Last night I watched some of the ESPYs -- ESPN's annual sports award show. The show was pretty hard to keep interest in and the jokes mostly lame. But as a touchstone on American sports culture, I did find one aspect of the show interesting, and that was the distribution of plays selected for the category "play of the year."
Here there are, notice anything?
Three for football, two for the other kind of football?
ReplyDeleteI was in a bar in Lincoln Nebraska last Sunday watching the WWC game. I was surprised how many people were watching along with me, considering (1) the relatively low status of women's sports (though they're trending upwards) (2) the historically low status of soccer in the US (though see 1) (3) Lincoln is to American football as Qum is to Shiite Islam and (4) We weren't in the sports bar downtown where most diehard soccer fans congregate to watch games.
I also wonder if ESPN might be pushing soccer a little; they've made substantial investments in soccer coverage.
ESPN is pushing soccer hard. Think of all the potential programming! They have a lot of hours to fill each year, and kiddie-bicycle contests only attract so many viewers. If they can drive interest, they'll do it.
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