Eh...I don't think the NFL or baseball is dying at all. But the way I approach it is that comparing soccer to football in this country is like comparing tennis to golf. They are 2 different animals. Football fans should not feel threatened at all by the growing popularity of soccer. Here, the sports are even played in different times of the year. Comparing the NFL or College football to soccer and who's the better athlete, etc is ridiculous. The two sports play different games, use different rules and you just cant compare them. I, for one, LOVE American football. Especially college football. (Roll tide!). But I am also a fan of soccer and my interest is growing. I've always liked more than 1 sport. I used to like the NBA. I like F1 racing. I occasionally watch golf and used to watch tennis. Most Americans are intelligent enough to have varied interests and can develop a love of more than 1 sport.
It takes a unique type of mental illness to go out of your way to trash a sport in an anonymous setting. Not like anyone wastes their time spamming "baseball/hockey/racing/golf sucks" in every MLB/NHL/NASCAR/PGA article. Sites like Awful Announcing have quite a few anti-soccer posters who devote at least 2/3 of their posts to bashing soccer, if you look at their post history. Sometimes, they'll even find a way to rip on the sport in the comment sections of articles that have nothing to do with soccer. Talk about insanity.
I love the part where they say "because they dont have other sports" when England has Rugby Union, league and Cricket. Also Mexico has Baseball , Basketball and yes American Football.
And I think Australia has the most diverse sporting landscape of them all: Rugby Union, League, TWO Cricket leagues, AFL, A-League, NBL.
Its development is more or less in line with other soccer backwaters. Which goes to show that internet/TV accessibility/videogames have played the biggest role in creating a new class of fans in non traditional nations.
Haha! El Clasico and Man City-Liverpool airing head-to-head, both trending and many Twitter tears being shed by the soccer haters. "You know it's a slow Saturday when UK soccer is trending!" "Soccer's trending? That's depressing." "I wish I could block all these soccer trends!" Don't even try to reason with these sad-sacks anymore. Ignore them. Block them. Troll them right back. In the end, they're the ones missing out by choosing to live inside their comfy American sports bubble.
I always say, why don't you follow a real sport like soccer. That one gets them all the time. They don't have a comeback. hahahahha
That's brutal. ALL of them, except Frank Beamer, are soccer topics. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! *stops laughing.* If that person comes back with Rugby or Cricket, does that work?
I'd like to think that soccer has hit a tipping point and there's nothing the haters can do about it, but they're not going down without a fight. Every sport has detractors, but how many of them go waaaaay out of the way to attack a sport like the soccerphobes do? Here's a sample of the trolls who create accounts specifically to spam anti-soccer posts on every SI soccer article. That's some serious effort to dig up articles for a sport you don't like just to rip it apart. Here are troll accounts from Awful Announcing. Accounts with not too many posts, but the majority of them are devoted to soccer bashing. http://www.livefyre.com/profile/93684786/ http://www.livefyre.com/profile/93607512/ Even in a SportsCenter Twitter post where there's clearly a large crowd waiting to greet the Timbers after winning the Cup, you see denial tweets like "that's impossible. there aren't that many soccer fans!" "nobody cares about soccer," "not a sport." You know they're grasping for straws when they have to resort to diminishing the local popularity of the Timbers by claiming "they're only popular because the Blazers are the only other team in town," "that rally still isn't as big as rallies for other sports teams" and "they're still not as popular as Oregon and Oregon St football." The homecoming for Portland Timbers at the airport after winning the MLS Cup was incredible (via @TimbersFC). pic.twitter.com/1WGF9w7zcR— SportsCenter (@SportsCenter) December 8, 2015 Not sure if it's fear and insecure, or if they're just being assholes for shits and giggles, or if they genuinely hate the sport so much that they think spamming/trolling soccer articles will stunt its growth. We're all used to hearing these predictable insults by now, but this unhealthy obsession bordering on mental illness is interesting to observe because you don't see the same type of relentless effort to tear down, diminish and dismiss a sport among detractors of football, basketball, baseball, hockey, golf, etc. I keep hearing that the soccer-bashing was a lot worse in the 90s and early 2000s and that they're becoming the minority. But if they're still extremely vocal now, then I can only imagine what it was like back then.
I have a different theory. Couple of people are being paid to do this (by you know who). $50k a year on couple of high school grads scanning the popular sites and social media for soccer stories/posts/tweets 7 hours a day and leaving anti-soccer comments there with multiple ID's is peanuts to them. There was a time when a lot of people used to do this sort of things on their own (not that many hours a day each of course but without having to be paid by anyone). But now their numbers have dwindled so much that some money is needed to keep this hula hoop going and try to give America the impression that the sport is still un-American or the country is still loudly rejecting it. Over the course of a year millions of young people are seeing these and it's bound to have some affect on some, especially when combined with some other negative/unfortunate happenings in the sport. Probably not much but definitely worth the small amount of money. Just a theory. There's a perfect way to counter it but MLS/US soccer would need to spend some money as well.
Send me a link to them. Since I've been a fan for years, I know how soccerfan thinks and know the best way to troll them. Also, I wouldn't have to give up my job to do it.
You would definitely be better at trolling at least because that would be your aim. I don't think these two guys are trolling or attempting to. Ninety percent of their posts/comments are ignored and yet they are there the next morning (and the next and every morning) with the same lame copy/paste job. Trolls thrive on attention and usually go away if there are none received for a period of time. Only someone on a payroll can be this consistent and half-ass it this badly.
Honestly I find it unhealthy to read the comments section on pretty much any article. Brings the blood pressure up and the IQ down. The next time I see something informative or thoughtful on a comments section will be the first.
At the bar, when I run into a soccer hater if I respond at all I just call him a soccer virgin. That ends that talk.
Agreed. Even the most extreme of the posters we have here on Big Soccer are the most polite, reasonable people in the world compared to some of the foaming-at-the-mouth crazies on a lot of other sites.
yeah rarely run into outright soccer "haters" at the bar. Probably mostly to do with people generally being respectful and polite in person, where they have to be responsible for their words. But I still run into the skeptic who throws in a little jibe here and there, usually about diving. Which is fair enough, I hate diving too, so I own it agreeing it's a downside of the sport, but hey like with anything you have to take the good with the bad. I think part of the reason for the anti-soccer troll, is the existence of their evil twin, the pro-soccer missionary. Who believes it is their duty to bring the glory of the worlds game to the unwashed masses. They preach the scripture that soccer is the bestest game in all the land and that any deamonising words are heresy. Like the Anti-soccer troll their numbers are dwindling but they were/are definitely a thing, and I think a big reason why a some people feel the need to explicitly share their dislike of soccer.
15 years ago I did, but now it's pretty rare; and the ones you do get are pretty good-natured about it.