The Wide World of Fútbol

I just returned from a really nice trip to Montréal, QC (despite American Airlines' attempts to sabotage our experience). Yonder north of Burlington, Vermont lay Montréal: a beautiful city with a wonderful international vibe. The cuisine is out of this world. (The serving sizes are downright American!) The people are unabashedly friendly. "Pas posible!" you say?. Vendors, shops & restaurants readily accept American dollars and hand you back Canadian change, zesty Montréal Brisket & Cuban cigars. Order any beer at any dive in Canada, and you get bubbly gold. Gambling is legal. It's an American Dream!

And Quebecers love their sports. Montréal still mourns the loss of its beloved baseball Expos (Expos paraphernalia is ubiquitous, t-shirts, ball caps, etc.)

Montréal, not Canton

Montréal, it turns out, is the birthplace of modern American Football. British soldiers garrisoned in Montréal in the late 19th Century introduced a variation of their rugby football that has since evolved into its various forms today: the NFL, the CFL and the darling of summer: the Arena Football League. Nothing in my American upbringing would have led me to think that Canada was the breadbasket of American Football. We hiked up from downtown Montréal to the Parc Mont Royal (Montréal's Central Park). All along the way, we heard what we thought were flocks of Canadian geese. Au contraire! After a steep climb up the steps towards the Kondiaronk Belvedere (sure wish someone had told me there was a tram we could have taken!), we realized that what we were hearing weren't Canadian geese, but rather the cheers from nearby Molson Stadium of Alouettes' fans celebrating a victory against the BC Lions. And it's a very odd sensation to watch the Alouettes play on TV and hear the French language play-by-play. But their passion and enthusiasm is unmistakable.

During this trip we also had a chance to meet a Canadian lobbyist from Toronto. I happened to bring up the great Galaxy/FC Toronto game last month. And it turns out he had been to that game in person at BMO Field! He raved about FC Toronto (even though they've had a rough first season). BMO Field in Toronto has one of the most spectacular views in the sport: overlooking downtown Toronto's skyline. It also happens to be the National Soccer venue for the Canadians. So they play most of their big international games there. FC Toronto has sold out its season. Yes, that's right. A Major League Soccer franchise has a team that sells out regularly. Their fans are positively feverish with the fútbol spirit. They are young, upwardly mobile, urban-dwelling fans with a lot of loose change for Molsons, Labatts and FC Toronto soccer scarves. This bodes well for another Canadian franchise in the MLS. Vancouver? Montreal? Just make certain that the soccer-specific stadiums up north have retractable domes.

I watched the end of the FC Dallas/FC Toronto game from Canada. The Canadian broadcast team was pretty weak. They had a Canuck and a Brit on there. I'll cut them some slack because of how long it's been since FC Toronto has scored a goal. Frisco's Pizza Hut Park pitch had American football yardage markers all over. Why does a soccer-specific stadium have football stripes on it? But I'm very happy that locally we have Brad Sham. He's a broadcasting giant in DFW. He could have easily been a national play-by-play guy. But all the same, I'm glad we have him all to ourselves here in Big D.

Happy Birthday, Cristobal! Soccer-Point blogger Cristobal Cuarenton steered me in the direction of the "Fox Football Fone-In". I had recently begun listening to the podcasts of "World Soccer Daily" with Steven Cohen. And, as it happens, he co-hosts "Fox Football Fone-In" on the Fox Soccer Channel every Tuesday night with Nick Webster. (Thanks, Cristobal for the tip.) The two hosts, both ex-pat Brits, seem to be having a marvelous time talking futbol from L.A. They are nicely sun-tanned. They get along famously. Their humor & enthusiasm is contagious. They aren't snooty at all towards their American cousins. And the American callers are real soccer fans who follow the sport very carefully. Viewing the "Fone-In" is like sidling up to a couple of blokes at the local pub to hear them spout off about their beloved sport. They have great guests on the show. The first time I watched them they had Johnny Rotten on there. Turns out, he's a huge Gunner. They had Preki on last week. He has done an OUTSTANDING coaching job at Chivas USA. They're in first place in the West now after their Super Clasico victory Thursday night on ESPN2 against the lowly LA Galaxy. This past week's guest was Chivas player Jesse Marsh, the guy that tackled Becks a couple of weeks ago and a melee ensued. Nick & Steven can chatter away about the whole wide world of soccer: from Serie A in Italy to the EPL, Spain's La Liga, Australia's A-League and Le Championnat. That's a lot of soccer to cover.


Years ago we loved watching ABC's Wide World of Sports. Jim McKay's opening segment remains one of those few sports anthology shows along with NFL Films, the Olympics & ABC's The Superstars that gave me the chills. (OK, ABC's The Superstars was cheesy. But who didn't love their TV Theme Music: Andrew Lloyd Webber's "Jesus Christ Superstar"?)

Major League Soccer has its anthology soccer show now: It's called "David Beckham's Soccer USA". After this summer, you could question the judgment of programming chiefs naming the show after David Beckham. But this show is also televised in the UK. So they've got to convince otherwise unsuspecting Englishmen to watch Major League American Soccer. But I think this kind of show is very important in translating the sport to the American audience. The League has to get the stories across in this medium. I'm thinking specifically about a few passages in the NY Cosmos book I read this summer: "Once In A Lifetime: The Extraordinary Story of the NY Cosmos", the companion piece to last year's wonderful documentary. In the late 70's, the NASL really wanted a big time TV network contract to show their games weekly. But one of the ABC guys tried to convince them to instead go with a weekly anthology style show along the lines of the Wide World of Sports. The book goes on to explain how the network aired the games on Saturday afternoons when no one would be around at home to watch the games. The ratings were abominable.

October 28th, the NFL will take their product for another overseas exhibition in their International Series. This time it will be the Miami Dolphins squaring off against the NY Giants at Wembley Stadium. It appears that the NFL has shrunken their European operations so as to retool their efforts and focus on the UK.


It's very exciting to have the NFL season once again underway. I'm a huge Cowboys' fan. But the NFL has a much bigger challenge trying to sell their sport overseas than Major League Soccer has in getting a foothold in American Sports.