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In preparing for an interview, I reached out to GolTV in order to determine the progress if any on getting the all-soccer-all-the-time channel started by Uruguayan soccer legend Enzo Francescoli in the line-up on Time Warner Cable in Manhattan–where I live and where there is as yet no GolTV, no Setanta, just Fox Soccer.

They offered me an interview with their Chief Operating Officer, Rodrigo Lombello. So before we sit down with the station’s most famous voice, let’s spend a few minutes with the man pulling the strings.

How do you approach cable outlets in regards to carrying GolTV. Is there a two-way conversation there? I’m thinking about Manhattan in New York City, where GolTV is still not offered?

We have a very good distribution in the U.S., over 16 million subscribers. Hispanics are the main driver of our business. Of course there are areas and systems that do not carry GolTV. I think the biggest example of that is Time Warner with Manhattan. They do carry us in L.A. It’s been difficult to get in. It is going to happen the same way it happened in L.A., Miami, San Francisco, Houston. Exactly when I can not tell you.

How Proactive are you with those discussions?

We are very proactive. We are in constant conversations with them for various reasons, not only carrying GolTV in New York. The main strategy of the business is that we want to be carried in both languages. We have our feed in Spanish that appeals to Hispanics and in English for our non-Hispanic viewers and second and third generation Hispanics. My kids, for example, like to watch GolTV in English not in Spanish. They were born here and barely speak Spanish to be honest.

What has the growth been like between the two different feeds?

In the last year and a half we are seeing much more growth on the English feed. It doesn’t mean the market for the English feed is growing faster. What happens is that the Hispanic tiers (tiers = cable packages) were kind of the low-hanging fruit for us. For the first three years of operation we got a great penetration in the Spanish-language tiers and there is not a lot of room to grow there anymore. We are almost in every single home that has Hispanic tier. The future for us in English-language [broadcasts]. That is how we reach 16 million house holds. There is not more than 4 or 5 million Spanish households that have Hispanic tiers. If we were only a Spanish language network, we would never be where we are today.

Does that drive then what leagues or games you look to televise? I’m thinking here of the recent deal to sign-up the German National Team games which on the surface would appear to draw the English-speaking crowd over a Spanish-speaking one.

Yes, that is a perfect analogy. If you look at GolTV’s programming in 2003-4, basically what you had there were the key Latin American leagues: Ecuador, Columbia, Guatemala, El Salvador. It mirrored the Latin American communities that lived here in the U.S. That was a good strategy for penetration into the Hispanic tiers. Now, the programming shifted for the last two years. We try to have a broader appeal in our programming, not only Hispanics, not only the communities, but things every soccer fan likes to watch. So the German national team, Holland national team, the Spanish league with Real Madrid and Barcelona. The teams from German like Bayern Munich and Stuttegart. Those kind of things appeal across the Hispanic and English viewers. But you are right. That is what we are doing, and you see more of it on GolTV. It means better quality. Compare for example the El Salvadorian league with the Bundesliga games. It’s a huge jump, in costs but also in quality. And we should see it in our ratings. And our ratings have been increasing by 100 percent every year since we started to move – its not moving away from Hispanic communities, but moving away from the extremely niche programming – like El Salvadorian soccer. Only people from El Salvador can watch.

You rarely send announcers to games, instead relying on remote broadcasting. Just a financial issue for an international sport?

It’s a financing in terms of return on investment. We do send our announcers out for four to five games a year, like a Real Madrid-Barcelona or a great national team game in Europe. Not only because they are calling the game from there. Our viewer does not see a huge difference if they are calling out of our studios in Miami or the stadiums. The main thing that happens is that you can have a pre-game show with the announcers there. They can be interviewing players before the game is played. They can give analysis after the game is played with fans, players, and managers. That is where we really see the difference and that is the value of sending people to you Europe or Latin America. Not calling the games.

But if you look at our regular schedule on the weekends, for example, we have ten games. There is usually five back-to-back games on Saturday, another five on Sunday. We don’t have time to be doing pre- or post-game. So it would be an expense without the return because just calling the games for another country doesn’t make a difference. So in a few great events that we have, then we decide to not carry two back-to-back games and have three hours for a Real Madrid-Barcelona so we have a half hour pre and half hour post. Then it pays off to have people there. What we always have though are correspondents in Spain and Germany and Italy. You end up seeing them much more on GolTV News than on the live games, again because of the schedule.

Has GolTV expanded internationally in terms of television markets?

The U.S. was the first to be launched. Then second was Canada. The last year and a half we launched in Latin America. So it is throughout Latin America with the exception of Brazil, because of language. We don’t have a Portuguese feed, but we will; it is only a matter of time. But GolTV in Canada is doing well. GolTV in Mexico has very good penetration also, and we are expanding South of Mexico right now, with Columbia, Chile, Peru. It’s a natural expansion if you think about soccer in Latin America.

I’d guess those are easier markets than the U.S., no?

I’d say it is much easier than launching here in the U.S. in the beginning. It was hard in the beginning for people to understand or believe that there was a market for soccer-niche programming. But we don’t face that anymore. Everybody understands the value of soccer.

Where is Fox Soccer Channel on your competitive radar?

They are competitors of GolTV obviously. If you look at the soccer fan in general, we are both trying to appeal to the same audience. When you start thinking about the segments of the soccer audience, than we are not that much of competitors. If we tried to appeal a lot to Hispanics. We still focus a lot on Hispanics. We are moving to the general audience but we are very strong on Hispanics. Fox Soccer don’t appeal to Hispanics, right? Or it doesn’t seem to be their strategy at least. The only thing I can see there is the programming that they carry. While the Premiere League is great it is not a product for Hispanics. Historically they have an attachment with La Liga from Spain which is much much stronger than England.

But it helps. Since Fox rebranded Fox Sports World as a soccer channel, we’ve only seen the business grow. I think they feel the same way. So we are competitors but we are not eating each other’s pie. I think the pie is too big still. So it works that both GolTV and Fox are promoting the sport. There is so much growth in the market.

So you are fully confident in the growing popularity of the sport here?

It is not right to say you have two Americas, but there are two segments. When you think about Hispanics. 45 million people living in the U.S. That’s a no-brainer, right? Soccer is the number one sport for 80 percent of that 45 million. And I knew that because I am Brazilian. I know that soccer can be more than a sport. It is a religion that everybody follows very closely. And it’s a huge market. If you think about 45 million people, that is the size of Spain; It is bigger than Argentina. In itself it is a huge market and guarantees the payoff of our investment. So we always believed in that segment of the market, and we also believed in the non-Hispanic. We thought it would take a lot of time for that market to evolve and grow and that is actually what is happening. It is growing, but it is not a boom. Soccer is not the number 2, 3, 4, it is the number 5 sport in the U.S. but I think that over time this is going to change. It’s a great sport, a great participation sport, and you see that right? It is the most-played sport in the U.S. More than football and baseball or anything else. So in the long term I think that translates into more viewers. But it is a long-term thing. Short term, it is Hispanic.

That being said, how closely does GolTV follow MLS?

We follow the MLS every day on our news show, and we have our weekly show American soccer. As far as games, we don’t see that happening this year or next year. Maybe 2010. It is a matter of ratings. When we see MLS having a rating potential that surpasses the German or Spanish soccer than I think it makes sense for us to make the move.

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