Wesley’s Week – April 9-15, 2007

by Wesley

By some odd coincidence – or maybe not – this year marks the 50th anniversary of hockey being shown on network television as well as the 40th anniversary of soccer receiving the same treatment. But do not expect anyone to be celebrating these events, mind you, for those two sports have been among the biggest flops of any athletic competitions seen on national American television, and there is no sign of their status changing anytime soon.

I know this sounds like heresy, especially since we now have professional hockey and soccer teams here in the Triangle with enthusiastic boosters. Indeed, hockey has made concerted efforts to bring teams in the league into the South to increase its popularity, and it has provided the sport with better attendance at least. As for soccer, my gosh, is there any parent who does not have a child or know a friend of their child who participates in this sport? Obviously, at least neither one is suffering from name recognition as a sport.

Yet the fact remains that ever since TV first tried hockey in 1957 and soccer in 1967, the ratings have been miniscule for both sports, and they have appeared only sporadically in vain efforts by boosters claiming each time that this finally was the year they would appeal to a mass audience.

Just this past weekend, ABC (or as I should say, “ESPN on ABC,” since the network now allows that cable channel to do all of its sportscasting) unveiled its new, heavily-hyped, TV-friendly Saturday afternoon broadcasts of soccer contests, the one that included lots of razzle dazzle that would inspire more than just hardcore fans to watch. The result? The game still ended up with less than 1 million viewers. Even whatever crap they have been putting on the lousy MyNetworkTV held more of an audience on average than that. And those ratings happened when a cold snap hit much of the eastern half of the country and encouraged everyone to stay indoors too. If that is not an indicator of how unpopular soccer is on TV, I do not know what else is.

As for hockey, the National Hockey League is basically paying NBC to carry the sport, and the network will not cover regular games in the nighttime because previous ratings have been at the rock bottom of the listings. That is actually better for the NHL in terms of TV broadcasts, for at one point not only the networks but also ESPN refused to carry them because they drew so few viewers.

Ever since I was a child, I remember sports experts explaining that it was just a matter of time before soccer and hockey give football, baseball and basketball a run for the money on TV. Well, I am several decades older now, and that chant remains the same, albeit on a faded scale. Who knows, with enough effort by everyone involved, maybe soccer will be as big here as it is in our neighbors to the south, and likewise hockey with our Canadian chums, but I just cannot see it happening in my lifetime.

Still, we here at MMI have been known never to turn down a party, so to celebrate the anniversaries of soccer and hockey on TV, I reluctantly say, “Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you …”

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