My blog will focus on the beautiful sport of football, or soccer, as it is called in the United States. I have been in love with this sport for years, and it continues to be a large part in my life.
There are a few reasons why I have chosen to blog about the beautiful game. First, I enjoy discussing it. There is nothing I enjoy more than an educated, sometimes heated, conversation about soccer. Secondly, I feel strongly that soccer is extremely underrepresented in the United States. Most obviously, world football lacks media coverage in the US. This starts with TV coverage of live games.
Many of the larger leagues around the world are impossible to access by fans in the states. Only recently, thanks to the growth of streaming services, this has improved. A few years ago, Fox Sports took a chance on the German top flight, the Bundesliga. They were following in NBC Sports' footsteps, as NBC bought the rights to the "Greatest Show on Earth", the English Premier League, in 2013. This decision has evidently paid dividends for Fox, as they swooped for the 2018 World Cup, a massive leap in their U.S. soccer coverage.
ESPN is finally getting in on the action. With their recent launch of their streaming service, ESPN+, they are making an effort to incorporate more soccer. At the beginning of the 2017-2018 season, ESPN announced that they had won the rights to the English Football League (EFL). The EFL is made up of the second, third, and fourth tiers of English football; the second tier feeding into the Premier League at the end of every season through the promotion-relegation system.
Just this season, ESPN has won the rights to the Serie A, the Italian top flight. This is huge deal for devoted soccer fans. Now, for the first time, they can consistently watch European powers such as Juventus, Napoli, AC Milan, and more. That is, if they are willing to pay the $4.99 per month. It remains to be seen how many games will be televised on the cable outlets of ESPN. Not a single EFL game was broadcast on the television in 2017-2018.
ESPN+ has also added certain World Cup Qualifying matches, European Championship Qualifying, and UEFA Nations League matches. This is important for the fans of international soccer. They also have committed to covering a significant portion of college soccer and they share the rights to Major League Soccer (MLS) with Fox Sports.
In the past 10 years, TV powers in the U.S. have realized there is money to be made by broadcasting live soccer. However, there is still much room to grow. Many platforms still don't give it the attention it deserves. You will still rarely see soccer shown on ESPN's SportsCenter and other similar highlight shows.
The last reason I chose to blog about soccer is the fact that I tend to disagree with the media and the general soccer public on certain points. Or, in other words, I feel many stories or situations are misrepresented or underrepresented. I will use this blog to highlight and discuss certain stories that I feel are not getting the attention they deserve. This is the perfect medium to bring the public's attention to some interesting and controversial stories.
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