Who make up the fans of pro soccer

[BenReilly]

Originally posted by Godot22


The fact is that essentially everyone who seriously cares about soccer in this country has already made up their minds about whether or not to support MLS.



The fact is that whenever someone says "the fact is" he is expressing an opinion, usually a bad one.

I would have thought that everybody in America would have made up their minds about whether or not to support the Big Mac. You would think after X number of years, and Y number of Big Macs, that people could finally make up their minds about the Big Mac. You're either for the Big Mac or against the Big Mac, right? And yet McDonalds spends enormous sums of money trying to convince all of us to give the Big Mac just one more chance.

People make entertainment decisions day by day. And it's not just yes or no, but also more or less.

[BenReilly]

Originally posted by kenntomasch
I don't know who make up the fan base, but the people who are watching MLS on ESPN2 as of 2001 were:

Predominantly male (66.3%)


I think that number is actually low in a sense. To the men at bigsoccer: Think of how many times you've watched a soccer match with a woman. Hundreds and hundreds, right? Now think of how many times she would have watched it if you weren't there. A few times? Never? If we're thinking about who is making the decision to watch or attenend games, the figure is probably well over 90%, like most other sports.

I hope I'm not offending any women here. There are plenty of great female sports fans, but they are in the distinct minority.

[Northside Rovers]

Originally posted by BenReilly
I would have thought that everybody in America would have made up their minds about whether or not to support the Big Mac. You would think after X number of years, and Y number of Big Macs, that people could finally make up their minds about the Big Mac. You're either for the Big Mac or against the Big Mac, right? And yet McDonalds spends enormous sums of money trying to convince all of us to give the Big Mac just one more chance.

I made my mind up a long time ago. I hate Big Macs. The last time I had one, I was drunk in college in 1988. I think. Anyhow, you could send Michael Jordan and the Hamburglar over to my house with a 6 pack of Newcastle and a Big Mac and I still wouldn't eat it. Crap is crap.

Originally posted by seahawkdad
One of the two oldest still plays in adult leagues, yet doesn't like to watch soccer, saying it's boring.

I have said this before, but I will never understand this phenomenon. Someone with the knowledge and the appreciation for the game won't watch it. For me, it was actually participating in an adult league that helped fuel my interest. But he is not alone, there are several folks on my team who don't care a wit about pro soccer.

Over the years I have broken some of them down. 2 years ago I was the only one on my team with the MLS shootout package. Now 3 of us have it and there a 2 Burn season ticket holders. I have been to Burn games with 7 or 8 different guys on my team.

It takes time and effort. Especially time. 7 years is not that long. Drew Bledsoe has been a pro quarterback for longer.

[jmeissen0]

Originally posted by Northside Rovers
Over the years I have broken some of them down. 2 years ago I was the only one on my team with the MLS shootout package. Now 3 of us have it and there a 2 Burn season ticket holders. I have been to Burn games with 7 or 8 different guys on my team.

It takes time and effort. Especially time. 7 years is not that long. Drew Bledsoe has been a pro quarterback for longer.


i think the easiest way to bring new guys into the fray is to let them know that alcohol plays a crucial part... you tailgate, go inside the stadium piss drunk, work off the alcohol by going crazy with the local support faction, then go outside and have another beer or two before heading home

works pretty damn well for me in encouraging guys that HATE soccer, not to mention soccer fans that have never been mls fans or are euro-posers

[otterulz]

Well, I'm a new soccer fan. I got into soccer by supporting Korea in the World Cup. I thought it'd be a once in a 4 year thing for me to start following soccer but it stuck. It's funny cuz I've tried before to follow but found it boring. Now I have a respect for the game. And while I might now be a fullgrown soccer fan, it's slowly happening. I figured since I can't watch the Korea NT play for another 4 years, I got the Metrostars right across the Hudson. I'm slowly learning about the league and BigSoccer has definitely helped a lot. I've even been watching EPL and other international teams through FOX Sports World. I'm still a baseball and hockey fan before anything else, but hey, I'm learning.

[jamesf24]

Originally posted by otterulz
Well, I'm a new soccer fan. I got into soccer by supporting Korea in the World Cup. I thought it'd be a once in a 4 year thing for me to start following soccer but it stuck. It's funny cuz I've tried before to follow but found it boring. Now I have a respect for the game. And while I might now be a fullgrown soccer fan, it's slowly happening. I figured since I can't watch the Korea NT play for another 4 years, I got the Metrostars right across the Hudson. I'm slowly learning about the league and BigSoccer has definitely helped a lot. I've even been watching EPL and other international teams through FOX Sports World. I'm still a baseball and hockey fan before anything else, but hey, I'm learning.

That's great. It proves that you don't have to have "disdain" for other sports to like soccer. Preach the news to your friends and go to as many games as you can. You'll be surprised how much it will start to matter to you.

James

[Elizabeth]

Originally posted by sebakoole

Players might make the best fans, but if they're the only fans then MLS won't survive. Please don't let soccer become like jazz. Jazz used to be much more popular in the US, but now it seems like the only people who really get into jazz are musicians themselves and so the jazz world comes across to non-musicians as insular, arcane and snobbish. If soccer takes this path I doubt that it will survive in the US.

..hmm, jazz/soccer, hmm...is Freddy Adu a reincarnation of John Coltrane?

You know what is interesting about your thoughts...soccer playing youths outnumber other sports. If they remain MLS fans...we would have big numbers. Ironically, we are horrible at keeping them playing (club, $$$$$, idiot armchair parents, burnout) and the ones that stick with it through high school aren't interested in going to games. I read somewhere that the retention rate in football and baseball is higher even if we outnumber them early on. It's money in America. It's too damn expensive past the rec level.


I know teens who loved MLS when they were young and it was new, and won't even watch it on TV...they tune into European soccer if the Simpsons isn't on.

[otterulz]

Originally posted by jamesf24


That's great. It proves that you don't have to have "disdain" for other sports to like soccer. Preach the news to your friends and go to as many games as you can. You'll be surprised how much it will start to matter to you.

James

Yeah, it's funny too cuz I find myself defending soccer when my friends start saying how stupid it is. I have a newfound respect for the game. Anyway, I'm tryin to go to a game. But I can't stand driving out to the Meadowlands. Traffic galore.

[Godot22]

Originally posted by BenReilly

The fact is that whenever someone says "the fact is" he is expressing an opinion, usually a bad one.

(bows)

I would have thought that everybody in America would have made up their minds about whether or not to support the Big Mac. You would think after X number of years, and Y number of Big Macs, that people could finally make up their minds about the Big Mac. You're either for the Big Mac or against the Big Mac, right? And yet McDonalds spends enormous sums of money trying to convince all of us to give the Big Mac just one more chance.

No, they're trying to convince people who might choose another burger entirely that they would like a Big Mac, while they ignore people for whom Big Macs aren't even an option. Very little of McDonald's spending on ads for Big Macs is targeted at vegetarians, for example.

Likewise, the American soccer-spectator community is divided into people who would consider watching MLS and those who would not. A huge portion of those who would not are rejecting MLS by virtue of its being an American soccer league and thus by its very nature an inferior product, despite any evidence to the contrary. Not only are these people comfortable with their present viewing habits, they, in many cases, derive tremendous satisfaction from having rejected something, you know, vulgar and American.

With tremendous effort and time and expenditure, you might be able to convince some of this relatively small population of people to try MLS, and some small percentage of that group may be convinced that the league's not so bad. But the opportunity costs are huge, and on the whole, MLS is better off writing that group off altogether in favor of trying to reach the much larger group of more easily convinced people.

[kenntomasch]

What he said.

[GersMan]

This is seriously, one of the best threads I've seen on Big Soccer. Very good sound to noise ratio on here.

I think there are multiple markets for the league to pursue. The American sports fan that godot mentioned is probably the prime one, in that they are the ones most able to unilaterally drop money down on tickets. When the ticket base/attendance goes up, TV can respond to that, not the other way around. To me, the stadium issue is more about financial viability then making the difference between fans attending or not.

The youth soccer community is still important. I know some feel they are too difficult to reach, but there are just too many people involved in this, who therefore have at least SOME acumen for the game, to just ignore. One limitation of this however, is that kids don't make many economic decisions. Most of us who were born in America, had to break from a trend to start following soccer. In my house it wasn't some major act of rebellion to start watching Toby Charles, but my folks, 25 years later, are still not into the game at all and never will be. But my being a Chicago Cubs fan and paying attention to American football and pro golf, all stem from the fact that my dad did this. I grew up with these things on in the house, and going to see MLB games at the stadium. These millions of youth players most likely are not growing up in that environment, because their parents are largely removed from the world of soccer fandom. But when these kids get to be adults and make spending decisions, well maybe they will choose soccer. It's a long time to wait, but it is worth the long-term investment to at least get them familiar with the professional game in this country.

As for the snobs, expats, who won't watch. I won't be quite as final in my assessment as godot (who raised many good points). I agree that most of them won't be watching anytime soon, but I wasn't likely to watch MLS in its first couple of season, and then noticed the quality of play improving and started paying to watch. As that aesthetic improvement continues, and other benefits of the league's progress kick in (more teams, more meaning to the regular season vs. playoffs, more recognizeable players), I think many in this group can slowly be won over - and the value of that is that they will be 100 proof support when they do come in.

But I am optimistic about things, more than I was even a couple of months ago.

[Pauncho]

And a personal observation. I went to several of those World Cup watching events at Crew Stadium at ridiculous A.M. A majority of the other viewers looked to me to be roughly university student-age males. Those guys are the future of ticket-buying sports fans in this culture. The long-term future will be better than the past, if only we don't stumble badly in the meantime and throw away the momentum.

[Em8808]

I'm obviously in the minority here since I'm a female. I've been at bigsoccer for a long time but never posted because I never felt like getting flamed for my opinion. I've played since I was 5, now I play club and for high school. My oldest brother decided to try out for soccer with the neighbor boy a long time ago and still plays in a rec leauge 22 years later. My oldest sister was on the first high school girls soccer team in the city. I could continue with all 9 of my brothers and sisters, but it'd be easier to say that soccer is religion to us.

That doesnt mean we're going to watch it though, we'd play it but not always watch. We'd watch soccer if it was on while we were channel surfing but not otherwise.

Then the World Cup came on and it was easy to see why it was a big deal.. I spent so many hours on ESPN.com and cnnsi.com, but most of them on bigsoccer. It was almost like a personal accomplisment when soccer made the front page of the sports section. Every win there felt like it was a personal win for yourself and every loss was heartbreaking. That's because I felt connected.

Then of course when the WC ended I needed to see soccer again. I needed to see my players play. By watching WC players in MLS that gradually introduced me to players not on the Nat. team, like Mulrooney, Twellman, ect. And of course I needed to find updates on John O'Brien, Claudio Reyna, and the rest of the Yanks overseas.

If MLS can make casual fans feel connected, they'll come back to see how their players and their team is doing.

[pc4th]

For good or for evil, I am bringing this topic back because it is a good read for those who haven't read it.

As for me, I like soccer first because I grow up in another country, then while in the U.S. with no soccer in sight (TV) I tune into baseball, basketball, but for some reason despise football. Then 3 years ago, I start to understand American football and find it entertaining. When MLS starts in 1996, I tune in games where I can watch on TV (ABC) because I didn't have cable. Then again in WC 98, and WC 02. Waking up early for the U.S. matches as well as several others, I knew that soccer will always be my number one sport. And thanks to bigsoccer as well as FSW and MLS games being on TV that I can watch, I am now a huge soccer and MLS fan. I used to like baseball and basketball because they are on regular TV, now I am a casual fans that might catch a game or two and that is it. I watch hockey but only in the playoff if my team make it. And when they are out, I lost interest. Even though the nearest MLS team is like 1000 miles away, I do support MLS and hope that it will expand to Seattle soon.
Each sport has its own 'good' and 'bad' in term of entertainment, however soccer's 'relatively few interuptions' make the game a lot more enjoyable.

[Nutmeg]

I am one of the converted players who now enjoys viewing the sport. That was not always the case.

During my playing days, I could not figure out why in the world someone would actually watch the game. I also played high school football and basketball, but I preferred soccer because it was the one sport where I felt free on the field and not as if I were robotically executing a directive from the coach. My thought was that if you weren't participating, soccer would be a terribly boring game to watch.

I gradually started watching soccer more as a point of national pride than real interest in the game. I followed the MNT in the early 90's and even though I hated watching their style of play, I wanted to see them succeed. It was like being on crack. I didn't want to take the next hit, but I had to. One of my best friends was a soccer watching nut, and it seems like every single time we got together it was over a soccer game. Gradually I started to enjoy the game from a different perspective, and I think I have learned as much from watching the game as I did playing it.

I think what will turn people on to soccer - SLOWLY - are the big soccer events where your casual sports fan is introduced to the sport. Many people are on these boards now because of 1994. I bet a few years from now we'll meet people on these boards who started watching soccer when Manchester United toured the US in 2003.

I wasn't necessarily a fan of MLS when the league started, either. I watched because I liked watching soccer, but I really disdained a lot of what I saw happening on the field. It hasn't been until the past 2-3 years that I have really felt good about some of the play that I have seen. Like others, I am very optimistic about the direction of the league, and I can see MLS rival the quality of other leagues like MFL and lower European leagues within the next 2-3 years.

[PZ]

Originally posted by kenntomasch
except in extreme demographic cases, which might include Los Angeles. What makes you say that? It's not like Campos, Hermosillo or Hernandez managed to add a large number of ticket buyers to the RB attendance.