Women's World Cup final was must-see TV

The riveting Women's World Cup final Sunday is not going to turn the United States into a women's soccer hotbed any more than the '99 final did.

Or any more than the 1980 or 2010 Olympics turned most Americans into hockey fanatics.

But the event was another example of the extent to which women's team sports now are taken seriously by mainstream fans -- i.e. men -- with no apologies necessary, especially when players wear USA jerseys.

The numbers certainly say so. Japan's victory on penalty kicks averaged 7.4 percent of U.S. homes and 13.458 million viewers on ESPN, both by far the second-best ever for a Women's World Cup game in the United States. (Sunday's game averaged 8.6 percent of homes in the New York area, 33rd among 56 major markets.)

The Americans' victory in '99 averaged a still-stunning 11.4 rating and 17.975 million viewers. But that game was on home soil at the Rose Bowl and on ABC, a broadcast channel, rather than ESPN.

And Team USA vs. Japan in 2011 was far from just a television phenomenon. It averaged 7,196 tweets per second at its climax, a record for any topic in Twitter's five-year history.

Adding to the drama was the fact ESPN was commercial free from the start of the second half through the end of the shootout, one of the beauties of soccer.

ESPN deserves credit for its thorough coverage, and for keeping the American flag-waving to a relative minimum.

Analyst Julie Foudy did not hide that she was pulling for the United States, but for the most part, she and Ian Darke struck a balance between objectivity and the understanding they were speaking to an American audience.

They got a tad too confident after Alex Morgan's goal put the United States ahead in regulation time but wisely were more careful not to assume anything after Abby Wambach scored in overtime to give the Americans another lead.

When it was over, ESPN's voices neatly shifted gears, acknowledging both the quality of the match and the broader implications of the victory for beleaguered Japan.

The loss was a crushing blow to the American players -- including the stars who saw huge marketing paydays dry up -- but the event was a smashing theatrical success.

Tierney SF-bound

Brandon Tierney is as New York as sports talk hosts come, but on Sunday, he is to fly to San Francisco, where Aug. 1 he starts a new gig at KBWF.

The station's 3-month-old all-sports format will pair him with former 49er Eric Davis in afternoon drive time, a showcase Tierney is poised to embrace at age 38.

"I would rather be in a position where I'm finally at now where they're building a station around me and they believe in me and they're letting me be me completely,'' he said.

Not that the opportunity came about by choice. Tierney was swept out in the latest round of schedule tinkering at 1050 ESPN, where he had been co-hosting middays with Jody McDonald.

At KBWF, he will be in the familiar position of taking on an entrenched station. In New York, it was WFAN; in San Francisco, it is KNBR.

But Tierney said his new station has advantages over his old one: a good signal, rights to a baseball team in the Athletics and a local-dominated schedule.

He said 1050 ESPN's 10-year struggle against WFAN is "an unwinnable battle'' under the current circumstances. Now it's not his battle to wage anymore.

HBO: KO documentaries?

The job from which Ross Greenburg is resigning is among the strangest in television.

The president of HBO Sports must navigate the shark-infested waters of boxing negotiations, then towel off and produce some of the most compelling documentaries and journalism in broadcasting.

It is a discordance that eventually proved too much for Greenburg, who is leaving the network after 33 years, perhaps to start his own production company.

HBO has no choice but to emphasize the boxing business when it chooses a successor, because that is where the money is.

But here's hoping the next boss maintains the legacy Greenburg has established in the less lucrative, more lasting business of telling the stories behind the stories of the games people play.