Here's hoping RSL will make good TV

I'm looking forward to Saturday night's Real Salt Lake TV debut. The expansion MLS franchise's inaugural regular-season game against the Metrostars will be carried tape-delayed on KSL-Ch. 5 at 7 p.m. — the first time a local station (as opposed to a network) has carried a pro soccer game.

I'm also sort of worried about it, for a couple of reasons.

First, I'd really like to see RSL succeed. (I'm not just blowing smoke on that one — I bought season tickets.) And a well-produced, entertaining telecast on a major local TV station would only help that happen.

(Saturday's game is one of five that KSL will carry. Another five are scheduled to air on local cable — Fox Sports Rocky Mountain; and four more on national cable — ESPN2 as part of the MLS package.)

So . . . I'm hoping that the game will not only be exciting but that it will be watchable. And the second is more of an issue than the first.

Soccer is not exactly a made-for-American TV sport. Oh, American broadcasters have made huge strides in capturing the game, even without the sort of technical gimmickry that ABC/ESPN2 are promising for their telecasts.

But the problem is that there are no made-for-TV commercial breaks in the action. It's easy to take a timeout in a football, basketball or baseball game; the action doesn't have similar stops for a soccer game.

What with Saturday's game being tape-delayed, we shouldn't miss a goal during a commercial. KSL is also carrying the RSL-at-L.A. Galaxy game on Saturday, Sept. 9 — and that one will be live . . . so it could happen.

ABC/ESPN2 — in one of the more brilliant moves to come along since that yellow first-down line graphic on football telecasts — has come up with the answer, however. The networks will use a split screen during its MLS coverage, keeping game action in view while broadcasting commercials at the same time.

Seriously, that's a great idea.

You can get a better view of football, basketball and baseball games on TV than you can from most seats in the stadium. I'm not so sure that's true of soccer.

So maybe you soccer fans ought to go out and buy your RSL season tickets, too . . .

OOOH! BIG SCOOP! ESPN's "SportsCenter" was sort of unintentionally funny earlier this week. Viewers were told that ESPN insiders were reporting that Utah's Andrew Bogut would declare himself eligible for the upcoming NBA draft. Which was funny because they made it sound like that had some sort of exclusive, heretofore unreported insight into the matter.

Gee, I almost expected them to follow up with — ESPN has learned exclusively that Urban Meyer won't coach the Ute football team in the fall.

Was there anyone who wasn't reporting that Bogut was going to leave before he made the official announcement?

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E-mail: pierce@desnews.com