The Azzurri

The 2006 World Cup is over, the Azzurri are the much deserved campeoni. It was a wonderful tournament, kudos to the German organizers. I wanted Italy and Brazil (or Portugal) to play in the final, but I wanted the Azzurri to win it all. I watched most of the tournament on the Spanish-language station, Univision. ABC and ESPN made me feel like I was watching a baseball or American football game -- their coverage needs to improve!

Speaking of soccer and the U.S. -- I think it is an uphill battle. Americans like high-scoring events, and while soccer has lots of action and drama, low scores are a huge impediment. Guess what the most popular and profitable sports are, from an American TV perspective? The NFL and NASCAR! Check out this article from Newsweek:

The sheer size of Fox's weekly racing operation dwarfs everything on the sports calendar, including a certain Sunday football game. "Dover alone is bigger than the Super Bowl," says Kempner, who's also a top director for Fox's NFL coverage. The production price tag for Dover, according to Kempner: $600,000. Covering the Super Bowl costs half as much. And it's only once a year.

Fox gladly shells out all that dough because its NASCAR audience is large, growing and freakishly faithful. The network averaged 9.6 million viewers per race during the 2005 season, a new high for NASCAR during an era when ratings for all other major sports, including pro football, are in decline. During the waterlogged May 1 race in Talladega, Ala., Fox's rain delay coverage—nothing but shots of cars covered by tarps and extended interviews with bored drivers—logged a higher rating than the NBA playoffs, the NFL draft and the final round of a PGA tournament. Such numbers helped propel NASCAR to an eight-year deal with Fox, ABC, ESPN and TNT that begins in 2007 and is worth a reported $4.48 billion—a 40 percent increase on the sport's previous TV deal.

... Average number of viewers per sporting event, courtesy of Nielsen:

NFL Football: 11.1 million

NASCAR Nextel Cup: 6.4 million

PGA Golf: 3.1 million

Major League Baseball: 2.8 million

National Basketball Association: 2.4 million

National Hockey League: 1 million

The coverage of a rain-delayed NASCAR race, featuring shots of covered cars and bored drivers, rated higher than the NBA playoffs and the PGA tournament??? I'm not a big sports fan, but I just don't get it. In light of this trend, I think the only hope for soccer in the U.S. is it's popularity among various immigrant groups.