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EDITOR IN CHIEF OF FUTBOL MUNDIAL IS BREAKING DOWN BORDERS,

WAITING FOR AMERICAN SOCCER TO CATCH UP

Robert Abramowitz - that’s him on the right before the Mexico-Iran game in Cologne, Germany, at the 2006 World Cup - has a drool-inducing resume: Television Commentator/Anchor - ESPN International (Latin America) & ESPN Deportes (US) - May 1994 – Present. Radio Commentator - NFL/Westwood One/Univisión Radio - November 2003-Present. Radio/TV Play-by Play/Analyst - New York Knicks - May 1996 – Present. Television Voiceover/HBO Sports - August 2001 – Present. And of course, Editor in Chief - Fútbol Mundial - May 2002 – Present.

And that’s just the stuff he is presently working on, to say nothing of his past. So, um, Robert might have a thing or two to say about Hispanics and American sports. But first, let’s get to know him. Part 1 of our conversation is after the jump, with future installments coming as soon as I figure out how to transcribe all the Spanish off the recorder.

Thanks for joining me Robert. I was thrilled to sit down with you because I think you are involved in some projects – several different projects at that - that a lot of people may not know about. Your family and work has taken you in a lot of places over your life, with soccer being a big part.

I hope I can make a positive imprint on soccer. That’s really what I want to do. I love the sport. I grew up with it in Mexico, and I desperately want to see it succeed here.

Let’s start there. You were raised in Mexico, but born here in New York?

I was born in the United States, in 1957, here in New York. My father started taking us to Mexico when I was about three years old. By the time I was 5 we were living in Mexico City full time. I stayed there until I was 13.

Why Mexico?

My father was in the diamond business, and he sought opportunities to cut diamonds and precious stones in Mexico where labor would be so much cheaper – the hope being he would have an upper hand over the great competition in New York. Unfortunately, he couldn’t find the specialists he needed. It never really worked out. It wasn’t easy, but we found a way to survive. My parents eventually divorced, and my mother returned to New York; my father stayed in Mexico. We were supposed to be sent back once she moved back and settled in, but after she left my dad kept us. They didn’t have what you would call an amicable separation.

Then in 1970 my sister and I were supposed to go to New York for a vacation. My father needed some time to fix his business and finances without having to worry about us. Now that I have a kid, I understand even more how hard it is to do things when you have kids at home. So we went to New York for two weeks. Two weeks turned into two months turned into half a year and before I knew it I was living here.

Were you wishing to be back in Mexico?

Desperately. I couldn’t stand New York. I hated it. In Mexico we lived in a house in a neighborhood that was semi-crowded but it was all houses and very small apartment buildings – like any neighborhood you might find out on Long Island or something like that. Middle Class. It wasn’t anything special, but it wasn’t anything terrible either. It was nice and then all of a sudden I come to New York and I’m living on 37th Street between Park and Madison and seeing these huge buildings. I remember the first night driving around with my uncle in his convertible. I was so impressed by the enormous buildings. I’m not claustrophobic, but I had that feeling of things closing in on me. Two weeks is fine, but two, six months go by, and you start missing your way of life. My language skills in English weren’t up to par with my Spanish.

That’s curious. A white American born in New York but whose first language was Spanish.

It was. Even though I went to bi-lingual schools all throughout my childhood, I was speaking Spanish 90 percent of the time. Ten years of that and drop me in New York. I was a Spanish kid in terms of language. I struggled in school because of it. I knew the answers in Spanish, but often not in English. It was frustrating. I feel for all the kids I see now, most of them not American, who come here and maybe know what to say but just don’t know how to express it in English. There are consequences you have no control over that put you down.

Where did soccer first appear in your life?

In Mexico, it’s everywhere obviously, the #1 sport. I quickly became attached to Necaxa, because I really liked their uniforms. White shirts with red stripes; red was my favorite color. They were a small team. They are still around but sort of in a different incarnation. But that was my team. I followed them and every day I would come home from school, throw my books over the fence, and everyone on my block would play street soccer. We would play until we would basically just fall in exhaustion. At one point we got new street lamps with brighter bulbs, maybe 1965 or 66, and that just extended the games. We’d play pick-up games against other kids from other blocks in the neighborhood. Sometimes it was street games, but we would also occasionally rent the local university’s field and play 11 on 11.

When you came back to America, did you immediately go hunting for soccer games? Obviously you weren’t playing pick up games in the middle of Park Ave. Take me through that transition.

I came back to the U.S. in mid-to-late July, and by November they had figured out I wasn’t going back to Mexico City, so they enrolled me in school. Soccer season was in the fall so I tried out for the team and made it as a forward. In maybe our third game I got clocked in Central Park really bad, injured my knee and was out then for six weeks. I came back, but that was my only year. There were pick up games here and there, but I was playing very rarely.

Still trying to follow your favorite Mexican team?

It was impossible. There was only one Spanish paper at the time here, El Diario, so not until Tuesday would I know the score of the past week’s game. And that was it. No details, just the score. My interest probably waned a little bit because of that, and because there was no coverage of any soccer in the States I didn’t think it really existed.

Too bad the internet wasn’t around in the 70’s.

I know. I could have at least found news if not a way to actually watch the games. I’d find some Chinese website that somehow manages to stream the games.

With government approval of course.

Of course. I don’t know what you are talking about. Everything is above board.

So you go your childhood like a good American implant, being weaned from your favorite sport. As you got older did that change once soccer became a bit more maybe not popular but at least locatable?

I went to Brooklyn College and tried out for the team there, but boy was I out of shape. Lenny Roitman was the coach. I went one day and did ok but knew I was nowhere near physical condition. I also should maybe note that I had a heart murmur when I was growing up and could never really run. I’d get winded really fast.

Tough for soccer.

Yeah, I find out it hurt my soccer ability. Running. Important. News Bulletin.

So no professional soccer for you. What did you study in college?

I had an idea of what I wanted to do. The first thing I did when I got on campus was seek out the radio station. I went to WBCR and said I wanted to apply to work with the station. I would have taken an engineer job, whatever, just to be in, but this guy asks, ‘what do you really want to do?’ Well, I want to be an announcer. So he says, why don’t you take the sports test? I was like, ‘You have a sports test? Cool.’ I take it; I ace it.

What was on the test?

I remember they asked me to name all the teams in NFL by division. I did it and named all the coaches as well. This was 1977 to give an idea of the league. So I ace it, the guy says ‘cool, by the way, what are you doing at 6:30?’ I say, ‘Nothing why?’ ‘Well, one of our sportscasters is sick today and we need someone to sit in and do our nightly roundup. Can you fill in?’ Uh, yeah. So I put together a little round up and they must have liked it because the next day they were like, ‘we want you to take over the Monday sports roundup.’ ‘Really,’ I thought, ‘cool.’ The funny thing is the guy I took the job from is named Jim Maloney – we ended up being pretty good friends. He is now one of the head writers at the radio station 1010WINS here in New York.

Within six months I was the assistant sports director and then a year sports director at BCR. I changed the way we basically did business because I said, ‘what are we doing here? What’s our purpose?’ They said cover the local teams, etc, and I said, ‘Wrong. Our purpose is to get jobs.’ How are we going to get jobs? So we go out and see what the professionals are doing. I’m going to apply for every single credential at every single sport and sporting event and cover it. And we did. One of the teams I got to let us in was some soccer team named the Cosmos, some guy named Pele had just come in. College radio didn’t care about him, but I sure knew who he was from watching him play when I was a kid in Mexico. And now all of a sudden with the arrival of some big-name players and their move to Giants Stadium, the Cosmos are a big deal. So I started covering the Cosmos and getting to know everybody there. We also covered the New Jersey Nets, World Team Tennis, and a few others who would let us in. It was great experience.

Did you fulfill that purpose of getting a job?

I was getting serious about the soccer. Not just going to games but getting to know everybody who was involved with it all the way up the U.S. Soccer Federation, even the president, Kurt Lamb, who was there at that time. The U.S. National Team played a few games on Randall’s Island in this decrepit 35,000-seat stadium when it was called Downing Stadium before it was ripped down and became Icahn Stadium. One of the games was against Peru, and we broadcast the game on BCR. We taped it on reel-to-reel and drove it back to the station and played it on tape-delay. I did the play by play for my first time at a soccer game.

Not a bad gig – first time being a US MNT game.

Yeah, right. Not bad. They beat Peru with a goal by Gary Etherington.

So do you start shopping yourself around with a demo tape?

No, not really. Towards the end of my time at BCR the indoor soccer league appears, the MISL, and I’m like ‘hey, its professional, let’s go cover it.’ So we go out to Nassau Coliseum for the New York Arrows. This is 1978. I got to know the general manager of the team and asked him if they were planning to do radio broadcasts. He said yes. I’m like ‘have you hired announcers?’ he said no, I said I’m interested. He was like, ‘really? Can you name all the players?’ So I did, going through the whole team. He said, ‘ok, you can do color.’ I was like, ‘that was quick. This is easy.’ In school, they were scaring the hell out of us. This one teacher I had would say that it is very difficult to break into New York radio. ‘It’s the hardest thing you will ever have to do. Working in radio here is a privilege. All of you will have to go somewhere else to pay your dues. And one day if you are lucky, if you get a break, if you know somebody, you might come back to New York.’

At this point I love New York and don’t want to leave. I was scared. And this opportunity presents itself. Wow. I just got a job in New York radio. WGLI out on Long Island. We did the first season and all went well, but that was the only year because they hired a new guy, Tim Leiwicke, to revamp the Arrows broadcast package. He brought in his own team, so I was out of the job.

Did MISL get any press back then, maybe piggy backing off the Cosmos, those years were the tipping point?

It struggled. Cosmos probably hurt more than help. They would sell out games occasionally, but it was usually less than 4 or 5000. It existed. It’s the same sort of thing you see today. It was marketed to kids mostly. It wasn’t the hardcore fans coming. You didn’t have the Yankee’s bleacher bums coming to games, which soccer still suffers from today. And again like today, there was a smaller contingent of Hispanic and South Americans who would come out. it was actually really fun. They won the championship that year.

That same year, Andy Roth, who was working with me at the station got a job on SportsPhone as a fill-in, and he said, ‘oh by the way, they are starting a Spanish language SportsPhone, are you interested?’ So I went there tried out, bang, got the job. That went for a few months, but it wasn’t catching on. I remember I was sick as a dog; it was around the time of the 1980 winter Olympics; I get a call from my boss and he tells me its over. I’m still technically in school still this whole time, but here is where I decide after the teacher scaring me about jobs, and after getting two back to back, I felt I needed to take these opportunities, so I left after 3 years.

So I’m unemployed. Out of school, living with a friend from Mexico; We lived off of her mother’s credit card for a few months. Which was funny, because we couldn’t go to the corner diner or McDonalds, we had to go to a decent restaurant that accepted American Express. So, we’re poor, but eating really well. Then this newspaper starts up. It was called Noticias del Mundo, which was owned by the people who owned News World. Which is owned by Reverend Sun Myung Moon. But hey, I needed a job. After awhile some of the people who worked for Moon’s church invited me up to Tarrytown to spend a weekend. I politely declined and eventually they got a little more pushy about it, saying I needed to be able to explain when people asked what the church was all about. I was like ‘let’s come to an understanding. I’m not interested in going up there. The reason I work for you is not to explain the church to people. I work for you because your checks don’t bounce.’ After three years one of the guys who used to work at Noticias moved over to El Diario. They began looking for a sports editor, and he recommended me. Another interview, another job. And a raise! To $26,000. Yes!

Did you realize early on that the Spanish market and working for a Spanish-language broadcast was an area that you could tap? A niche that you saw and filled? Were you conscious of that?

Yeah. I was. I figured the competition would be less in Spanish even though they paid less as I figured out later. I also enjoyed speaking the language, enjoyed the culture, and it gave me a tie back to Mexico which I adored. It was one of things where I figured I could be a bigger fish in a smaller pond. It was comfortable for me, but at the same time I wanted, like I do with soccer, to work to help improve the Spanish-language market and help it grow. It made me different and that was fun.

Now you returned to Mexico at some point?

Yes, I had a falling out with an editor in chief at El Diario. My last assignment as it turned out was to cover the World Cup in Mexico. I asked to go down. It was a win-win for him, because all he had to do was pay for a flight and I could stay with my dad. So I went there, had the best time I have ever had in my life. Everyday it was get up go to a game, write a story, go to a party, go to sleep, drive to the next stadium and do it all over again. It was 31 games of that.

I got to see some of the greatest games. I did miss France-Brazil, but I saw most of the Mexican games; I got to see every Argentina game which meant I saw the Hand of God, Maradona’s other amazing goal, and even got to interview him. I was impressed, but not in a positive way. First, he was wearing a earring, which in 1986 was like wow, how weird is that. And then he spoke about himself in the third person. I had never really heard anyone do that before. And he did it in almost every sentence. He was really hard to gauge; there was nothing personal about it. It wasn’t like talking to Pele who is such a mench he is amazing.

And now this is where you tell me you decided not to return to the States?

Well, I called back to the New York office and asked if I could stay another week and cover the Davis Cup which was happening down there as well. And they were like, ‘well, actually we wanted to tell you that we don’t have the budget for you anymore.’ It wasn’t a total surprise. So I stayed. I’m in Mexico, what am I going back to New York for?

My Sister had a coffee and pastry shop which I helped her run while I was there. A friend of mine then got a job at Mexico’s #1 FM radio station, WFM 96.9, which is a Televisa station. They went through a bit of a revolution, putting live DJs on the radio 6am to 10pm or midnight, which was new for Mexico at the time. I got a job there doing a show where I actually spoke English on the air. It was a good spot; no sports, just music. And lots of good people were working there. Alejandro González Iñárritu, who you know for directing films such as Babel with Brad Pitt, was just one. After a few years I came back to New York, worked a terrible public relations job, lived with my mom on Long Island.

Why leave Mexico?

Business was getting worse, things were getting scary in Mexico, especially Mexico City. I lost the Televisa job when they cancelled a new show I was working on and two months later – I was still working there as a producer – I go to enter the gates to the building and they won’t let me in. “We have orders not to let you in anymore.” That is how I found out I wasn’t working there anymore after almost two years.

So back in America?

Yes, hating my job, and playing with a lot of computers. I got very good with computers, especially the early Macintosh machines. So I kind of became a freelance designer, building resumes, and small magazines. My aunt was paying my rent. I was living on 83rd Street. This is 1989. I knew I needed to do something more than this and wanted to get back into writing. I figured I could write a great syndicated sports column. So I send out sample columns to every newspaper and I got a few offers, like $25 a column or something. Then I get a call from El Diario, the new editor in chief who was a friend of mine. He’s like, ‘oh, you are looking for work?’ So he offered me the night editor position. I took it, and during my shift I totally changed the paper. The paper was basically finished by the time I came in; I would flip through it, and then change everything I thought should be changed. I did that for six months or something and they said they were tired of me messing with it; it was costing them tons of money. I was like, well, I think it looks better. They agreed and offered me the city editor job. I took it. It was my first real job with a decent salary and benefits. I moved up from there until a restructuring made me miserable. I wanted something else. I got a credential to cover the 1994 World Cup here in the States, so I did that and it bought me some time.

Then while I am at the Cup I read a blurb that the Knicks are going to start a Spanish language broadcast. I thought it was my big chance. It turned out one of the guys working on it was a guy named Clemson Smith Muñiz who I knew from covering the Cosmos. I call him up. They already have announcers but invited me to be the first half-time guest. Their first broadcast is the last regular season game in 1994.

When the Knicks were actually competitive.

Just Wait. So I show up and realize Clemson isn’t there due to some contract problem and they need a second person to call the game. I do it, they are impressed and all that. So they bring me on to due pregame, halftime, and postgame stuff. So I’m doing that for a bit and they are like, “We also work for ESPN. You’d be really good at it; will you audition?” So I go up to Bristol and they made me translate a segment for NBA Action and voice it. After ten minutes of voicing it they cut it off and tell me I’m hired. The first thing I did for them was hockey. I loved it.

So here I am a die-hard Knicks and Rangers fan, covering the teams in 1994 when the Knicks go to the finals against the Houston Rockets, John Starks 2-for-18. And oh by the way the Rangers win the Stanley Cup that year. I was enjoying that work more and more while liking working at Diario less and less. So I did the math, thought about it, and decided to make the freelance jump. I’ve been doing that ever since. I pick up voice-over work as it comes, for commercials with HBO and other places. I just did a preview show for a boxing match coming up. You turn the SAP button on through your turn and you can hear it.

As the white kid who doesn’t speak another language – huge life regret right after not being able to play the piano – I don’t stop to think someone has to do that.

Yeah. I actually did Monday Night Football for ABC. If you go to Wikipedia you will find my name up there listed with all the announcers. I’m there with Howard Cossell which is wild. My wife, Brenda, used to call it ‘Money Night Football’, because I do promos all day and then do the game at night, which is one of the better-paying gigs. I made more money that day than I would the rest of the week.

I have a feeling this is going really long and we haven’t even talked about soccer really. I find this fascinating as I look toward my own path in the world, but I’m curious what readers will think. But We’re almost up to present day and back to soccer, so lets continue.

OK, 2002. My man Clemson calls (so many of the same guys come back into my story. Building those relationships is very important in the media world). He says, ‘I want to introduce you to a friend who wants to start a soccer magazine in Spanish before the World Cup, and I figured you’d be the best guy.’ So I meet with Félix Sención, a Dominican who wants to start a soccer magazine. Dominican? Soccer magazine? It doesn’t always jive, but just the fact that a Dominican wants to start a soccer magazine has me interested. And this guy is a master salesman ready to bet his bank on it. He tells me he has distribution, markets, a planned print run, a business model based on advertisements. But no editorial staff, no writers and he wants the magazine out in 3 weeks. Sure, I said, I can do it.

And this is Futbol Mundial. Was that a brand before this?

No. This was Issue #1. One of the reasons we were able to put it together so fast was that I had a pretty big contact list for Spanish writers because I had just finished helping ESPN launch ESPN Deportes.com. I was an interim editor in chief during the pre-launch and launch. I’m really proud of that work and the work they are still doing over there at this point. I hired a lot of good people who have gone far. I might be wrong, but I think it’s the #1 Spanish-language sports website in the United States.

to be continued…

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Check back in the coming days for more of my discussion with Futbol Mundial’s Robert Abramowitz.