Whenever I watch an American media coverage of soccer, the bias towards England comes out. It is almost as if an American is obligated to support England, discuss their national team and their qualifications. Meanwhile, France, Spain, Italy are an afterthought. The big issue is that many pundits on FSC are from England, and they bring their biases with them (vide FSC). But it is more than that - I get that biased feeling when I am watching FSC, ESPN or ABC... Fox Football Phone in (or fone in?) is the most blatant - let's discuss England first no matter what, than if we have time go to MLS topics, and maybe, for one minute out of an hour, the US National Team. It irks me. Do you guys see the same thing?
Anglo-Americans (possibly up to 20% of the population) significantly outnumber Italian-Americans (around 5%), Italian-Americans are just obnoxious about being Italian. "I'm jussa little Italian boy!"
I would disagree about your percentage of Anglo Americans, plus its not as if they are really an immigrant community that is very close knit. I think it has more to do with a perceived sense of they invented it and its really their game and they are the ones who really care about it so we will support them. Personally I cant stand it. I was really happy to see England miss Euro 08, but I honestly would rather have had them make it on some late Beckham heroics to make sure MLS got a mention when it was reported. And btw, I am an Italian and I cant stand the Azzuri. I used to support them second to the USA, but after their shameful performances in the WC I burned my jersey in the backyard.
It irks me too. I enjoy English football but it's hyped more than every other league in the world combined. I acknowledge that the EPL is the most popular league in this country but the hype is disproportionate even for that. That said, I guess I'm used to it by now. I just hate it when you get hosts on these talk shows that slag off on MLS. More specifically, the attitude is that you can't like MLS AND EPL. You can't like MLS and consider yourself a serious soccer fan. If you like MLS, you're "drinking the koolaid." It's our league. It produces our national team players. I accept that some fans don't like it. And I don't mind criticism of the league that's substantive and fair (which is not to say I must agree with it, just that it's fair). But guys who slag off on it dismissively (like Howard on WSD) are obnoxious. If you're a commentator on a soccer talk show based on an American radio or television network, you should at least be non-hostile toward people who want to talk about American soccer. I find this sort of dismissiveness far more obnoxious than the kind everyone on BS whines about on ESPN.
Though in fairness, part of the bias in favor of the EPL is understandable simply because of language. There's a lot more coverage in English out there of the EPL than of the Serie A or Spanish league. I like those other two leagues but I don't know as much about them because I don't speak Spanish and know very little Italian.
Simple reasoning really.....The MAJORITY of viewers for FSC and ESPN that watch the footie coverage are UK ex-pats. And since they are the ones paying for the service, FSC/ESPN are simply catering to their majority audience. If FSR was to spend the first two segments of their show talking about Spain, care to guess how many emails they'd get from angry English ex-pats for short-shrifting the Three Lions? Besides is there a more spectacular Qualifying story than the English crashing out?? The country is the birthplace of the modern game for goodness sakes!!
I think there's an assumption in the US media decision makers that most soccer fans in the country will be more interested in England because of the language and the obvious England/United States history, but I think if they were to actually take a survey of the fandom landscape in the States, they would find out otherwise.
I think that the influence of the language is the main factor in play here. I'm not certain, but I think that ESPN Deportes has a similar tilt toward the Spanish league, for what I would guess is a similar reason: Fans can follow teams better when there's information about those teams in the fan's language. There are quite a lot of American EPL glory hunters who would be fans of teams in La Liga or Serie A or the Bundesliga if there was the same sort of coverage in English as there is for the EPL (and, the same goes for the Old Firm in Scotland).
See that's not the case, ESPN Deportes spreads their coverage around a lot. They do not focus 50 minutes out of 1 hour on La Liga. In fact the majority of their news/game coverage is not even the Spanish league.
Me: I acknowledge that the EPL is the most popular league in this country but the hype is disproportionate even for that. Panfilo: No its not It absolutely is. It's one of the best leagues in the world, thanks to the foreigners playing in it. But the Serie A and La Liga are better leagues and get maybe a third of the coverage COMBINED. It's as overhyped as a league as Alex DelPiero is as a player.
Panfilo's correct, as the most popular league in the US, in the case of sheer numbers, is Mexico's. But just like Univison and Telemundo's editorial direction is towards Mexican soccer (despite most of those decisions being made by non-Mexican Latin Americans), FSC and ESPN pay more attention to English footie at the expense of others becaise that's what most of their audience wants.
Who knows... I find Serie A postitively sleep inducing. While obviously lower in overall quality, the Eredivisie and Portuguese Liga are infinitely more entertaining. La Liga is good, though.
That's funny because when I watch the Serie A matches I watch the positioning of the players, the way they close off passing lanes, the lighting quick counter attacks and great technique to keep the ball, and then I laugh when I watch the EPL. That's just me -to each his/her own.
Keep laughing but if you check out UEFA's coefficients England is now a long way ahead of Italy and just behind Spain. As for purported "bias", in the case of FSC they are merely selling their product. Why wouldn't they push the Premiership when essentially that league is its meal ticket?
Incredible. Almost two pages into this thread and nobody's mentioned Rupert Murdoch yet. What is it they say? "The greatest trick the devil ever pulled is making you think he doesn't exist".
Now that we get the top teams I've enjoyed FSC's coverage of Serie A. It was quite poor when we were seemingly getting Catania every week. But, now that we get the big clubs their coverage is very nice. FSC's summer coverage outside of MLS games is really quite poor. Adding the Russian Premier or J League would fill out their coverage a bit even if the ratings were low.
OK, I'm not sure if you genuinely don't know who he is or you're bemoaning the fact that most of your countrymen don't so if this post seems a little patronizing I apologise. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rupert_Murdoch The owner of News Corporation and the man behind the Fox Network also happens to own BSkyB in the UK, the company which, until recently, held exclusively the British broadcast rights to Premeirship matches and still owns the rights to more than half the games. It's not rocket science, people.
I know who he is but only due to the whole attempt to take over Man U before that was cluless to who he was except maybe when he was on the Simpsons once. Other than controlling FOX murdochs relevance is very small over here. And I dont think hes the reason American media goes towards the Premier League. I think its like other people said its due to the common language.
Murdoch's relevance is very small in USA? Hardly, he's one of the most infulential people in the world. News Corporation has an eerie habit of always backing the right horse in governmental elections, not just in the USA but here in the UK and also Australia. It's been said that Fox is responsible for Bush winning the infamous 2000 election by announcing him as the winner before the facts had been properly established. It's widely ackowledged in the UK that whoever Murdoch's Sun newspaper backs wins the election. Of course it could be just Murdoch toadying up to whoever looks likely to win in the hope of getting in the new government's good books but there's more than enough evidence to suggest that News Corporation has a lot of influence. It's certainly undeniable that Murdoch controls a hell of a lot of the media that is seen in the Western World. Just do some research on News Corporation if you don't believe me. Anyway, it's undeniable that Fox's predilection for English football is down to Murdoch's huge vested interest in the TV rights for Premiership football. Ultimately, a huge part of his business empire is based around the success of the Premiership and having America on board just means bigger viewing figures, bigger TV rights, more advertising and more newspapers sold. The USA, along with Australia, is the obvious next place for the Premiership to take off due to, as you rightly pointed out, the shared language and certain cultural links, which make it all the more easy for Murdoch to push his product in your country. Like I said, it's not rocket science.
I'd acknowledge that it is the second or third. The Mexican league is easily the most popular league in this country.