On The Road To A Better ESPN

Most people want to go to Europe, I would imagine - most, however, would not go simply to watch a soccer game they could see on TV in their own country.  Only if you lived in SIBERIA would you consider doing such a thing, and yet here I am, looking up ticket prices to Athens, Madrid, and Hamburg, so I can watch the World Cup without ESPN's pandering to every sports fan in America.  There is a reason soccer is an elitist sport.  You need to have more than a modicum of brain cells to understand the game.  (I am not comparing it to American football, which you also need to be vastly intelligent to play.  Knowing what X Jet Y55RDelta Tampa QR4 means is pretty difficult).  But the way ESPN talks down soccer to a dull sludge that only a numbskull would understand, especially with Josh Elliot, who is an absolute MORON, leading the charge, is disgusting.  Elliot, by the way, is ESPNs token soccer fan, much the same way that Chris Berman is supposed to appeal to the every day white American and Stuart Scott to the African-American populace.  Make no mistake - I am trying to do this to spite ESPN, and for no other reason.  ESPN's coverage is actually going to be decent, because they listened to everyone who said that Dave O'Brien and Marcelo Balboa were garbage in 2006, and they listened again to the same people that said Adrian Healy and Tommy Smyth and Andy Gray were good in 2008.  They did something great, and hired Martin Tyler once Sky Sports went bankrupt to have him do the American, English, and other major games (presumably the World Cup semi finals and finals).  But the coverage leading up to the World Cup is what irritates me.  I grew up on ESPN.  I remember when it had a hint of common sense, when Dan Patrick, Keith Olbermann, and Rich Eisen worked there.  Now it clamors for viewers with desperate ratings ploys like Who's Now.  So their so apparent obviousness to capture the soccer viewer in America is what irritates me.  And THAT'S why I want to book tickets to Madrid, Athens, or Hamburg.  Actually, I'd really like to go to London, sit in the Emirates Stadium with my Arshavin jersey on, and see if America could make it out of the group stage while listening to Jon Champion.