4) Cover the NFL like you do soccer
What is the best work ESPN has ever done? It’s a big question, but the answer might just be their international soccer coverage from 2008-2014. While the seeds were sewn in ESPN’s transformation in approach to the beautiful game at Euro 2008 from “funny foreign novelty” to “let’s take this seriously” it was the 2010 World Cup that was a landmark event for ESPN. Don’t just take my word for it, take it from Bob Ley himself. This is what he told Awful Announcing in 2013:
Just how important was the 2010 World Cup to soccer on ESPN? Spend a few minutes talking with anyone from the ESPN soccer crew about their coverage of the sport and they go back to 2010 as the event that changed the game. The 2010 World Cup is on the short list of the best productions any sports network has done on American television. In the 30+ year history of ESPN, it stands as one of the standard bearers for the best of what the network can achieve. Bob Ley, who has been at ESPN since its birth in 1979, said about his experience, “I will never be prouder to be in a team picture than with those 200 people. That was a cultural and sporting accomplishment.”
Make no mistake – ESPN’s excellence in soccer coverage is one of the fundamental factors in the American soccer boom. Without ESPN’s support and how it has treated the game over the last seven years, soccer might still be in its pre-2010 state.
So it’s always puzzled me why ESPN hasn’t attempted that blueprint elsewhere.
Turn on ESPN at any given time and you’re likely to see one of two things – 1) Stephen A. Smith or 2) Something related to the NFL. The NFL is everywhere at ESPN with multiple hour blocks each and every weekday, even in the offseason. (Although truth be told, there really isn’t an offseason anymore.) And when it comes to scandals like DeflateGate, at times the NFL seems inescapable. And why wouldn’t it? It’s the most popular sport in this country by a mile, no matter how much bumbling and fumbling the league office does. But count me among the believers that less is more.
There’s no reason why ESPN needs 429 ex-NFL players as analysts. There’s really no reason why the network needs to devote so much television time to the league either. Especially with so much news at our fingertips on social media and the internet, the tonnage of NFL TV time just seems like overkill. At some point, you have to just tune out and wait until kickoff (and that’s one of the reasons why NFL pregame shows have gone down in ratings in recent years).
Think about everything that made ESPN’s soccer coverage so great – no obsession over Tim Tebow, no faux controversies about quarterbacks wearing their hat backwards, no Johnny Manziel, no ESPN echo chamber. All of the debate and analysis and arguing and speculation does not exist. It’s simply the games with a little bit of analysis for what happens on and off the field. Yes, the thirst for NFL information is unlike anything else in modern culture, but that’s why ESPN has a dedicated staff of insiders and bloggers online. If ESPN cut their NFL television coverage by half and merely had the restraint to say, “we’re not going to cover the latest RGIII drama like it’s the release of the Pentagon Papers” it would improve the quality of coverage, and the patience of many weary sports fans, exponentially.
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