Manchester City v Liverpool short on global pull but Premier League still wins

The USA Network has been encouraging its Twitter audience to engage on the topic of Manchester City v Liverpool. The cable channel, whose strapline is “here for the characters”, will be showing the top-of-the-table Premier League clash on Sunday morning United States time and it put out a call for gifs of characters “fierce enough to compete on the pitch during such an iconic matchup”.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for a channel that largely shows reality TV, witty responses weren’t overly forthcoming. There were only eight replies in total, and five of them came from accounts of other channels owned by NBC, which holds the rights to Premier League action.

“Peacock” suggested Ron Swanson, of Parks and Recreation, would make a “perfect hard-nosed defender”. “SyFy” nominated the hunky Tate from the monster-strewn comedy Astrid & Lilly Save the World. “E!” picked out Paris Hilton for “galloping into our hearts and on to the field”, which made more sense when you learned that the channel has new episodes of Paris in Love every Tuesday night.

A game effort by a number of social media managers, but perhaps the responses are indicative of where the big match sits in terms of global interest right now. We’re used to hearing that the Premier League is an international product, that it’s watched in “188 of the world’s 193 countries recognised by the United Nations”.

We also know of the fan clubs in places far from the Etihad and Anfield (and for those in Delhi this weekend, the Manchester City supporters group will be watching live at “virtual-reality-led entertainment gaming centre” Smaaash at the Radisson Blu). But will this match be stopping traffic in Mumbai? Will the game be on everyone’s lips in Guadalajara?

It’s a question that’s