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#1
My car isn’t the greatest ride in the world. It doesn’t always work right and drinks gasoline like an alcoholic Transformer. But it does have two features that are imperative for the long, hot summer days: AC and satellite radio.
Inside my car, the air is cool and the listening options are endless, however, I mainly stick to the 80’s-90’s channels and the sports talk radio stations. I don’t always agree with the talking heads on the selected channel (which is part of any good host’s job), but following the United States’ loss to Japan in the Women’s World Cup Final, I had the sudden urge to rip that radio right out of the dash.
Heading into the tournament, most sports talk radio shows poo-pooed the Women’s World Cup, dismissing any callers who wanted to share their views on the pinnacle of ladies footy.
Hosts flat-out refused to comment on the event (mainly because they knew nothing about the sport), stating that no one cared. They would rather talk about their childhood memories and how baseball is ruined, or what Roger Goodell had for lunch that day.
Not even a United States win over Brazil or a victory over France in the tournament semifinals could prompt a good word out of the lock-jaw commentators, who were too busy debating the Roger Clemens mistrial or how golf belongs to the 20-somethings (wrong!).
But, following the Americans’ collapse and defeat to Japan on penalty kicks in Sunday’s final, it seemed like every talk radio show couldn’t get enough of the Women’s World Cup.
The loudest argument being that penalty kicks are no way to decided a final – even though the United States won the 1999 title on PK’s and defeated Brazil in the quarterfinals in the same format.
Radio hosts who, just weeks ago would rather sit through five minutes of dead air than talk WWC, were now referring to the United States squad as “we” – as in “we got screwed”.
Personalities, who had no say on the state of women’s soccer and strongly stated that nobody gave a rat’s ass about the tournament, were now pounding their chest in protest.
I understand that during the dog days of summer, hot-button topics, which fuel the sports talk radio world, are in short demand. But this flip-flop on opinion was solely greased by a slow Monday morning in which producers had milked the British Open dry and needed something else, other than the MLB grind and possible end to the NFL lockout, to fill six hours of air time.
And now that the Women's World Cup is gone for another four years, you won’t hear a peep out of these “passionate soccer fans” about the Beautiful Game, until maybe the next time they're scrabbling to fill an hour of show time.
At least the AC still works in my car.
Inside my car, the air is cool and the listening options are endless, however, I mainly stick to the 80’s-90’s channels and the sports talk radio stations. I don’t always agree with the talking heads on the selected channel (which is part of any good host’s job), but following the United States’ loss to Japan in the Women’s World Cup Final, I had the sudden urge to rip that radio right out of the dash.
Heading into the tournament, most sports talk radio shows poo-pooed the Women’s World Cup, dismissing any callers who wanted to share their views on the pinnacle of ladies footy.
Hosts flat-out refused to comment on the event (mainly because they knew nothing about the sport), stating that no one cared. They would rather talk about their childhood memories and how baseball is ruined, or what Roger Goodell had for lunch that day.
Not even a United States win over Brazil or a victory over France in the tournament semifinals could prompt a good word out of the lock-jaw commentators, who were too busy debating the Roger Clemens mistrial or how golf belongs to the 20-somethings (wrong!).
But, following the Americans’ collapse and defeat to Japan on penalty kicks in Sunday’s final, it seemed like every talk radio show couldn’t get enough of the Women’s World Cup.
The loudest argument being that penalty kicks are no way to decided a final – even though the United States won the 1999 title on PK’s and defeated Brazil in the quarterfinals in the same format.
Radio hosts who, just weeks ago would rather sit through five minutes of dead air than talk WWC, were now referring to the United States squad as “we” – as in “we got screwed”.
Personalities, who had no say on the state of women’s soccer and strongly stated that nobody gave a rat’s ass about the tournament, were now pounding their chest in protest.
I understand that during the dog days of summer, hot-button topics, which fuel the sports talk radio world, are in short demand. But this flip-flop on opinion was solely greased by a slow Monday morning in which producers had milked the British Open dry and needed something else, other than the MLB grind and possible end to the NFL lockout, to fill six hours of air time.
And now that the Women's World Cup is gone for another four years, you won’t hear a peep out of these “passionate soccer fans” about the Beautiful Game, until maybe the next time they're scrabbling to fill an hour of show time.
At least the AC still works in my car.
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