No, I’m not going to pat any of the World Cup announcing teams on the back. As this story points out (hat tip to Bob Jordan), it has not been a memorable World Cup if you include the announcers. I’ve been surprised by the lack of commentary about it, even among the local soccer junkies I see almost daily. I attribute it to the fact that we’ve come to realize it’s the price we pay to see the beautiful game on TV in the quantity we’ve been able to enjoy this past month. I can even appreciate the need to try and open up the game to a broader audience but Marcelo Balboa has been incredibly annoying and he should know better. John Harkes has been the best but that’s damning with faint praise.
There is good news on the TV front. I got this from Soccer America (subscribe to the email, Ridge Mahoney is doing some great writing):
The USA-Ghana game on the final day of Group E play at the World Cup was ESPN’s fifth highest-rated and second most-viewed soccer game ever: 3.2 rating (2,902,000 homes).
The 3.2 rating was not far off last Thursday’s average prime-time ratings for the four major networks: CBS (6.8), ABC (4.1), Fox (4.1) and NBC (3.4). The USA-Ghana game was the highest-rated program of the day in households and all key male demos on ad-supported cable.
The USA-Germany quarterfinal match at the 2002 World Cup was viewed in 3,772,000 homes, based on a 4.4 rating, an ESPN soccer record.
Through eight games, ESPN averaged a 1.5 rating (1,370,000 homes), up 150% and 154%, respectively, compared to the same point of the 2002 World Cup (11 games, 0.6 and 540,000).
The 4.4 (4,824,000 households) for USA-Italy on ABC was the highest-rated and most-viewed World Cup broadcast on the network since the 1998 final. ESPN2’s highest rating has been a 2.4 for the USA-Czech Republic game on June 12. It was highest-rated soccer telecast ever on ESPN2, and the network’s highest-rated telecast of the year to date.
Finally, this is the 1014th post on this little soccer blog of mine. That’s a bit more then two stories a day for the fifteen months that SGFsoccer.com has been feeding the habits of soccer fans in the area. I’m just shy of 4000 photos on the Flickr photo site in that same period, something I’ll blow through as soon as I finish sorting out the remaining State Cup photos I haven’t gotten to (this weekend, I promise). Over 54000 views of those photos have been tracked, and they are organized into over 100 sets (or albums). If you have a favorite team or club in the region, including STL and KC, there is probably a set featuring your team.
There are three, soon to be four, websites I provide free hosting for that are beginning to show their own photos and write their own stories. I’d love to see that number double, even triple. If you have a school team without a website (Nixa? Ozark? Parkview?) contact me and I’ll step you through the process. Your cost is $10 a year to own the address, maybe $30 if you upgrade to a Pro photo account with Flickr but even that can be done for free. Let’s take advantage of the 40 days we have before the Fall season practices begin on August 7th. Use the Contact form above to find out more!
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