CHAPTER SIX:

ESPN, INDOOR SOCCER AND THE HIGHLIGHT CULTURE

When ESPN began broadcasting in 1979, no one knew if a 24-hour sports cable station would work. The concept was new. The format was new. And there was no data to suggest the American public would watch. But ESPN not only worked, it changed the sports culture globally by giving airtime to sports that previously went unbroadcast and by creating a highlight culture. Soccer benefited from these factors – as ESPN broadcast the Major Indoor Soccer League, bringing fans to the game in new and interesting ways. It also gave sports fans distilled key moments from various soccer matches exposing more people to the beautiful game. 

(Photo credit: Awful Announcing)

LISTEN NOW

CHAPTER SIX

ESPN, INDOOR SOCCER AND THE HIGHLIGHT CULTURE

Professional indoor soccer is recognised as having started in 1971 when the North American Soccer League organized a series of indoor exhibition tournaments. But it was truly legitimized in 1974 when a game between the North American Soccer League and the Soviet Red Army aired on ABC’s Wide World of Sports. Then the entire trajectory of the sport changed in October 1977. Two businessmen, Ed Tepper and Earl Foreman, formed the Major Indoor Soccer League. Attendance quickly climbed, peaking at 8,868 in 83-84. That got CBS interested, and then ESPN partnered with the league in 1985.  

ESPN would televise 15 regular-season games on Sunday afternoons, the All-Star Game and assorted playoff games beginning in the 1985-86 season.

ESPN put resources into the initiative. For the 1986-87 seaosn, the network actually paid the MISL a fee  instead of the league paying the network, as it had done the previous season. This time, ESPN broadcast 18 games, including the All-Star Game. These efforts launched the career of broadcasters like our guest JP Dellacamera. But, eventually, ESPN oved away from MISL in favor of football contracts. 

(Photo credit: National Indoor Soccer League)

Our GUESTS

One of the pioneering voices of American soccer, JP Dellacamera serves as a FOX Sports play-by-play announcer for the network’s premier soccer portfolio and the lead play-by-play voice for the FIFA Women’s World Cup™. The Colin Jose Media Award recipient and recent winner of the Clay Berling Media Career of Excellence Award has long served as FOX Sports’ lead play-by-play announcer for the U.S. Women’s National Team. The legendary broadcaster was once again the lead announcer for the 2021 SheBelieves Cup Tournament, a role he held in 2017 and 2019, in addition to the 2018 Concacaf Women’s Championship. Dellacamera also called matches for the 2016 Copa America Centenario and UEFA Europa League.

Dellacamera is regarded as the original voice of U.S. Soccer with a broadcasting career spanning 40 years. He brings decades of experience covering a total of 17 FIFA World Cups (10 men’s, seven women’s) on television and radio beginning with ESPN in 1986. He was the lead ESPN radio voice for the FIFA World Cups in 2010 and 2014.

ADDITIONAL RESOURCES
To learn more about ESPN and indoor soccer and their importance to the growth of the game in America, we recommend the following resources.

Articles

    Our PERSPECTIVE

    Major Indoor Soccer League was a perfect marriage with ESPN. How they were a perfect fit for each other at the right time. MISL was a soccer product but the right type of soccer product for ESPN and its viewership – hockey like, but still soccer. It fit the highlight culture. That helped it be successful. With American players on the field at that. Success of soccer, and soccer with an American flavor, helped ESPN and it’s parent company ABC, realize that soccer could get eyeballs. That it could make them money. That with extra airtime previously unavailable on the big three networks, soccer was one of the fringe sports worth re-investing in.

    Without those MISL data points, it’s hard to know if and how much they would have invested in Champions League, Premier League and World Cup coverage. It’s hard to know if they would have felt confident in America’s latest incarnation of a top tier professional league when MLS was founded. So, giving air time to soccer, even the MISL version, at the right time is the first reason the founding of ESPN was an important moment in American soccer.
     

    Listen and Subscribe to Founding Futbol