U.S. Gets Promising TV Deal
U.S. Soccer took a significant step toward broadening the audience for its national team games Wednesday when it announced a new five-year television agreement with Telemundo.
Under terms of the partnership, the Spanish-language network--currently being purchased by NBC--will broadcast 10 U.S. games each year, including two U.S. women’s national team matches, through the 2006 World Cup in Germany.
Telemundo “reaches 88% of the country’s Hispanic population [of 35 million],” Jorge Hidalgo, the network’s senior vice president for sports, said Wednesday in Beverly Hills.
U.S. Soccer believes adding that potential audience to the one it already has on ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 will help soccer in the U.S. grow faster.
“Telemundo brings added passion and emotion to our sport,” said Dan Flynn, U.S. Soccer’s secretary general, a tacit admission that the English-language telecasts frequently fail to deliver that element.
In contrast, the Spanish-language network features not only vastly experienced soccer cameramen and directors but also the nation’s top two soccer commentators, play-by-play announcer Andres Cantor and analyst Norberto Longo.
The pair will handle the U.S. games--both men’s and women’s--just as they do now for Mexico’s national team. Telemundo also has a long-term agreement with the Mexican soccer federation to broadcast its games in the U.S.
“We feel that we are the eyes and ears of the Hispanic viewers in the United States,” Hidalgo said. “We pay close attention to those viewers and try to respect their wishes [regarding] what they want to see when they want to see it, and basically respect the sport of soccer.
“It’s a sport of passion, and unless you have the passion, you can’t understand the passion.”
Telemundo has carried some U.S. games for the past couple of years, but it was last year’s World Cup qualifier between the U.S. and Mexico in Columbus, Ohio, that led both sides to expand the arrangement.
“We walked away from that match just thrilled not only with the result [a 2-0 U.S. victory] but with the audience on the English-language broadcast on ESPN,” said Brad Hunt, a senior vice president for IMG, which negotiated the agreement. “About a week later, Jorge [Hidalgo] said the Telemundo audience had been twice the size.
“At that point the lightbulb became very bright, that we should be finding a way to incorporate this [Telemundo] audience into the U.S. Soccer sponsorship audience. That’s what this contract is meant to do.”
Telemundo will broadcast the U.S.-Honduras men’s game live from Seattle on Saturday at 1 p.m., as well as seven more U.S. games leading up to the 2002 World Cup in Japan and South Korea.
One day after groundbreaking ceremonies for a 27,000-seat stadium in Carson for the Galaxy, Major League Soccer was dealt an unexpected blow when the city of McKinney, Texas, unexpectedly reversed its decision to build a similar soccer-specific stadium that would have served as home to the Dallas Burn.
On Jan. 28, the McKinney city council voted, 7-0, to approve construction of a 22,000-seat stadium, but on Wednesday city officials told MLS they had “elected to cease all negotiations on the project.”
Don Garber, the MLS commissioner, promised to continue the search for a new stadium for the Burn, which now plays at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas.
Elsewhere in MLS, the Galaxy announced that it will play Cruz Azul of Mexico at 7:30 p.m. on March 12 at Titan Stadium on the Cal State Fullerton campus.
