There's futbol and football -- and now, both can be watched in Spanish.
Last night, almost three dozen people listened in the Penn Humanities Forum to hear Clemson Smith Muniz, a self-described "pioneer in promoting Spanish-language broadcasts of the so-called American sports."
A 1979 College graduate and former Daily Pennsylvanian sports editor, Muniz is the founder and president of Smith Muniz Productions, a groundbreaking Spanish-language sports media company.
However, as he started out covering local news for the Hartford Courant in Connecticut, Muniz's entrepreneurial ambition didn't emerge for several years, and it wasn't necessarily in his plans.
"I'll confess, I had no master plan," Muniz said. "Serendipity, luck, knowledge and growing up in Puerto Rico all made an impact."
After stints covering the New York Yankees, writing sports for the New York Daily News and working as a correspondent for Madrid's El Pais, Muniz and a co-worker made a career-changing, discovery.
Surprised that no major American sports teams were broadcasting their games in Spanish, they formed Smith Muniz Productions and "pestered the Knicks" until it happened.
From there, there was no looking back, as his newly-founded company expanded into both the television and radio markets, bringing American baseball, basketball and football to Spanish-speaking audiences across the United States.
As Latinos are now the largest minority group in the country, Muniz's company capitalized on the lack of options for Spanish-speaking sports fans.
"Hispanics in this country are no different from any other sports consumer except they speak a different language," Muniz said.
And indeed, the growth of the Hispanic minority has translated into enormous growth for Muniz's company, who now list companies such as HBO and Major League Baseball as major clients.
Muniz is also in demand as a play-by-play analyst, as the voice of the Mets' Spanish-language broadcasts on Fox Sports Net, and the color commentator for the CBS radio's Monday Night Football.
And, according to Muniz, the explosive growth of the Spanish-language sports market isn't slowing down, as NBC recently bought Telemundo, and ESPN will be launching their new ESPN Deportes network to an American audience in January 2004.
College senior Dennis Watson the event left inspired by Muniz's many accomplishments.
"I'm looking to maybe get into broadcasting, and any chance I get to hear someone who's really made it is a valuable opportunity," Watson said.
That sentiment was echoed by Rickie Golden, a member of Fox Leadership's Student Steering Committee and one of the organizers of the event.
"He's used his minority status to create amazing opportunities, and the results are quite impressive," Berrin said.
