Hey all, I don't post all that often-- hopefully this is in the right forum. I'm an avid sports fan with soccer being one of my top 4 favorite sports. I've waited patiently for a MLS team in the city I live and am excited that its here (now I just wish my university (FSU) would get a NCAA mens team-- thats a different topic ). What's bugging me is the meat heads on the "shock jock" sports talk stations here in Atlanta. Since the announcement of a team on Wednesday I've learned from these guys: 1. Atlanta will be lucky to average 5-8k per game.... they think the MLS teams average 10k at best right now. When someone called up one of the shows to explain that it's closer to 20k.. they flat out didn't belive it 2. Soccer is a communist sport (Perry Laurentino-- 680 the fan) 3. Soccer will never be football here.... and won't pass bball, baseball, etc in popularity (in the US). Ok I get that this is the south where SEC football rules (365 days a year) but why the need to bash the MLS and soccer in general? Why is there such distaste for the game here? I'm already preparing my son, who plays like I did, that there will be a good number of folks that do not like the game. Just be prepared. In regards to the sports talk guys, if you don't know soccer or MLS facts, why not don't say anthing at all? FYI- I'm a football fan as well-- and truth be told-- unless they find a way to get this conscussion problem under control I think football is the sport that could be in trouble down the road...
I wouldn't worry about it ... The more extreme they bash it the more it'll hurt them if the team draws well. Besides ... soccer is already as big here as some of those other sports ... just not MLS specifically
Geez, if all you ATL guys that have beating your chests around here would just flood call them every day, you could probably shut them down. Any given sports radio station only has about 6 regular callers.
I wouldn't pay much attention to them. They, like most people that still think like them, are just scared of the changing sporting landscape of this country. No of them want to believe how fast the sport is growing here so they bash it to make themselves feel better. If I where you guys I wouldn't say anything to them until the team starts. Then when you're stadium packed with fans every game you flood their lines with calls to shove it in their faces.
It becomes white noise after a while. For me it was the 2006 World Cup when I really stopped caring about these tired ramblings. The league was stable and growing and I could see first hand how far the sport had come. Now in 2014 these type of people just feel out of touch with reality, fossils that think it is still 1984 apparently.
The demographics listening to AM talk radio are not the demographics that a buying MLS tickets or anything associated with soccer. AM radio is the realm of old white dudes that are older than the key demographic. I wouldn't worry about it. It's just a way to gin up irrational anger and ratings among their audience. It's preaching to the choir just like any other talk radio show,
Very petty and common human reactions, due mostly to jealousy, insecurity, feeling threatened. To them it's a sense of competition. These bashing types cannot, and will not, accept any aspect of superiority(or even equality) that soccer may have over their own sports(usually baseball, basketball, Am. football). btw... if this bashing is a common occurrence with the prominent local radio/TV stations in Atlanta, then it doesn't bode well for the new soccer team. As I have said many times before, for an MLS team to greatly succeed in any market in the US, it needs to be accepted and treated as "Major" by the local radio/TV media. At the very least, there should be no hostility shown against the sport on local media.
To the OP, it can be f'n mind blowing for dudes that consider themselves to be "sports experts" when the most dominant sport on the planet comes up for discussion, these same sports experts don't know jack shit about association football. For that matter that there actually IS more than one code of football on our planet, thus these radio jocks grab for the low hanging fruit in a desperate attempt to be the leaders of the hating soccer crowd. Men's soccer has gone from the sport that the English play to hippie ball, to ****** ball, to a communist sport bent on takeover of 'Merica, to "it will never be popular here" hype pot USA'94 success, to 1998 with "the sport the French are good at" and now back to being some commie game that Americans ought to hate just cuz. Simply put, people often fear what they don't understand. With that fear comes their need to assault soccer in any form they can to make themselves feel good.
You said it yourself, right here, in so many words. The NFL has been around for almost 100 years, but these people are rabid fans of a school sport. If you're trying to get some insight into their mindset involving anything else, please consider that they'd have to have a mind to begin with.
It is rather difficult Auriaprottu, to understand why men and women who like sports, when they follow closely a competition with rivalries that are over 100 years old and where teams perhaps move conferences here and there, they never pack up their football team in the middle of the night and move to freakin' Indianapolis!
Dude, they're not watching school ball because it doesn't leave town. Come on. There's a psychological thing going on with those people.
This kind of thing happened on sports radio in Seattle and Portland too, if I recall. It doesn't seem to be happening in those cities any more.
Think about it the sports jocks are not the 12 to 24 demographic tMLS holds close to their heart. Why would they be pro soccer fans when the average meat head behind the mic is usually over the age of 24 years old.
I hope this franchise succeeds. The last thing MLS needs is another southeastern flame out. And competing at the same time as the Braves - good luck with viewers and attendance. I'm a bit skeptical.
I gotta say, I am too. No disrespect to ATL, but they haven't been the best pro sports town, it seems. The Braves are famous for NOT selling out playoff games. They lost their hockey team. I hope it works there. people have been clamoring on these forums for a SE presence in MLS. Well, here ya go.
Totally agree. I find this treatment of soccer on sports talk radio all over the country for the simple reason the typical listener is not the demographics of the typical soccer fan. They are overwhelmingly older white males that are conservative in nature. Very much the same crowd that listens to Rush Limbaugh. I wouldnt worry about it, the internet is the place to be for soccer discussion and news.
Because the south is full of close minded, irrational, uneducated white trash. That's why sports radio in the south is far more radical and ridiculous than anywhere else in the country. They know their audience.
Yep. Almost none of MLS's target demographic is listening to sports talk radio, or any talk radio at all for that matter.
Small cities too ... I spent some time recently with a HS soccer coach in a tiny corn field town in Southern Indiana and none of the players knew much about MLS except maybe the most rudimentary fact that the league exists. Of course they all knew all the up to date news on Premier League and Champions League
While I don't agree with painting with broad brushes save how shitty our refs are in our nation and Ohio St. fans, I know who you speak of. And yet the South produces some of our nation's most talented footballers some World Cup legends for our colors. Players like Eddie Pope, Clint Mathis, Josh Wolff, Clint Dempsey, Gringo Torres, Arturo Alvarez, Davy Arnaud, Justin Mapp, Ricardo Clark, Stuart Holden, Sean Johnson, Jack McInerney, Omar Gonzalez, Bobby Boswell, Lee Nugyen, Brek Shea, Drew Moor, Shea Salinas, Bill Hamid, C.J. Sapong. Funny in that there was always the old banter of "The South Will Rise Again!" by the same folks you speak of and yet nobody ever saw it coming that it was with association football! Ha!