TVSquad

You're about to become a soccer fan.

I know you don't believe me. Hell, I'm not sure I believe me. After all, America has resisted soccer for going on 150 years. Crapping on soccer ranks right up there with eating horrible chain-restaurant food and producing slobs-versus-snobs camp movies as a quality that define us as Americans.

Further, you've heard this claim before: the "Grab your shin guards, soccer is about to be a hit in the US of A!" column has been written approximately 2.8 million times since the early '70s. Every time a new soccer league starts in this country, everyone rushes to be the first to write that America is about to become Uruguay North.

And yet, those leagues invariably crash and burn, WNBA-style. So what makes this time any different? Why will we finally care about something that we've gone out of our way to not care about for so long? What force is powerful enough to make that happen?

The most powerful force in the universe: ESPN.

Last week, ESPN gobbled up the rights to air the Premier League in England and Ireland. The Premier League is the top soccer division in England and is, arguably, the top soccer league in the world. ESPN acquiring those rights was really big news around the globe.

Well, except in America because we care more about Amateur Roller Hockey than we do about soccer.

But ESPN starting a relationship with the Premier League has an important implication for the American sports fan. See, in 2010 the American rights to the Premier League become available and the rumor is that ESPN is very interested in acquiring them. Right now, those rights are split between Fox and a company called Setanta Sports.

You can find the Fox Soccer Channel right around channel 9000 on your cable box, next to Versus and that religious channel that keeps showing Bibleman reruns. Setanta, to the best of my knowledge, is a mythological channel that only appears once every 100 years, like Brigadoon.

If ESPN becomes a player in that game -- and purchasing the English rights certainly makes it seem like they are -- the story of soccer in America changes dramatically. First, you'll be able to find the matches on TV, always an important step towards actually watching them. Second, and far more importantly, ESPN will bring the entire weight of their promotional machine to bear.

If that happens, you might as well write it on a golden record and save it in an underground vault: America will embrace soccer.

ESPN's promotional machine is unstoppable. It's like Mystery, the noted d-bag pick-up artist: you know what he's doing, you understand how transparent his desires are, and you find yourself laughing at the lengths he'll go to ... and yet, there you are in his bed the next morning with nothing but a pair of aviator goggles and a soul full of shame to show for it.

Once ESPN decides you're going to like something, you will like it. Trust me on this. If they make the investment for the Premier League in America, I give it three years before soccer becomes a part of our daily conversation. It'll never replace football or baseball or the NBA, but it's a fair bet we'll see that fourth slot filled with the likes of Wayne Rooney and Samuel Eto'o.

The power of ESPN's marketing lies in the fact that they disguise their advertisements as "news." ESPN doesn't tell you to watch an event, they have their network report on that event so much, you can't help but want to watch it.

Discussion shows are king at ESPN: when the network isn't showing sports, they're airing shows with guys shouting at each other about sports. Those shows are designed to mimic the way you talk with your friends. Pardon the Interruption, for all its bells and whistles, is basically just like two guys talking sports at your local bar.

The insidious and brilliant thing about this approach is that while it appears that they're reacting to the news of the day, what they're really doing is creating the news. Their editorial decisions go a long way toward defining what the American sports fan cares about. If Michael and Tony are talking about it, it must be important.

Multiply that over the great pulsating entity that is ESPN and you begin to see just how much of our sports culture is decided by the company. ESPN is massive: all the shouting shows, SportsCenter, the radio network, the web site, and the columnists. I imagine Bristol to look less like a campus of TV studios and more like the giant alien heart at the end of Contra, gooey and all-powerful.

All it takes is one editorial memo to quiver down the line and tomorrow, soccer is important in America. You'll watch it, you'll talk about it, you'll be interested in it.

That ESPN's power and reach will be able to create an interest in soccer isn't the question. The real question is this: why don't more networks take the same approach that ESPN does?

As it stands now, the model for creating awareness and buzz for a traditional scripted show is to hit you over the head with commercials, send the stars of the show onto the talk shows, and then pray for the best. Sometimes, if a network is feeling particularly clever, they might hamhand the stars into the other programming:

Oh, look, it's the star of our new show about a doctor/lawyer/cop who plays by his own rules while dealing with a drug addiction/failing marriage/inverted nipples! Isn't it convenient he's here to watch American Idol the same night his show is debuting on this network?! Golly!

That's about it as far as creative advertising goes.

By following the ESPN model, the networks can do a better job of promoting their shows, while, at the same time, creating a new kind of content. Instead of barraging us with advertising, the networks ought to create a series of shows devoted to the discussion, from a fan's perspective, of the happenings of their flagship programs. These shows would be valuable to the producers because they'd build buzz for the major revenue sources, but would also be valuable to us because they'd give us something we've never really had before: a televised validation of our fandom.

Don't get me wrong, I don't mean gossip, I mean intelligent discussion. Imagine a PTI-style show devoted to the day's TV news. Did something happen last night on Lost that might be a game changer? Let's discuss it. Has 24 finally jumped the shark? Our panel has the answer. Did the ending of BSG make you want to jump out of a plate glass window? We have a television expert and a plate glass window manufacturer here to give you the tips you need.

The networks want to create water cooler moments. What ESPN has taught us is that you can create the water cooler itself.

We would benefit from this too.

Don't tell me you wouldn't be very interested in watching a show devoted to discussing TV with the same verve and vigor as the average ESPN show. You'd be riveted if a conversation with Matthew Fox wasn't some Leno style bore-fest about a "funny" personal story that no one cares about but was, instead, a fan-centered discussion of what was going on in his show. Go ahead, try to make me believe you wouldn't watch a half hour of some TV host grilling a FOX executive for canceling the Sarah Connor Chronicles.

TV fans are just as devoted (and, some would say, judging from some of the comments I've gotten over the years, just as pathological) as their sports counterparts. If ESPN can fill up 24 hours a day of programming over something like nine hundred channels, it's easy to imagine NBC doing the same.

I don't mind having my opinion manipulated by editorial decisions if the trade-off I get in return is an entertaining couple of hours devoted to analyzing TV.

And if the networks start filling their talking-heads shows with the ranks of TV reporters and bloggers, like ESPN did when it started expanding, don't think I would be so devoted to the high art of opinion-based blogging to turn down a TV offer. No, I don't live in an ivory tower. If TV came a-calling, I would reluctantly give up my TV-blogger salary of a handful of stale Saltines (a big handful) and reluctantly make the transition to being an on-air personality.

It's the least I could do.

(Jay Black is a writer and comedian who is best known for his role as "Pea Soup Supervisor" in the fan-created shot-for-shot remake of the international hit, Osmosis Jones. For more information about Jay or to catch one of his live shows, check out his website www.jayblackcomedy.com.)