Fanning the Flames

This disturbs me greatly. If I were one of those fatalistic, "soccer is never going to succeed in the U.S." kinds of people, I'd say that begging fans to show some passion for the TV cameras is one more nail in MLS' coffin.

More likely, it's yet another instance of American production values not understanding the nature of the product they're working with. I'm not saying that soccer doesn't need crowd shots, but if you feel you need outrageous crowd behavior in order to make a better broadcast, then we've got much different priorities. ESPN, your time would be better spent getting quicker replays after stoppages of play, instead of ten to fifteen seconds of watching a referee march off ten yards for a wall.