Why hate a sport?

little bit of both, but It's quite hard to ignore. In fact, I've been trying pretty hard to ignore it, but it's ridiculous that a "sport" like nascar gets 100X more airtime. but I'm proud to say I haven't watched a ********** sport since last super (gay) bowl, where my interest started fading. As for hating a sport, I've given it thought and decided that other sports are inferior, dumb and boring (seriously, how can you watch Canadian football?) and the fans have no passion.

 

You are a complete fool if you honestly believe fans of other sports have no passion. Soccer fans don't have a monopoly on sports passion.

 

I know they have passion, all sports have passion, but it's be better to say they wont ever be able to reach the level of soccer fans

 

I think racist chants and acts, hooliganism, and inciting riots are acts of stupidity rather than passion...

 

Well I grew up in Glasgow and if you like Rugby there you are immediately tagged a bit of a gay boy. I know it makes no sense but in Glasgow that’s the way it is. Now personally I have nothing against Rugby really. I do not understand it at all. But I can understand why people hate Rugby. I have friends that went to privates schools and they have a real hatred for it and the people involved. They were not allowed to play football at school and the bitterness came from this. In short I think it’s more about where you grew up. I remember when I moved to London and I was shocked people actually liked other sports apart from football.

 

as opposed to sitting on your ass the whole game, and getting up only to get a hot dog? It shows the importance of each sport. And the trouble makers are seriously outnumbered anyways

 

Are you referring to "American" sports or the EPL?

Are prawn sandwiches more "passionate" than hotdogs lol?

You do realise that you...um..."support" (glory hunt/front run, whatever) a team that is notorious for lacking atmosphere in their stadium(s), right?

The "Highbury Library" has just moved down the road.

Arse 0-2 Mighty Burnley



Arsene needs to get home where it's nice and quiet.

 

Coming from a Crew fan? You couldn't even come close to a Highbury or even Emirates atmosphere. And it's quite ironic for you to say "glory hunting" seeing that last season...did you attract more than 10 fans? Sorry, but filling up half of a stadium just doesn't create that great of an atmosphere does it? And quite frankly, you've thrown yourself into a debate I wasn't even talking about. I was talking about other American sports. MLS stadiums can create better atmospheres than most non Canadian football games (which only gets loud for 2 seconds) As for the Burnly game, our U-18s could run the Crew off the pitch

 

It's American Exceptionalism, sporting version.

 

Americans love to hate on Soccer - until you tell them that Baseball and NFL Football are literally "cheap imitations" of Cricket and Rugby.

 

I saw a kid with one of those air brushed shirts and on the back it had "soccer sux" and on the front it read "Real Americans don't play soccer" Sad that you would diss like a sport so much that you would pay to have your negative feelings about it put on a shirt.

 

You gotta feel bad for the boy and his Family. The bigotry that a lot of Americans have towards Foreign Sports(Soccer/Rugby/Cricket) is outrageous!

And in My own personal opinion, I think that 99.9% of the People in this Country are just PARANOID at the fact that a FOREIGN SPORT is gaining some traction in their own Country. And what do haters do when they see something they don't like gaining traction? They do whatever they can to bring that something(in this case Soccer) down. Unfortunately for all of the Soccer Haters in this Country, they SUCK at trying to bring down the popularity of Soccer in this Country. If I were them, I'd come up with new, fresh, creative, and innovative excuses to Hate on Soccer instead of saying the same darn things over and over again like broken Tape Recorders.

 

Nah, I don't think "they" even notice that soccer is gaining traction in this country. I must admit, I'm not even sure I notice myself. Sure there's more soccer on TV but there's more of everything on TV.

The problem I have with the traditional North American sports is that they're basically infomercials. The NFL is the biggest joke, often having two-minute breaks on either side of a 5-second play. It's very difficult not to dislike a sport that takes advantage of their customers like that.

I used to like ice hockey because of the natural flow it had (much like soccer only faster), but when they installed numerous TV timeouts in the middle of each period and extended the length of the two intermissions, it was just too much to take (for those who don’t know, there used to be only 3 or 4 thirty-second commercial breaks each period). Within a matter of 4-5 years I went from being able to tell you what kind of season a 4th-line winger on the Hartford Whalers was having to not even being able to tell you the finalists of the Stanley Cup playoffs the previous season.

 

We are forgetting that the Fox Soccer Channel was once FSW, and showed an impressive array of world sports, including both rugby football codes, AFL, cricket (very occasionally), even motor racing. Not that I preferred watching rugby football, but this was the very channel we all love (or are forced to watch), a few years ago.

 

Where can I see this commercial?

 

IMO the friction is because of media coverage. Fans of the current sports that get shoved down our throats are afraid that if soccer becomes big then the major media outlets like ESPN, ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox (regular Fox, not FSC), etc. are going to show soccer games rather than their sports - and soccer fans obviously hate the fact that they have trouble following their teams (since they are rarely, if ever, on television) because the media outlets are too busy covering other sports that aren't interesting (like baseball).

 

Well, just read all of this thread, and spent some of it going "huh?"

Still, just to add in my twopennorth.

I dont understand why there seems to be such a BIG streak in the US set against Football. The only thing I can think of is that those that "hate" soccer are the "Ra ra America" types. I am not doubting my fellow Football fans on these boards who happen to have been born on the other side of the pond (Hey, not your fault. We all have our crosses to bear...) and their patriotism. However, most on here strike me as reasonably sensible types who dont blindly go "USA number 1!" At the drop of a hat. "Number 1 at what?" I ask. Baseball? Japan are the world champions at that. We could list all the ways the US is not number one. But it would get really boring, and result in tit-for-tat bitch slapping and fingernail clawing. So, lets not go there now. Save it for a rainy day.

Those "ra ra" types want to believe that the US really is the best, and whenever its proven otherwise, they do the whole 'fingers-in-ears-and singing-lalalala' thing. They are happy to follow Baseball since there is the "World Series" (The history of the name is probably lost on them), and dont bother to wake up for the World championship. The NFL is, of course, "real" football, and the final is "THE SUPERBOWL." Basketball of course is a US thing, and regularly win golds at the Olympics (where they are losing interest, I'd guess, with China topping the table now).

So, I would guess they "hate" football because its one sport that geniunely spans the globe, where the US' impact has been marginal at best. I'd guess that it grates so much that they turn round and decide football is not worth it since there is no "USA number1!" at the World Cup. And then the likes of Jim Rome (curse on his house), and the like, jump on the bandwaggon.

This is, of course, only my opinion, coloured somewhat by a visit some time ago to a friend of mine who I met at university in the Netherlands, and had gone back to the family home in West Virginia. Her whole family where the "ra ra" type, and my friend, is not.

 

don't know how much i can add to the discussion since i hardly ever post here, but here goes...

first of all, i think the "americans don't like soccer because there are so many other sports in the united states" argument isn't valid. if americans liked soccer, they would by all means watch it. they would make time to watch it even if they also liked football, baseball, basketball, or hockey.

so, in my view, it's not that americans don't like soccer because there's too many other sports and soccer has slipped through the cracks. they have watched the game and conciously decided they don't like it. so what are the reasons?

it's a stereotypical and common response, but nonetheless i think it's true; most people think soccer is simply boring. to most americans, there is something unsatisfying about a game ending 1-1 or the dreaded 0-0 draw. we want to see a result and we want to see some scoring.

i will admit, for me personally, soccer was an acquired taste. you have to make a conscious decision to sit down, watch the game, and try to find out about it. i was drawn to the sport for the same reason so many others are drawn away from it; soccer is "different" from other sports. it's not like i forced myself to like it, but it just wasn't something i was entirely naturally drawn to.

i think another major part of it is the perception that soccer is a "foreign" sport. hockey in the united states i think is damaged by the same mentality although not as badly. when you watch sports you want to watch players that you recognize and names that sound "normal." i guess the "i don't like soccer because 'we're' not good at it" reason could apply here too.

to a lesser extent (because developing this reason actually requires watching some games), a lot of people don't like it because of the diving. exaggerating fouls and injuries is a much more pervasive part of soccer than diving is in basketball, for example.

in football, america's most popular sport, the only real "diving" that occurs is kickers exaggerating getting hit to draw roughing/running into the kicker penalties, but that doesn't happen all that often and when it does it is widely derided and openly laughed at/made fun of. diving in soccer is treated more as "part of the game." i'll also admit, this is one area that the "soccer haters" i think are correct about, and it is a disgraceful part of the game. other people make fun of the fact that soccer players will be stretchered off of the field (with apparently a serious injury) and reappear minutes later...which does happen often...

maybe to a lesser extent, perhaps americans don't like games without a set or rigid structure. football and baseball are games that follow a set, methodical structure of play that is repeated throughout the game. basketball is more of a free flowing game, but when you think about it, it is also somewhat structured; the defensive team more often than not gives up half of the court to the offense and sets up defensively around their own goal. hockey, a distant fourth in the "big four" of american sports, is very much a free flowing game like soccer.

these sentiments might have gone away in recent years, but americans are also turned off at the hooliganism and rioting done by soccer fans. americans are very passionate about sports as well, but people saw those acts for what they were: stupidity, and were turned off even more to a sport they didn't even like in the first place.

finally, americans have the unfortunate attitude of "if it doesn't happen in the united states, i don't care about it." we tend to have the attitude like we're the only country that matters, and we decide what's popular and what's not. when the rest of the world goes nuts at "some soccer tournament" overseas (like euro or the world cup), we scratch our heads and think "why does everybody else care about that so much?"

 

wow...well their feelings toward american football seem to run even deeper than americans' feelings toward soccer...if you take a soccer ball and kick it around at a park in the united states, people wouldn't think that was strange at all.

 

i think you hit the nail on the head.

1. the free flowing nature and the low scoring of the game doesn't translate well to the American mindset. Notice that in the NFL, NBA and hockey, when defenses were taking over they changed the rules - to generate more scoring. Soccer is more about how you play as much as the score. The beautiful game. The closest parallel is hockey (as Skip Bayless calls it - soccer on ice.) But to me this is what is exciting - that the game can take a dramatic turn at any time. Harder to do in the other sports because of the scoring I think.

2. America has the best of the best when it comes to NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL but not so with soccer. The big 4 sports all have an American imprint but soccer does not. The MLS is a minor league and European soccer is just different. The way strategy is implemented, the way players go about influencing the referees (read: simulation), and, related, the injuries. I still don't know what that magic injury spray is . It's just different.

But some people just don't like or can't appreciate different. To be honest I've lost interest in baseball and never really gotten into hockey. I appreciate them as sports, but you'll never catch me watching unless it's maybe the 9th inning of the World Series. But as far as disparaging the sport, I save my bullets for the organization running it. And I know we've all had our share for Blatter and Platini for their politics.

 

I think it was pulled after just a couple of showings (I looked for it and never saw it) due to the backlash from the soccer community.

A couple of points:

1) Soccer requires an attention span that other "American" sports do not. (Try getting up from your seat during the action at say, a Liverpool vs Man Utd game) many fans of "American" sports spend more time getting their faces fed or going to and from the bathroom than they do actually watching whatever game they are at.

2) The soccer bashers fear soccer. They fear its growing influence and are well aware of its global implications and its total domination of being "The Worlds Game" as a result they put it down whenever they can in a sort of King Canute futility.

 

I still think lack of understanding is the primary reason for all the hate. Despite its similarities to other sports (put the ball in that space over there) it has dramatic differences.

One of the most important ones is the percentage of chances to goals in soccer. It is much lower than most American Sports. In the NFL, when your drive gets to the 10 yards line, you tend to get the touchdown, and if not, at least a field goal. In Basketball, you score virtually every attack. In Baseball, get to third base with less than 2 outs and you tend to score everytime too. In soccer, despite advancing the ball to the edge of the penalty area, or gettng to the byline and whipping in a cross, it is still unlikely that you will get a goal.

Whilst watching it, Americans simply don't understand how difficult it is to score, or pass or defend as a unit. This lack of understanding tends to lead to mild disapproval, which other factors turn into hate.

(Who else has heard something along these lines. YOU HAVE A GOAL THE SIZE OF A F**KING BARN, WHY CAN'T YOU SCORE! Blatent lack of understanding)

 

and to me that's why it's so brilliant when you score a goal or devastating when you relinquish one. It's this that makes the thing such an adrenaline rush and so addictive.

 

Footy is king. Any other sport is it's peasant