Since I’ve slimmed down my media criticism diet, I may have missed it, but ESPN deserves some credit for its World Cup 2010 coverage, especially on TV. Even though we haven’t hit the finals, I have a whole bunch of positive elements:
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First and foremost, all games are being broadcast live. Not all the pool games were on TV, but at least you could stream them from the net. Insert withering sideways glance at NBC here.
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Many exciting or crucial games were also televised on tape delay, mostly whole, on the same day.
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The United States was highly and properly promoted, without studio hosts falling into jingoism. This particularly applies to Alexi Lalas who, while sympathetic to the US side for obvious reasons, still provided great level-headed analysis.
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The selection of European play-by-play and color broadcasters was perfectly appropriate. Typical dumbass US sportscasting policy would have called for a three man booth, featuring a network golden boy and two long forgotten NASL players.
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Judicious use of technology to highlight important football elements, e.g. offsides, but no gimmicks.
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The I Scored A Goal series was a nice promotional run up. And they actually promoted the World Cup coverage well before it started. I knew exactly where to go when play started.
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They brought out the big guns, Bob Ley, Chris Fowler, Reese Davis, etc. as studio hosts on site. Considering ESPN is also covering Wimbledon, and just came off of the US Open and the NBA Finals, this was a pretty impressive investment. Plus, no Chris “Boomer” Berman in sight.
All in all, ESPN basically took The World Cup 2010 as a serious, international, big-time event. Which of course it is but since the US traditionally hasn’t been a top level side, there’s a temptation to tart up the proceedings. ESPN didn’t half-ass it, or treat it like a novelty. The National Hockey League wishes it could get coverage this good.
My only minor complaint, and it’s exceedingly minor, is that a little bit of local color and backstory would have been nice. I don’t need a ton of soft pre-canned goop like NBC does for the Olympics , but a few more player, team, and/or historical tournament profiles would have been the cherry on top. Also, just a little more on the impact of the tournament on the streets of South Africa would have been great. Then again, maybe they’re just squashing bad news. At least they didn’t dwell on the vuvuzelas.
But again Bravo ESPN!! from this very casual follower of The Beautiful Game.