One thing my 'Final Exam' series glosses over is why I know more about the English league than I do about all the others combined. Why do I (like so many other converted American fans) follow teams from London, Manchester, and Liverpool instead of those from Barcelona, Milan, or Munich? I'm sure there are many good explanations but to me the simplest one makes the most sense: the English league uses English.
The shared language doesn't eliminate the entire learning curve. But after about ten minutes, it's pretty clear what a 'pitch' refers to and perfectly obvious what the implications are for being at the 'foot of the table'. I can talk to supporters of any club and get a better understanding of what is going on almost immediately. The challenge of learning what the 'touch-line' is pales in contrast to the task of learning the Spanish, Italian, or German needed to properly follow the leagues organized in those countries. For the average American, finding ways to share in the common football experience with English fans is just easier than it is with our Spanish counterparts.
The shared language effect is obvious in the TV industry. For me, an English-speaking American, a telecast in English will catch my attention while I'm likely to ignore a Spanish telecast showing the same game. And when the game ends, I'm going to read the match reports written in English. The feedback loop of English readers studying English articles to prepare for the English telecast which English columnists dissect in English articles goes around and around and around. Eventually, everything new is produced in English because everything else is already in English.
These days, TV remains the main opportunity for soccer viewing in the USA. Given the realities of how TV works, it makes sense to see England's league raking in the biggest broadcast rights fees from the US. On our airwaves, their games are the most frequently seen. And since English is the 'lingua franca' of the world, it makes sense to see the same dynamic play out in developing markets where English is, theoretically, a second or third language (but still ranks ahead of those foreign languages I cited above in terms of local users).
It is hard to predict how the internet will change this. As of now, the internet is probably the primary method of introducing new fans to the game and the viewing experience is increasingly shifting to mobile options (though still generally delivered by the TV companies which own, produce, and distribute these internet streams). It is probably a little easier these days than it was ten years ago to find games from foreign (as in, not England) leagues being streamed live (1). But I still think the challenge for other leagues is significant even if AC Milan's games are now generally broadcast in English. The democratized reality of internet content, so to speak, suggests to me the number of AC Milan blogs written in English will be a small fraction of those written about Manchester United.
The trivial trends I think about for world football reflect broader realities shaping the direction of The Good Old Interwebs. It seems most web pages (based on my limited research) are built on back-end coding written primarily in English-derived programming languages. Today's biggest internet and tech companies are based in the USA. English is 3-0 up on the other languages, so to speak, in the Internet World Cup and it is hard to see how Chinese, Spanish, or German will get back into the contest.
Whenever I hear the expression 'universal language', I always get a sense of the present moment. English is described as 'universal' by those who think everyone is using it. The designation makes no promises for the future. It feels like the internet is changing this. The structure of the internet is a foundation for how information will be exchanged in the future. Even if more people use non-English languages in the future, the internet will still cater first to English-dominant users. Perhaps more importantly, the power to create, edit, and present internet content will rest in the fingertips of English-dominant web designers, software engineers, and content developers (2).
The moral considerations of the current administration's stance toward immigration often obscure some of the more ambiguous (and less emotionally-charged) long-term effects. America's power is in its economy and right now every company in the world is trying to figure out how to best leverage the internet for its own long-term interests. The best way for Europe to knock America off its perch as a world leader would be a Euro-zone agreement to stop using English (and with the UK doing you know what, the timing couldn't be better, quite frankly). China could accomplish the same by agreeing with its allies to build a new internet foundation based on Mandarin. How powerful would Tokyo or Moscow be tomorrow if we all woke up to find Facebook was accessible only by Russian or Japanese speakers? Konnichiwa means like, right?
Until those unlikely days, the current internet infrastructure continues to grow, expand, and reinforce itself with a mostly English-derived code base. America must lock in this advantage with the same vigor it has used countless times in building up its military capability (such as its nuclear program) to simply deter others from attacking it. If the English-based internet is unambiguously better than the prospects of a Chinese-based version, there will be no good reason to try and make a shift.
Policies preventing the entrance of multilingual programmers into the country during these early decades of the internet's rise increase the risk in marginal but non-trivial ways. The problems could manifest in too many versions to list (3). But the simplest ramifications are not hard to imagine.
Consider Google, a company co-founded by a Russian-born immigrant. Gee, good thing we allowed him in or the wealth (and tax revenue) generated by one of the world's biggest companies could easily have gone abroad. Keep erecting walls, literal or otherwise, and these inventive, resourceful, and relentless dreamers of tomorrow will share their hard-won spoils with the outside world we seem so determined to alienate today.
Footnotes / imagined complaints
1. Back in my college days...
Even as recently as 2010, I recall having a hard time finding a game from Spain or Germany on the internet. What's the expression for 'illegal stream' in Italian? Back then, I didn't know. Just the extra step of learning the right search terms in Spanish or Italian made it more likely I, as an English-dominant web user, would seek out English-based material.
2. Turn them into bowling alleys?
It's like how our national highway infrastructure, established decades ago, continues to influence today's national transportation policy decisions. A high-speed rail transition might pay off in the future. Or, perhaps a fleet of self-honking Hondas will zip up and down Main Streets nationwide. But what will be done with the five-lane freeways?
3. The premise of my first dystopian novel...
Quite frankly, the idea of a German-based internet is no doubt an extreme case.
