Earlier this week, the Manchester Derby was held, between Manchester City and Manchester United. It was regarded as perhaps one of the most important matches in EPL history, perhaps changing the course of the league for years to come. Man U will have to rethink their roster, City owns an influential town in one of the most profitable leagues in the world, and it they did it after being promoted within the last 10 years.
ESPN, a global powerhouse in sports, and a money making machine decided to air the game on their network. A pretty reasonable decision, considering they likely received better viewership for an elite sporting competition rather than more stilted banter about the NBA that you usually get in the mid afternoon. Perhaps a little more jarring was the fact that there were Spanish commercials interspersed with the English version, because soccer, as you may be aware, is quite popular with our Hispanic neighbors to the south, as well as those who have taken up residence in the States. All in all, it was a savvy business decision by ESPN and their sponsors. A burgeoning sport with a large audience, aired outside of primetime so as not to interfere with the proven money makers.
Of course, there are many out there who are resistant to soccer, and even more resistant to the increased use of Spanish in America. They took to the internet to vehemently complain to the heavens and ESPN about their programming choices. Deadspin chronicles this here.
Perhaps it was a result of the comments, or perhaps ESPN feels that the United States isn’t the only bilingual nation in the world, and perhaps we should all just chill out about it, because it’s not really a big deal, and maybe ESPN decided to thumb their nose at all of those who complained about their decisions, or maybe they just had business in mind earlier today. Why? Because they showed a Spanish Liga game on ESPN2 between Barcelona and Málaga. It was from their ESPN Desportes feed. The game — the announcers, the commercials, the Bottom Line — was all in Spanish.
If this was all about business and was a prearranged program choice, then good for you, ESPN, sticking to your business plan. If you were basically telling those who disagreed with you that you were big enough that their opinion didn’t matter, and that you would do what you wanted, and they should just get used to more Spanish on TV, well, then, I admire you guys. That took some moxie.
Oh, and Barca beat Málaga 4-1, with star Lionel Messi setting a European scoring record for a season. (That’s the guy at the top of the page)
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