Chris Bergin is reporting on his website that ESPN is planning on a new soccer roundtable show hosted by Eddie Mighten that will start airing on US TV very soon. That's all the detail he gives, but it sounds promising. Here are links to the story: http://www.ussocceruk.com/ (scroll down a bit to Chris' post): http://www.ussocceruk.com/modules.p...topic&t=663&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
That's what I thought as first, but Bergin definitely said "US TV". Perhaps it will be a 2am sort of thing in the US.
Maybe he meant "US-made" tvs exported to other parts of the world... ...o yea, we don't make tvs any more. Let's just say I remain skeptical.
Used to work with Mike Hill (I believe) on the La Liga broadcasts for ESPN back when they had the rights to La Liga. I thought he was pretty decent, always wondered why we never heard more from him.
World Wide Soccer What happened to that one show called World Wide Soccer? It normally aired on Mondays at 4:00 pm EST. I think it lasted aired in 2000? It was pretty cool, with Rob Stone and Tommy Smyth. They had match summaries of MLS games, and also European games. Also some insiders with the USMNT and USWNT, as well as the Project 40 team.
I believe the show being dicussed is called Press Pass . It will not be shown on domestic ESPN . It's hosted by Tommy Smyth and a round table of others . I saw some adverts for it on ESPN Pac Rim .
Get a hold of yourselves, its not coming to the US. The show was on in NZ on Frid, it was terrific , I am told by friends. The show is hosted by JP Dellacamera, and includes Eddie Mighten and Tommy Smyth. The last two beat the daylights out of each other , on subjects of intrest. Mike Hill is also involved, dont know how, but he is.
Is there any reason why they couldn't put this on domestic ESPN? There are no additional production costs, all they need to do is find a half hour slot. Put it on at 2.30 in the afternoon between NBA Finals and NFL's Greatest Games.
Being that ESPN isn't a charity and this show wouldn't draw flies for ratings . Besides no one here on Bigsoccer would like it because it's focus wouldn't be on MLS . So the show would be labeled "Eurosnob" .
Not to disagree but ESPN had a Jump Rope Championship on last night during prime time. WTF, a quality soccer show couldn't do any worse than a Jump Rope Championship.
You'd be surprised . Probably more people watched the Jump Rope Championship to see themselves than would watch Press Pass . Basically the audience would be You , Me and 3 other people .
As ESPN learned from the World Cup debacle, there is absolutely no audience for soccer in this country.
If I had post some other forum,like the USsoccerweek forum, I would get a red card. Bigsoccer just loves me.
I don't know. It kind of depends on who's jumping rope, y'know? If it was the jump rope championship match between the Man Show Juggies and the Playboy Playmates, then that program would easily get my viewership over Tommy Smyth. JMac
Not what I'm saying. What I am saying is that there's an audience for this show, and I think that audience would bring in better demographics than their repeats of Finland's Most Brutal Man competition -- which essentially has a single sponser. And since the soccer show would allow them to show commercials (which they can't do during actual matches) aimed at that demographic, then they might want to at least consider it, even if they put it at 5 in the morning. You might bring up the MLS Extra Time example as a counter-argument, but given that the production values on that show were barely up to public access standards, I don't think it would be quite the same.
Ok , for the record I would love to be able to watch the show ( don't ask how I got to see ESPN Pac Rim's coverage of the Dundee Derby where I saw the adverts ) . No doubt there would be alot of people who would watch the show ( I was being a bit cheeky with my "You, Me and 3 other guys" comment ) . That's why you see bars in NYC packed at 7 AM to watch Rangers v Celtic . The problem being that ESPN executives don't believe the market is big enough to put the show on here . They feel they've already tried a soccer talk show and it failed miserably here , why waste effort on another one . BTW there are quite a few soccer programs on ESPN international that I would love to watch . Namely Derek Rae's Scottish League show .
Think..the only reason that was on and the only reason was it was against Monday Night Football. ESPN would not put anything of value against MNF, especially since both are owned by Disney and hold various NFL rights. Unfortunately the days of soccer on US TV are numbered, save the odd one-off events. Of course, these will draw no audience, so it will always be back to the World's Strongest Idiot or some other freak show.