USL, as part of their partnership with The Worldwide Leader in SportsTM, gets to pick certain games to push for nationwide broadcasts on ESPN’s family of networks. The TV ones, not the internet ones. This is nothing new, of course, as the USL Cup Championship match has been on national TV the last couple of years, and a handful of games were broadcast on ESPNU last year. Here’s what this season’s USL Game of the Week broadcast schedule looks like:

April 18 – Sacramento Republic FC vs. Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC (ESPN3)
April 27 – Las Vegas Lights FC vs. San Antonio FC (ESPN3)
May 2 – Indy Eleven vs. FC Cincinnati (ESPN3)
May 9 – Fresno FC vs. Rio Grande Valley FC (ESPN3)
May 30 – Saint Louis FC vs. Phoenix Rising FC (ESPN3)
June 13 – FC Cincinnati vs. Bethlehem Steel FC (ESPN3)
June 26 – Nashville SC vs. Indy Eleven (ESPNews)
July 4 – Indy Eleven vs. Ottawa Fury FC (ESPNews)
July 11 – OKC Energy FC vs. Las Vegas Lights FC (ESPNews)
July 18 – FC Cincinnati vs. Charlotte Independence (ESPNews)
July 25 – San Antonio FC vs. Colorado Springs Switchbacks FC (ESPNU)
August 8 – Tampa Bay Rowdies vs. Charleston Battery (ESPNews)
August 15 – Saint Louis FC vs. Sacramento Republic FC (ESPN3)
August 22 – Phoenix Rising FC vs. San Antonio FC (ESPN3)
August 29 – Rio Grande Valley FC vs. San Antonio FC (ESPN3)
September 5 – Phoenix Rising FC vs. Rio Grande Valley FC (ESPN3)
September 12 – Real Monarchs SLC vs. Saint Louis FC (ESPN3)
September 18 – Nashville SC vs. Tampa Bay Rowdies (ESPN3)
September 26 – Richmond Kickers vs. FC Cincinnati (ESPN3)
October 10 – Las Vegas Lights FC vs. Phoenix Rising FC (ESPN3)

We aren’t on it. Nevermind the fact that Louisville City is the most successful team in the league since joining in 2015, or that Morados won the Championship last season, or that they historically play attractive soccer in front of a pretty good crowd. They weren’t chosen for a single match on national TV. Is ESPN3 national TV? No, but the point stands.

I get that USL wants to sell its bigger markets (Fresno and wherever RGV play), they want to highlight passion-fueled rivalries (like the heated bloodbaths we’ve never seen between Nashville and Tampa Bay) and matches that are generally aesthetically pleasing for the random TV viewer (again with RGV’s Valley of the Orange Seats). Obviously, scheduling and availability and stuff are problems, but I have a hard time believing that, out of 20 matches, our Morados couldn’t feature in any of them. WTF, USL?

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