Last night, while ESPN was droning on and on about baseball, NFL preseason football, and college football, Telefutura was showing highlights of the US U-19 women's national team beating Germany 4-1 as well as highlights of Game 1 of the WNBA finals. Questions: 1. Has Telefutura and other Hispanic media finally "gotten religion" when it comes to women in sports? La Nacion USA's Washington edition pronounced "Women Rule DC" on its headline of 8-19 after the Freedom and Mystics won playoff series. Sally Jenkins' column on the subject didn't hit the Washington Post until FIVE DAYS LATER! 2. Does Telefutura's Contacto Deportivo feel it can tap into a vein of discontent with people who actually want sports news rather than ESPN's diet of notebooks, features, and self-aggrandizing promotions (SC25K, ESPYs, etc)? 2a. Does that explain why the women's sports stories, while spoken in Spanish, used English eponyms? The graphics for the US-Germany contest did not say EE.UU, but USA. The announcer did not say Libertad de Nueva York or Chispas de Los Angeles, but the English names.
Interesting. My understanding of the rationale for Telefutura was that it wasn't supposed to just be Univision 2, but was actually intended to aim at a younger audience. Much, perhaps virtually all, of that audience is fluent in English and grew up in the US. So it would make sense that they use the English names more often than Spanish translations and that they feature some coverage that younger viewers may find more interesting than the older audience that isn't as fluent in English or may not have spent most of their lives in the US. Even so, I'm not sure there are enough English speakers who would watch a sports show that's not entirely in English. But it's not hard to pick up sports Spanish, especially for Contacto Deportivo. They don't do as much chatting between the anchors or long interviews as a lot of other sports shows - either in English or Spanish.
You will hear the two talking heads using English, sometimes: "Here comes the bullet" or "big-time." And, of course, "golazo impresionante", "jonron" and "el triple muy largo de Kobe Bryant" are universal truths.