Pan Am Games snub

The Pan American Games opened on Friday in Brazil. For the next two weeks, the “Olympics” of the Western Hemisphere will take place, but you’re not going to see most of it.

ESPN bought the American television rights, but has decided that the only audience for the Pan Am Games is its Spanish-speaking fans. If you are lucky enough to have ESPN Deportes (Time Warner Cable offers it on Ch. 821 on its Spanish-tier of programming), then you will have plenty of day-long coverage.

As of July 19, there will be only five hours of English-speaking coverage of the Games. On Fridays July 20 and 27, ESPN2 will air one hour of boxing (11 p.m.-midnight). On July 22, ESPN2 will show one hour of women’s volleyball (4-5 p.m.). On Saturday, July 28, ESPN shows one basketball semifinal (5-7 p.m.), presumably Team USA’s game.

For fans of track and field, gymnastics and swimming, you are out of luck. The best you can do is catch a one-minute snippet on SportsCenter.

Apparently, ESPN thinks World Cup softball, long afternoons of sports gab and old episodes of poker tournaments is more compelling than showing our past and future Olympians who are competing in Brazil. Never mind that several of our U.S. teams will qualify for the 2008 Beijing Olympics through these Pan Am Games. There was a time when the Pan Am Games were given at least weekend coverage on CBS, NBC or ABC.

I am not saying I need 12 hours of daily coverage but as long as you have the ESPN personnel on hand, you cannot tell me that an hour or two of daily programming in English is so unreasonable.