The San Francisco Bay Area is also known the center of the universe.
San Franciscans act that way, so it must be true.
However, despite a decent soccer tradition, the immediate Bay Area, is now essentially a soccer wasteland.
There have been several attempts at professional level here, but all have ended in failure. The North American
Soccer League (NASL) once had franchises in Oakland ("Clippers", "Stompers") and San Jose ("Earthquakes"), but
it was a race to see whether the club or league would go belly up first. The latest attempt was the Major Soccer
League's San Jose Earthquakes ,
sensational MLS Champions in 2001. However, by 2006 the league decided to abandon San Jose and move the club to that
soccer hotbed of Houston. But evidently they decided that wasn't a good idea, so they granted San Jose a new franchise,
which started up in 2008 as...the Earthquakes.
The 2nd level
the
USISL San Francisco Bay
Seals created some noise, especially in the Cup, but folded back in 2000. Rumour has it that the old
owners are trying to start over, but they might as well save their cash, since nobody was interested even the
first time around. There are a couple of other lower level USISL clubs within
a few hours driving distance, but nobody cares. If you want to
actually play, you can check out the
San Francisco Football Soccer League, which was founded in
1902.
"Friendlies"
The reality is that most European clubs are not big draws here in California - unless they're playing a Mexican team.
So Barcelona comes to town and plays Club America of Mexico City at AT&T Park in front of 50,000, of which 49,000 are
Aguilas supporters. It's common for clubs from Mexico and to a lesser extent Central America to draw huge crowds for
friendlies, although if Chivas and Aguilas play, it's not likely to be too "friendly". However, unless you speak
Spanish, you probably won't hear about it, since it's largely ignored in the Anglo media.
On the TV:
Things have improved quite a bit in the US since the dreary days past. It
is now possible to see quite a bit of soccer, even some Bundesliga games,
along with the top Euro competitions. The best is generally FOX SOCCER
CHANNEL (Fox Sports Español in
Spanish). This is basically 24 hrs
soccer, and once ruled the (cable) airwaves. The used to have other great events, such as Tri-Nations rugby, or
one of the world's best sports, Aussie Rules Football. (No, it's not soccer with more beer drinking.) However, as
rivals sprung up, Fox dumped non-soccer coverage and also lost rights to various leagues,
and aside from their dominant coverage of the English Premier League, they've become just another contender. They've
been filling up their air time with crap college men's and women's soccer, in between their incessant "make a zillion
dollars at home" and "better than viagra" commercials. In 2006,
they still had the Argentine Primera and some Serie A (only crappy teams, from Sicily mostly). However, the lineup
seemingly changes from year to year, so you never know.
Most importantly, in 2006 the Bundesliga moved over to rival GolTV, which also has the Spanish Primera. GolTV is
a Spanish-speaking centric network (run by former Uruguay great Enzo Francescoli), so they've gobbled up most of the
Latin American leagues as well. They broadcast in both English and Spanish.
These days, just about every sports pub has a satellite/cable package that carries FSC, and so there's a decent chance
you'll be able to see some soccer. Otherwise watch ESPN-2
reruns of the 1995 strongest man competition, interspersed with an occasional Champions League clash.
ESPN and ESPN-2 are basically
worthless except for
occasional Champions League coverage. They also might show the odd MLS
game. Of the major
networks, only ABC ever show anything, usually the US national and
the World Cup. The local affiliate is KGO-7.
The two major Spanish networks are readily available in most of the Bay
Area. Univision, and it's local affiliate, KDTV-14, is the
leading
Spanish network and you can find it everywhere. Usual soccer programming
includes Spanish language MLS matches, Liga Mexicana on Sundays, and the
occasional international match. They also have the Spanish rights to the
World Cup and they ALWAYS do a better job than
the gringo networks. Plus they'll usually have scantily clad women competing for something like "Senorita Republica
Deportiva" par for the course...
Telemundo (KSTS-48) is the poor cousin, but is available on
most cable systems. Nevertheless, Telemundo has strong soccer programming.
Sundays usually feature 1-2 Mexican League matches and occasionally Saturday night is
"Sabado de Futbol", which varies, but usually a big match from South
America or Europe.
One note about the Spanish announcers is that they
are given to hyberbole, as every goal is inevitably a "GOLAZO!!!!", even
though it might have bounced off a defenders face and dribbled across the
line.
In 2002, two additional Spanish language networks
were added to the mix. Telefutura is affiliated with Univision, and
has some decent soccer matches when not showing crappy dubbings of
American B movies. Azteca America is affiliated with Mexico's TV
Azteca, and basically gets all their programming directly from Mexico. The
sports is usually pretty good, and Sunday evening has a good roundtable
discussion among journalists of the weekend's Mexican soccer matches. The
weakpoint is that they all wear white shirts and ties and never say
"chingadera" or "chinga-te", so they can't be real Mexicans.
They're just like their pompous Yanqui counterparts, but
at least they don't have goofballs like Terry Bradshaw.
You can try switching to KMTP-32 at
various times, which usually has some Deutsche Welle programming. If
you're lucky, they'll have some soccer highlights.
Otherwise, you'll be treated to a surprisingly informative Unser
Freund, der Otter documentary or art theater where nutty people put
bags over their heads and dance around. WTF?! If I were Deutsche
Welle, I would actually hide this crap and put on more soccer, then foreigners around the
world would actually WANT to watch their show. And before you know it,
they would be signing up for German lessons, and hanging out at San
Francisco's Goethe Institut reading books about art theater where
people put bags on their heads and dance around...oh forget it.
Soccer in the pub is still pretty much Brit oriented, for the obvious
reason that if you go to an Irish or English pub, you'd expect to see
their long ball kickabout. If it's an American Sports Pub, they're guaranteed to have multiple screens, odds are
one will be tuned to a soccer station. And of course, during major events like the World Cup, any place that has a
TV will probably have it...
If you speak Spanish, major South American events usually mean satellite
coverage at the various bars in the "Mission" area of SF. Just don't jump
up and down and yell "GOL!!" when somebody scores against Mexico.
For baseball, the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland
Athletics . The A's are arguably the better team, but it's pretty
easy to get tickets, which will be around $10-$20, cheaper for bleachers.
The
Giants inaugurated a beautiful new downtown stadium, PacBell Park in
2000, and this quickly became on of the hottest tickets. This lasted for several years, but these days you can usually
get a ticket without much of a premium, if any. You'll be rewarded with
a seat the nicest stadium for any sport in the US. Half the time crowds
are wandering around admiring the park rather than watching the game. The other half they're standing in line to get beer,
hehehe.
Professional Basketball is not played in the Bay Area, unless you
consider that sorry ass excuse for a team, the Golden State
Warriors. They suck - haven't made the playoffs since Dirk Nowitzki went through puberty. (OK, they finally broke a 13
year streak, but then went back to sucking).
If you want to waste your money, don't blame us. You'll pay
through the nose for the "privilege". Instead, check out
one of the local colleges. Cal and Stanford are usually competitive, and
occasionally the smaller schools like USF, St.Mary's, Santa Clara and San
Jose State have decent teams.
Ice Hockey, as represented by the NHL is a bit different
from Europe. The objective is to skate around and get in fights. The
locals are the San Jose Sharks. They're generally pretty good, but expect to pay an outrageous amount
for a ticket. More entertaining is professional wrestling, and the
ticket
is about the same. It's not that wimpy European Greco-Roman stuff, but
where the bad guys hit their opponents over the head with a chair. It may
be less violent than hockey, but is more fun because you aren't distracted
by the puck going into the net and the red light going off.
Good pubs:
The SF Bay Area is blessed with perhaps the best concentration of
microbreweries and brewpubs in the United States. A good 40 are within an
hour or so driving distance. For a list of pubs that "brew their own",
consult Ken Papai's
Northern California Brew Pub list
Other (minor) Sports
Aside from soccer, the visitor may want to check out some of the minor
sports played in the Bay Area. It terms of American Football,
during the season of August-December, you have your choice of the
ex-powerhouse San Francisco 49ers and the sleazy Oakland
Raiders. It used to be almost impossible to get a ticket
for the 49ers, but since they've sucked in recent years, you can usually get tickets. If you are inclined, remember
that the cheapest seats are $50.
The Raiders are currently not a problem, although if they start playing
half-way decent (not much chance of that!), you won't find tickets there either.
In the college
ranks, University of California Berkeley and Stanford are
worth checking out.
Both play in huge stadiums (70,000 plus), so a ticket is rarely a problem
- unless they are playing each other in the "derby", The Big Game.
(c) Abseits Guide to Germany : www.abseits-soccer.com