Suppose they gave a tournament and nobody watched’ To prevent that, ABC has brought Jim McKay down from his Olympic perch on the theory that if he could get Americans interested in the javelin throw, nothing is beyond his spiel. ABC will split the 52 games with ESPN, which may badly need Chris Berman to lend his special bad-pun calls, Cobi (or Not Cobi) Jones, to the proceedings. The networks are running uphill. A Gallup poll released last week found that 61 percent of Americans had no intention of turning on the world’s most-watched sporting event. And true soccer aficionados may skip the English language telecasts anyway, choosing instead the work of Univision, the Miami-based Spanish network, which will assume a high level of knowledge and skip the this-is-a-soccer-ball graphics.
Louis Johnson of Beverly N.J., watched the 1990 Cup on Univision, even though he doesn’t speak a word of Spanish. This time, he says, “I’ll give ESPN one chance.” But if the commentators are “insipid,” he’s back to los hombres. Stephen Flambaft, a Brooklyn lawyer-cum-soccer-fanatic, prefers the enthusiasm of the Spanish announcers to the “placid” Americans. Much of the Western Hemisphere lives for the primordial howl of Univision’s Andres Cantor each time there is a “Gooooooool!” By contrast, says Flamhaft, “you get the feeling the Americans are doing it because they have to.” The great Cantor has a tip for scoring-obsessed American viewers: “Just count each goal seven points like you do in football.”
It will take some fancy footwork to make the game engaging to the reluctant American audience. Al] three networks airing the Cup in the United States will start on equal ground: each is using basic feed from EBU Sports International, which is spearheading the monthlong coverage from a monster broadcast center in Dallas. “We want Lo make this look as American as possible,” says the ESI’s point man, Manuel Romero. That means that in addition to wide, high views of the field, some 12 cameras will also go for “tight shots of the players and their emotions,” Romero says. And there will be sound effects fine-tuned for an audience accustomed to hearing the crack of the bat and the crunch of a quarterback getting sacked.
Then the networks will put on an American spin. “We aren’t going to reinvent the wheel, we’re going to personalize it.” ESPN president Steven Bornstein says. ABC will rely on the “up-close and personal” coverage that made the network synonymous with the Olympics. “Every sport in the U.S. that succeeds. succeeds on star power,” says Chip Campbell of International Sports and Entertainment Strategies in Darien, Conn.
Even if a player does capture America’s heart. there won’t be much time for courtship. Spare time is precious in soccer, and sponsors will be grabbing every second they can. More than half of the 15-minute half time on ESPN will be commercial-filled. During the virtually nonstop) game there’s barely time for slow-mos and instant replays. And no matter how much the networks rehearse. soccer is always an impromptu performance. “We’ll have to gamble at times,” McKay says. But at least the networks won’t have to take the biggest gamble of all and break for a commercial during play’ TNT did that during the l990 Cup and missed Italy’s only goal against Ireland in the quarterfinals. This time the only thing Americans might miss during the game are the, commercials themselves. “Let’s face it, we kind of count on them,” McKay says. Despite the growing pains, the United States is slowly joining the futbol world: instead of commercials, logos of live “golden” sponsors (at about $20 million a slot, they should be called platinum) will lake turns next to the game clock. But catching the viewer’s eve will be tough. Channel-surfing is still America’s No. 1 sport.
Carlos Valderrama, 32, has the colorful, showcase hair on Colombia’s colorful, showy team. The midfielder is a critical cog in the team’s high-powered attack: he directs the offense.
