s an idea, let’s use a slate of foreign commentators for ESPN’s biggest games, just to make absolutely sure that anyone who tunes in sees immediately that the only people who watch this game are foreigners.

It pains me to say that, because Derek Rae and Tommy Smyth are absolutely as good as it gets, but they simply cannot be the faces and voices of ESPN’s soccer coverage any longer. They are emblematic of a paternalistic attitude at ESPN that basically assumes that every single person who watches a soccer game on the network immediately changes the channel as soon as it’s over, because, hey, those people don’t watch real sports. And this is evident in every single mention of the sport on ESPN, anywhere. It's always foreign. Quirky. Quaint. “Them.”

The real problem is that ESPN obviously thinks that the reaction of non-fans who see real MLS highlights and analysis on Sportscenter will be “I don’t care about soccer, stop wasting my time or I'll stop watching your network.” This is known as “doubting your audience of sports fans in their ability to like sports.” In reality, while that will undoubtedly be the reaction of a small percentage, the much more common reaction will be something along the lines of,

“I don’t know what the hell these people are talking about, but it sounds like I'd think it was interesting if I did. Hey, is one of those teams in my city or something? Are they, like, good this year? Y'know, I hope they are, even if I wouldn't really understand why. I guess that would count for something, given how much the [other hometown team] suck right now. Hey, my kids play soccer. Maybe they'd be interested to know that there are professional players nearby. After all, they have [basketball player] posters in their rooms. Stands to reason, right?”

The people who follow MLS are not soccer fans. We are sports fans. But ESPN doesn't know that. The execs are as drooling-dumb over the massed, screaming Seattle throng on the teevee as their anchors are. The league, as so ably demonstrated by Scott "Look at all those people!" Van Pelt and everyone else at ESPN, is making progress by leaps and bounds that the network doesn't have a clue about. Every day that goes by convinces me that ESPN will be the absolute last people in America to figure it out.