World Cup Telecasts Present Challenges

You wouldn't know it in the United States, but the World Cup is considered globally as the biggest single sports event other than the Olympic Games.

But soccer has been a tough sell in the United States for decades. Leagues have started, sputtered and died. If ever there's a chance for this action-packed sport to catch on here, it's now.

The World Cup's coming to the United States for the first time in 1994, and this year's television showcase from Italy may be the much-needed trigger mechanism for creating a national interest.

Last Friday, Turner Network Television began a 24-match schedule continuing through the championship game Sunday, July 8.

The first major attraction is at 8 a.m. Sunday when the United States faces Czechoslovakia. Other U.S. first-round games will be Thursday against Italy and June 19 vs. Austria.

TNT will show five minutes of advertising spots each half, receiving about $85,000 for a 30-second spot.

Soccer - unlike football, baseball and basketball - is a non-stop sport, 45 minutes per half, the clock stopping only because of serious injury. There is no natural break for a commercial.

TNT has an eight-man announcing team in Italy, including Rick Davis of Federal Way (and the Tacoma Stars), who will be paired with John Paul Dellacamera, a play-by-play announcer with NBC during the 1986 World Cup.

The lead broadcasting team will be Bob Neal and Mick Luckhurst.

Neal, a sports and special-events broadcaster for Turner Broadcasting System, will handle the play-by-play. Luckhurst, an Atlanta Falcons kicker, is host of a British television show, ``American Football,'' seen twice a week.

This will not be Davis' first venture into the broadcasting booth. A former national team member and captain of the 1984 and '88 U.S. Olympic teams, he served as a commentator for NBC-TV during the '86 World Cup and has worked with Dellacamera.

Davis began discussions with TNT about a year ago regarding a role in the network's World Cup presentation. ``At that point my status was uncertain,'' he said. ``I was hoping, of course, to win a spot on the team.''

By early May, however, it became apparent he wouldn't be selected to the national team, consequently his color-analyst position with TNT became more clearly defined.

Most of the fine-tuning, however, has been conducted since the TNT crew arrived in Italy earlier this month.

Davis is uncertain how the pairings of play-by-play and color announcers were made. ``There's the No. 1 team of Bob Neal and Luckhurst,'' he said, ``which will be doing the three first-round U.S. games.'' He and Dellacamera are assigned to three first-round games - Argentina vs. Cameroon (played last Friday), Brazil vs. Sweden (noon Sunday) and Brazil vs. Costa Rica (8 a.m. Saturday).

Competition will be in 12 Italian cities, with the U.S. team playing its three first-round games in Florence and Rome.

Davis concedes the World Cup telecasts will play an important role in winning new fans for the sport.

``We'll have quite a mix in the audience - from longtime, knowledgeable fans to those who have never seen a match. It'll be a challenge for the announcers, who must concentrate on not being too basic for the true fans, yet taking time to carefully explain what's going on for the newcomers.''

Announcing teams from every country covering the cup, said Davis, will be working with Italian camera crews. ``Each team covering a match will receive the same camera feed. But we'll have to be very alert, since we'll be working with people we haven't teamed with before and might not even speak English.''

Yet another challenge facing the TNT broadcast teams is maintaining audience interest in games not involving the United States. That will prove even more difficult if the opponents' offensive styles are slow and methodical.

In most cases, player name familiarity will be nonexistent for U.S. fans. ``When the viewer has very little to identify with, the announcers must take over and make the telecast interesting,'' said Davis. ``That's when we must explain the nuances of what's happening and why each team is deploying a particular strategy.''

TNT's commitment to this event, is, of course, enhanced by the U.S. team's first appearance in 40 years.

Luckhurst said the young U.S. team could pull an upset. ``It happened in 1950 when the U.S. shocked the world by beating England. For this U.S. team to defeat Italy would be a feat of comparable measure. Forty years ago everyone said there was no way the U.S. team could beat England. Now, the same is being said about this team.''