The first Olympic soccer game I caught was Belgium’s upset of Italy on MSNBC and I pretty much lost all hope of getting decent soccer coverage. ABC, who despite employing the excreable Dave O’Brien, has at least figured out Rule #1 of Televised Soccer: No Commercial Breaks. Except at halftime.

But MSNBC saw fit to cut to commercial in the 89th minute (after going to commercial about every ten minutes during the game). Rage! Even more so considering they were showing the game on tape delay so they could have picked the game back up right where they left off, but nooooo. When we came back, we were well into stoppage time with only a minute left to play.

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I don’t think I can say it any better than this petition to ESPN programming:

As a sports leader and the largest cable sports network it would make sense that the company would want to have the best coverage of the event possible. Putting someone who has never done soccer commentary at the head of your broadcast team will only serve to alienate fans and move more viewers to Univision and other networks covering the games. You wouldn’t put Dick Button on the Superbowl announcing team or John Madden on the World Series telecasts, why would you put a baseball announcer in the World Cup broadcasts?

They could have pulled some random person off the streets of a serious soccer country, paid him or her pennies, and delivered a better viewing experience.

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