ESPN's questionable ethics, or no?

Because it is an Olympic-sized event, for which the final in 2006 got a higher rating than the NBA Finals and World Series?

 

Look even further back, when it never gave an ABL score, yes fawned over the WNBA. Guess which one the WWL had rights to? You get three, but the first two don't count.

 

Hey, I love World Cup soccer like any other soccer fan. If there was a competing network televising it and that network had all the rights, ESPN wouldn't devote boo-yeah to the World Cup.

 

So that's why they've been showing the Fox Soccer Channel-owned Club World Cup and Champions League highlights, right?

They have the World Cup to cross-promote alongside it, sure, but they aren't ignoring either competition because another network has the rights to it.

 

Hyping those things hypes the World Cup.

 

I was thinking about that tonight. Thanks to all of the major competitions and leagues around the world, you could show first division action from so many places, even somewhere like the J-League, and still have a means to cross-promote the World Cup.

Not that I'm expecting something like the Asian Champions League highlights to make it to SportsCenter any time soon, but it could be done.

 

ESPN needs an earthquake-level kind of humbling.

 

True, but they also have the rights to the early Saturday EPL match, and unless I'm missing something, they don't show their highlights any more than any other league's (and less than the aformentioned CL).

 

Once bowl season wraps up, they're going to start showing La Liga on ESPN2 on Sunday as well.

 

For the record, in the ESPN story today on Troy Glaus potentially signing with the Braves..

http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=4767894

 

Also, the UEFA Champions League is a big deal in the U.S. now, no matter who has the rights to it.

Not showing Champions League highlights would be on the same level as not showing NHL playoff highlights.

The World Cup is huge now, too. Accusing ESPN of some wrong-doing for finally marketing arguably the world's most popular sporting event is just looking for something to complain about.