TypeOff.’s European readers may not be familiar with ESPN. The Entertainment Sports Programming Network is a cable station in the US that broadcasts a number of athletic events. ESPN is sort of a “presence” on the American media landscape, to say the least. Many TypeOff. readers may also not be aware that Team USA’s first match in the upcoming World Cup—on June 12th—is against England. To drum up an audience on the home front, ESPN recently released the commercial (above). The narration quotes a text from Tom Paine’s Crisis Series (“these are the times that try men’s souls…”), published during the darkest hour of the American Revolution, in 1776–1777. It seems that ESPN hopes to bill the USA–England match-up as a sequal to the Revolutionary War… The American Revolution, Part II.
For the record, Team USA won the original American Revolution match-up in overtime, after Team USA’s coach George Washington was able to sub-in some players from the French national squad. George III—as well as the next four English general managers—weren’t able to accept the loss. The relationship between the two associations only seemed to improve during the 1917 season, when Team USA’s Woodrow Wilson began loaning players to George V’s traveling European squad.