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June 27, 2008

From The Press Box: Soccer has come a long way

By Todd Golden

TERRE HAUTE — Throughout the Euro 2008 soccer tournament, the Tribune-Star has tried its best to let you know all of the goings on in Switzerland and Austria in what has been a thrilling tournament. That alone shows how far soccer has come, but it really hit home for me during a conversation earlier this week.

One of our younger staffers suggested we put one of the Euro quarterfinals (Italy-Spain?) on the cover of the section. I was so taken aback, I had to step out of my skin for a moment and reflect on it.

I don’t think general interest in the community warranted front page Euro 2008 “play” as we call it (perhaps it does for Sunday’s Germany-Spain championship match), but being a longtime soccer fan myself, the very idea that someone (not a soccer fan) thought it was that newsworthy floored me.

It just goes to show how far soccer has come in a country that sometimes wears its supposed hatred of the sport like a badge of honor.

To know how far its come, you have to know where it was. I’m 36 and began following international soccer in the early 1980s. To say I “followed” international soccer is a bit of a misnomer since it was almost impossible to follow it with any kind of depth in those days on this side of the pond.

I can remember frantically working the rabbit ears and the rooftop antennae at my grandmother’s TV in Elkhorn, Wis. in an effort to tune in Spanish-language replays from the old SIN network (one of the predecessors of Univision) out of Chicago of World Cup 1982.

That was the only option available to me, though PBS and then-new ESPN did carry some matches in other markets. ABC carried for the championship match live for the first time ever with commercials. That was a veritable revolution at the time, considering there was no American TV coverage at all in 1974 and 1978.

It wasn’t much better in 1986, though as I recall, NBC clumsily carried some of the weekend matches. There were commercials and I seem to recall Budweiser sponsoring the telecasts by putting a big red ribbon around the screen. The World Cup still wasn’t ready for primetime in 1990 when then-fledgling net TNT carried most, but not all, of the matches.

The amount of televised matches was finally increased to include every match in 1994, if only because the U.S. hosted it, but it was a landmark moment.

TV ratings for World Cup ’94 were better than expected, crowds came in droves, and the vastness of the tournament captured the mainstream media’s attention. It carried into 1998. I was floored when France’s victory that year was front page news in USA Today, the New York Times, etc. That’s when you knew the worm turned.

Since then, its been an article of faith that all World Cup matches are televised. XM Satellite Radio even carried radio broadcasts of each match in 2006.

The European Championships — played in even calendar years that aren’t World Cup years — ascended into the television consciousness in 1996. I’ll never forget my shock when the Germany-Czech Republic championship match was one of the lead items on SportsCenter (back when it was good). The Euro’s were a popular pay-per-view selection in 2000 and 2004 before they reached near-World Cup status this year when ESPN elected to televise each match.

By cable standards the ratings have been pretty good. For example, the Germany-Portugal quarterfinal was watched by 1.1 million viewers. That number would be cause for panic in NFL or NBA offices — but by the standards of a sport that gets little mainstream media attention during its club seasons and whose players are anonymous to all but soccer fans — that’s an excellent pull. It would be fascinating if the numbers justified coverage of other continental championships, notably the African Nations Cup and Copa America, both of which boast quality players and teams.

Why has televised soccer made strides? First of all, the charged atmosphere of an international match is without peer in any sport.

The Internet is a massive engine for soccer interest. Before the Internet, there was no way any American could keep up on qualifications for the World Cup, the continental tournaments, or the elite European leagues with anything but cursory, out-of-date information from the imported soccer monthlies.

Now, I can look up how well (or poorly) my club, Leeds United, is faring in an instant.

Finally, those who are roughly my age and younger have lived with major international soccer in some form for our whole lives. Unlike Baby Boomers, under 40s never had to be sold on whether the sport is legit or not. That doesn’t mean everyone under 40 likes soccer, far from it, but few in that age group would argue that the World Cup and the continental tournaments aren’t a big deal. They’ve been a big deal our whole lives.

Soccer’s come a long way from those frustrating days of working the rabbit ears in my grandma’s house. It’s great to see.

Todd Golden is sports editor of the Tribune-Star. He can be reached at (812) 231-4272 or todd.golden@tribstar.com.

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