Saratoga News

Local business hopes to be Saratoga's 'Soccer Central'

By Sarah Lombardo

Mitch Cutler is hoping to make the Saratoga Village "Soccer Central."

The owner of Saratoga Village restaurants La Fondue and Blue Rock Shoot has just finished outfitting Blue Rock shoot with satellite hookups, a 52-inch screen DVD television--so far--and enough World Cup Soccer schedules to post one in each room of the coffee shop. Cutler said he plans to broadcast each and every World Cup Soccer game in the series, which began June 10 and will continue until the final match at high noon on July 12. The games will be free to whoever wants to watch, but Cutler said he will encourage a $1 donation, which he will then give to the local California Youth Soccer Association and American Youth Soccer Organization leagues.

Cutler said the project, into which he has sunk about $4,000 for satellite capabilities and the equipment, sprang from a suggestion by his daughter's soccer coach.

"He said, 'Wouldn't it be great to have a place where we could all hang out and watch the games?' " Cutler recalled, adding that other friends and restaurant patrons also expressed an interest in a local gathering place for soccer fans. "Before you know it, it all snowballed," he said.

With hundreds of Saratoga's children enrolled in local soccer leagues, Cutler said he also thought broadcasting the games would provide budding young soccer fans with a place to watch the games with their friends and their parents. Cutler said he believes America's youth is catching on to the world's favorite sport.

"Only in the United States is soccer seen as a foreign phenomenon," he said, "and I believe that's changing."

Cutler tentatively plans to show the games in Blue Rock's recently refurbished downstairs, where the Saratoga Book Market was located. But he said he could add another television and expand the broadcast if there's interest. "If it's mildly popular, we'll show it on one floor," he said. "If it's really popular, we'll do it on both floors."

The idea hadn't seemed to catch on with residents as of the series' opening game June 10, however.

Live from Europe, most of the games are being broadcast to the states from early in the morning to noon, so Cutler said he isn't sure just how many people will make it to the coffee shop to catch a game--if any. He said he and his wife Tracey and business partner Josh White are toying with the idea of taping the games and showing them again later at night. But either way, he said: "I plan to watch all the games myself."

"Anyway, we did this so I could have a place to watch soccer with my friends," he said.

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