The USMNT's failure to qualify for this year's FIFA World Cup in Russia "makes the Mexican national team the main attraction for Fox and Telemundo, setting up an intense competition for tens of millions of bilingual viewers," according to Novy-Williams & Boudway of BLOOMBERG NEWS. For NBCU-owned Telemundo, the U.S. squad "isn’t as important to the Spanish-language audience, but its failure was a disappointment." In '14, viewership was 44% higher for matches "featuring the U.S. team than for other early-round games on Univision." But Fox Exec Producer David Neal said, "Because Mexico had always been Team 1B in our planning, we already had a plan in place when the U.S. team was eliminated. It was a luxury for us not having to start from ground zero." Now to court the Mexican national team’s fans, Fox has "hired a number of journalists and executives well-versed in Spanish-language soccer coverage." Citing internal research, Telemundo said that 1 in 4 non-Latino soccer fans "plans to watch the World Cup in Spanish." NBC Olympics President of Production & Programming and Telemundo World Cup Exec Producer Jim Bell said, “Listening to soccer in a Romance language just works. You can follow the action, the names are the same, and gol is ‘goal.'” The cable network is also "banking on the distinctive style of its announcers, including lead play-by-play man Andrés Cantor, famous for his elongated goal calls" (BLOOMBERG NEWS, 3/14).
FROM ALL ANGLES: Telemundo Chair Cesar Conde on Thursday discussed the net's plans for the World Cup, saying the event comes at a "fantastic time in the growth trajectory and momentum of Telemundo." Conde: “The interest of soccer here in the United States has exploded over the last few years across all ages, demographics, nationalities and the like, and so part of what our objective is to make this as accessible and relevant for all of those audiences” (“Squawk Alley,” CNBC, 3/15).
