OK, with the U.S. team ousted from the World Cup sports on TV can return to normal in the summer: some breathless hype whenever Danica Patrick races, debate about NBA free agency, debate about baseball's All-Star Game and even some baseball games themselves.
All of that leads to NFL training camps and college football -- real TV ratings powerhouses that people want to watch.
After all the hype for the World Cup (and that will continue a bit until somebody wins the event because ESPN will remain in place in South Africa and provide far too much information on "SportsCenter" as a result), a return to coverage and promotion of sports people actually care about should provide a nice contrast to what's been happening for the past month or so on TV.
Despite ESPN's best efforts (and all of the media, really), the U.S. match with Ghana drew just 14 million viewers.
That's not a number to scoff at -- according to ratings it's the fourth-most watched soccer game in U.S. history, behind two previous World Cup finals and the 1999 Women's World Cup that the United State won -- but with all the TV and online hype and coverage (and the same was true in print), the event did not merit the attention in received. Media members were complicit in a conspiracy of sorts, selling something nobody wanted.
With all the blathering (including live shots and stories about public places in the United States were people were watching by the thousands and feature stories about the popularity of the team), it was fair to expect that the U.S.-Ghana matchup would draw ratings and viewership to dwarf the U.S.-Canada hockey matches that aired the winter. That did not happen.
Part of the problem is that more people are not watching than are watching for almost any sporting event on TV in the United States every year. Not even half the country watches the Super Bowl.
For soccer, which has minimal broad-based interest to start, it's just unrealistic to think that many people could jump on board that quickly. Yes, some people cared and some people watched, but not in the mass the folks on TV were telling us. And their bias (either in terms of capitalistic need or nationalistic pride) shown through often.
If U.S. sports fans fail to embrace soccer -- which they have not done, despite many efforts the past 40 years, that does not make them any less intelligent. Or knowledgeable. Or passionate.
They save those traits, and their corresponding viewing habits for other sports. Usually football.
No summer sporting events, except for the All-Star Game, will rival the numbers of U.S. soccer matches the past few weeks but it just felt like so much of the soccer interest was contrived and manufactured by World Cup broadcast partners.
Even the preview segments for U.S.-Ghana did not focus on the game so much as the potential for overtime and even a possible shootout. Apparently the truth that TV did not want to share was that the game might be boring and close but the excitment, the real drama, would come in OT or if the game moved to a shootout.
That things played out as promoted made the TV partners seem prescient but really made no difference in the future of soccer in this country. After all that has happened the past few weeks, it will actually be nice to get a break from soccer again for four years.
In the meantime, people can watch baseball, debate about the NBA and even wonder about the future of Erin Andrews or which radio network will land the radio rights for the NCAA Tournament (they're still up for grabs despite the TV deal earlier this year). And all of those things are more interesting, and prompt more potential impact, for sports fans in the United States than the World Cup.
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