Martino is a competent enough host. He's got charisma, and despite a bit of put-on game show-host-like persona, appears to be the right man for the job. If you buy the idea that a soccer-themed talk show is worth the effort, than Martino in the host chair is a good place to start. It's too bad then that everything else around him is a disaster.
Fox Soccer Channel has a reputation for being notoriously cheap. Soccer Talk Live certainly feeds that rep, with a set that screams "public access"; despite a decent concept, STL's success is almost more dependent on the the visual presentation than the quality of its content. Martino could fantastic (he's not, but is getting better), and the guests could be top-notch, but if the show looks like it's emanating from a public access studio, it will all be for not. Right now, that's exactly how STL looks.
Meanwhile, I'm left to wonder why FSC felt the need to put this show on live. Yes, they've woven in live viewer questions through social media and email, but instead of adding to the interview in question they tend to bring it to a grinding halt. The mechanism for interjecting the questions from email and Twitter, a holdover from FFF in the form of a female presence set off to the side of the main set, is clunky at best and more accurately put, completely unnecessary.
If the show is going to be live, the logical step would be to add a studio audience; several times during the portion of the show I watched, Martino's one-liners fell flat or came off forced because there was no audible reaction from the guest(s). A studio audience, even a small one, would give the show a warmer and more engaging feel.
Not that I imagine it would be easy to find such a group.
Two items I didn't see enough to comment on: Martino's sidekick, a soccer-loving comedian named Bredan Hunt, and "Fast Lane", the feature portion of the show with Temryss Lane out at the Miss Galaxy pageant. It would be unfair of me to give an opinion on what they bring to Soccer Talk Live without having seen them first hand.
I'm intrigued by the approach to Soccer Talk Live, and I applaud whichever mind at FSC conceived of the concept. The show will have difficulty gaining traction because it attempts to meld soccer and pop culture, but the effort is commendable; taking the steps to break the nerdish shackles that too often confines soccer in the US is a wonderful idea. Perhaps FSC is the wrong venue for the show because its viewership is almost completely made up of obsessed footy fans who would prefer to hear only discussion on games, tactics and transfer rumors, but there should be room for a show like Soccer Talk Live in the growing American soccer scene.
But concept alone is not enough to carry them through, and without a significant investment on the part of FSC or their coporate overlords, I have trouble believing that Soccer Talk Live will be with us for too long. FFF was easy because it leaned heavily on direct viewer interaction via the phone, essentially operating as a radio show on TV. Soccer Talk Live is a much more difficult show to pull off, and while Martino is capable, the infrastructure around him might make it impossible to do the show well.
I expect STL will get better, perhaps much better, in the coming weeks. I may even give it more of my time, if only because I don't have anything more important to watch on Monday nights.
Just as long as their not playing that terrible Trivia-plus-cornhole game. What was that?
