World Cup: Love it or leave it

NEW YORK – More of the World Cup than ever before is coming to U.S. television.

ESPN and ABC are combining to broadcast all 64 matches in the tournament live, each one available in high definition. The networks also will augment their game coverage with studio shows and analysis.

The 52 matches shown on ESPN and ESPN2 during the June 9-July 9 tournament also will be offered on ESPN360, the network’s broadband service.

Add in the inevitable cross-marketing with entities such as ESPN The Magazine and during ABC’s prime-time lineup, and it’s an impressive plan. The question remains, though: Will American audiences tune in?

Probably.

“The American public has come to realize that the World Cup is a huge international event. There’s a lot more appreciation for it,” said Neal Pilson, a media consultant and former CBS Sports president. “The average American has come to realize that this is such an important event to so many people, that it’s probably worth his time.”

It’s likely the ratings will increase from the 2002 World Cup in South Korea, when games often were televised in the middle of the night because of the time difference. Pilson said he expects the viewing audience to be “substantially larger” than four years ago. Along with the advantage of a smaller time difference, Pilson said that in this era of globalization, Americans are more interested in what’s going on in other countries.

“This will easily be the most-watched World Cup,” said John Skipper, ESPN’s executive vice president for content.

ABC and ESPN are not the only networks in the U.S. to show the World Cup games. Spanish-language network Univision also will broadcast every game in the tournament, hoping to draw a significant portion of the 42 million Hispanics living in the U.S. Six Spanish-speaking countries will be represented at the World Cup.

The World Cup surpasses even the Olympics in importance in many countries. But soccer long has been on the outside of the sports landscape in the United States. Critics point to a lack of action and a dearth of scoring as the major reasons American audiences haven’t taken to the sport on the level they’ve embraced football, baseball, basketball and even auto racing.

But, as NBC has proven with the Olympics, while Americans may not always love sports dominated by athletes from outside the United States, they respond positively to human drama. To that end, an advertising campaign that features the music of U2 and narration by some of the band’s members focuses on human interest stories rather than the teams on the field.

For instance, it’s pointed out in one particular commercial that the leaders of feuding factions in the Ivory Coast called a temporary truce to a civil war in order to cheer their team in qualifying for the World Cup.

“We’re going to try to sell the beauty of the game, what it means to the world, the pageantry,” Skipper said.

In the end, it will be the players and their performances that will either attract or repel audiences. But it certainly doesn’t hurt for the World Cup to have the support of the cross-pollinating promotion machine that is ABC and ESPN.

“We have a lot of power if we get all of our platforms behind this thing,” Skipper said.