Bored by ESPN2’s coverage of first game in new MLS stadium
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Not surprisingly, ESPN2 failed miserably to convey one of the most positive things to happen in Major League Soccer this season.
On Thursday night in the Salt Lake City suburb of Sandy, Utah, the league opened its seventh soccer-specific stadium, a $110-million facility that is said to be every bit as glamorous as the six that preceded it.
A sellout crowd of 20,008 was on hand. Soccer fans around the nation wanted to see exactly what the sport’s newest American shrine looks like. From the air, from the inside, from the outside, behind the scenes.
They got none of that.
Instead of taking viewers on a halftime tour of the facility, instead of hearing team founder and chairman Dave Checketts talk about what it all means to the sport in Utah and to Real Salt Lake in particular, ESPN2 treated its viewers to the same old dreary fare.
True, the 1-1 tie between Real and the visitng New York Red Bulls was a bad-tempered, foul-ridden, poorly played and even more poorly officiated game that was not at all what MLS wanted. But play-by-play man J.P. Delacamera and sidekick/analyst John Harkes managed to turn even that into a low-volume, ho-hum, what-else-is-on viewing experience.
It was like listening to two accountants discussing the price of cardboard. Boring, boring, boring.
The only highlight, in fact, was when Harkes, in response to a bagpiper in the crowd, switched into a Scottish accent. More of that, please, and less of the rest.
Rio Tinto Stadium, to give it its new name, will stage the MLS All-Star game next season. Chances are, Real Madrid will be in town for the occasion. At least that’s the rumor since the Spanish giant is Real Salt Lake’s European connection.
Perhaps by then ESPN2 will have its act together.
The only positive thing to say about Thursday night’s broadcast was that at least it wasn’t on the Fox Soccer Channel, whose on-air personalities make Delacamera and Harkes sound like Emmy winners.
-- Grahame L. Jones