Latinos in Soccer
Differences between Soccer and Baseball in the USA
Soccer Coverage
To understand why soccer still isn't accepted all that well in this country one must look at how it's transmitted. Soccer (football/futebol/fútbol) is still considered to be a bit of an exotic sport It is by no means a mainstream sport, yet its presence can definitely be felt. ABC, ESPN, FOX Sports, Univision and ESPN 2 all show soccer matches (different competitions on different channels). ABC only really shows World Cup matches, ESPN shows UEFA Champions League games and World Cup games, whereas ESPN2 shows MLS and NCAA games, FOX Sports shows NCAA games and diverse games from different Latin American leagues, and Univision shows the World cup matches, Mexican National League and the Copa America. Their audiences are all different:
• ABC: Targets main stream USA audience with any interest for soccer—usually shows the big world cup matches: those involving soccer giants such as Brasil , France , Italy , Germany , and USA games. It is really the worst among the channels that show soccer, as it does so only every 4 years and thus cannot get a strong support.
• ESPN: They target a less Specific Audience. They show less important World Cup games that other people would like to see. Their Champion's League coverage is intended for upper-middle class white America (who happens to be one of the largest groups of people interested in soccer- Globalization), 239. They have the best announcers among all of the channels showing soccer in the United States (best in this case refers to how well they are able to narrate a game—less amount of mistakes, pronouncing players' names, etc…). It is not all that effective in capturing the Latino Audience in the US since it is a cable channel, and not everybody can afford it. Also, it devotes too little time to soccer to capture the soccer-loving Latino Audience.
• Fox Sports: There are many different FOX Sports channels. The local ones show local NCAA games—college students seem to the audience. One specific channel belonging to the Fox Sports' family, FOX Sports en Español, targets a completely different audience. They show the Libertadores Cup, Brasilian League, Argentine League, Costa Rican League, and many others. This channel specifically targets the Latin American and United States based Latino audiences who have interest in soccer. The only reason why it is not as popular among Latino Audiences is because it is only available on Satellite. ESPN Deportes is in the same exact situation as this channel.
• Univision: Like FOX Sports en Español, their target audience is a Latino based audience. The difference is that they specifically target US based Latinos, since it mostly transmitted from the United States . They show the Mexican league, and have very good announcers (ex: Fernando Fiore, possibly as good as, if not better than, the announcers on ESPN). Univision also shows the World Cup and transmits the second most watched soccer competition in the United States, the Copa America—a CONMEBOL tournament (ie. National teams of South America ) which has a few guests: Last year had Costa Rica and Mexico . The only problem with Univision is that it does not show all that many sports programs. It only has one sports program a week, Republica Deportiva , and rarely devotes a significant amount of time on the news to soccer. Thus it is not very effective in capturing the attention of the Latino Audience.
Note: All of this information comes from research that André Oliveira Markon has done under Dr. Catherine Benamou. This is all work from the original author, thus there is nothing to be cited. Any questions regarding this research please email amarkon@umich.edu .