Taylor Twellman is confident that ESPN will have to talk about the MLS, despite no longer holding the rights to televise the league. Twellman has been of the belief that The Worldwide Leader, his former employer, can’t avoid covering the MLS if Lionel Messi comes to North America.
And now that looks to be fortuitous with Messi’s upcoming move to MLS’s Inter Miami CF. Though, according to Herculez Gomez, ESPN is not currently sanctioned to show highlights, and there’s been no movement in terms of rights. Of course, that was back in March, and perhaps Messi’s imminent move to the United States will help get the ball rolling on that front.
Twellman spent nearly 13 years as the top soccer voice on ESPN before leaving earlier this year. He is now part of Apple’s MLS coverage team and the outspoken analyst said at the time that he was excited to not “have to scrape, claw, beg for airtime.” So if anyone knows how ESPN will cover Messi, it’s Twellman.
On the latest episode of the Sports Media with Richard Deistch podcast, Twellman discussed how he believes ESPN will cover Messi going forward.
“6 o’clock SportsCenter 1000% will talk about it,” Twlleman told Deitsch. “Scott Van Pelt will 1000% talk about it. Now, Stephen A. Smith and First Take won’t. I mean, you saw it, the way they reacted when someone suggested the New York Rangers were the best option for New York—and they’ve got the NHL rights and Stephen A. Smith laughed it off.”
It’s interesting that Twellman would bring up the NHL, considering it’s a league that ESPN didn’t have the rights to for a long time and it was a front that the network has taken a lot of criticism on in years past. ESPN didn’t exactly give the NHL a lot of coverage prior to purchasing its rights, as one executive inside Bristol famously once said that hockey “doesn’t transfer to a national discussion.”
Sound familiar?
“First Take is its own animal. It’s its own entity,” Twellman continued. “They’re not gonna talk about Messi and if they do, they’re gonna compare it to when LeBron [James] said he was gonna go to the Miami Heat. And then the viewers are gonna be left questioning, ‘What the heck is going on?’
“In all seriousness though, the Kevin Negandhis, the Elle Duncans…the 6 o’clock SportsCenter, they will 1000% talk about Messi when it is a part of the vernacular of the sports world. Scott Van Pelt with Stanford Steve, they will 1000% do it. I think the nightly SportsCenter(s) will show it and do it to the best of their ability. Will they do it any differently than I was there? Honestly, Richard, I don’t know. They may not have someone to talk about it for 90 seconds to two minutes or whatever, but it’s still going be part of the show.”
Twellman said he would be shocked if it wasn’t.
“They got to be kicking themselves a little bit that they didn’t be a part of the project that MLS had with Apple to now have the four years going into the World Cup,” Twellman said.
As Deistch maintains, Messi changes everything. And he does, because ESPN may have to have to send someone to be on the Messi beat, as Twellman alluded to. That remains to be seen, but the addition of Messi to the fold certainly makes Apple’s deal with the MLS look a whole heck of a lot better.
[Sports Media with Richard Deistch]
