GolTV's "American Soccer" Jumps The Shark

EPL reader Ossie’s Dream was kind enough to provide us a mini-review of Fox Soccer Channel recently, where he shared his disdain about Fox’s over-the-top way that it incorporated an Adidas advertisement/sponsorship into last week’s Super Saturday +. I, too, was critical of Fox Soccer Channel’s attempts to find new ways to attract the attention of viewers with new techniques used in their crawl advertising during Premiership matches.

So, it’s with equal distaste that I learned today that GolTV is making changes to its excellent “American Soccer” program due to the program’s main sponsor, the U.S. Navy, taking a more active role. The weekly show features GolTV commentators/announcers Phil Schoen, Ray Hudson, Lindsey Dean and Kelly O’Donnell where they bring you the latest news on, as the show name suggests, American soccer.

1. “The show’s set will be customized to reflect the Navy’s look and feel,” and
2. “American Soccer will herein be knows as “American Soccer Powered by the
   Navy.”

I completely understand the reason why advertisers want to try different things to reach their audience rather than a typical and predictable 30-second spot (hence the quote from the GolTV advertising executive in the press release). However, the above two examples are out-of-line and go way too far into appeasing the advertiser and therefore destroy the trust that the viewer has built with the popular program and network.

In TV, there’s the phrase “jumped the shark.” And in my opinion, this move by GolTV has allowed their American Soccer program to go too far. I’m glad GolTV has found a major sponsor for the show. But please, please, please don’t allow them to take it too far whereby they can dictate what the name of the show is and what the set looks like. It’s an instant turn-off, and does more to distance myself from the advertiser itself than to raise my interest.