King Kaufman's Sports Daily

The U.S. pratfall in its World Cup opener didn't kill some coming soccer boom. Plus: Pong? And: Stanley Cup.

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June 13, 2006 | Ouch. Oh. Oof. Three to nothing.

So it looks like the soccer boom is going to have to wait four more years in this country after the Czech Republic undressed the United States 3-0 in both teams' World Cup opener Monday.

How many millions of dollars did it cost ESPN when Claudio Reyna's shot clanged off the goal post in the 28th minute? The Americans were down 1-0 at the time, having given up a goal in the fifth minute. Reyna's shot would have tied the game. Instead the Czechs put it out of reach when Tomas Rosicky scored eight minutes later.

OK, probably not many millions of dollars. The Czechs beat the U.S. pillar to post, and while a goal by Reyna on that shot might have changed things, might have given the U.S. the lift it needed to start playing well, it's a good bet that the Czechs' clear superiority would have manifested itself one way or the other.

A U.S. goal there might have just ticked 'em off.

Unless things turn around quickly for the U.S., it won't be staging a repeat of its 2002 run to the quarterfinals, where the Americans mostly outplayed Germany but lost anyway. The Americans play Italy Saturday.

The commentariat has been saying that America is poised to embrace soccer, to send it booming, if the U.S. team goes deep in the World Cup again. I'm pretty skeptical, since I've been hearing about the coming boom of soccer as a spectator sport since I was in elementary school. It was coming right after we got used to using the metric system.

I've also been hearing for most of my life that some sport or another is about to go ballistic in the States, usually after an American team has had a good run in the Olympics. Volleyball fever, anyone? Remember?

Soccer's bigger than that, of course, and it's growing all the time. The growth is slow but real. It'll get a boost any time the U.S. does well in the World Cup, but even without the Americans playing, the ratings for the early games this time around are significantly better than they were four years ago. Some of that has to do with the timing of the games, Europe being a lot closer, time zone-wise, than Asia. But not all of it.

The early games on ESPN2 have been pulling ratings in the 2.0 range, which is on par with network broadcasts of the Stanley Cup playoffs and French Open tennis. Since we're talking ESPN2, and we're talking games not involving the U.S., that means the World Cup is clearly outdrawing those events.

Next page: If you only care about the home team, you're depriving yourself. Plus: Oilers win anthem, lose game