A few years ago I stayed a while in Canada where I saw for the first time soccer was actually played in The States. Next thing, they are doing really well in The World Cup. The sad thing is I still couldn't put a name to one single U.S. player, though having said that, the name "Walker" springs to mind. Do you Stateside get to see the European games ever? I know that the TV companies seem to control who can get to see what, for instance, we only see Metrostars and whoever they were playing that week. What's more, do the names van Nistelrooy, Bergkamp and Kluivert mean anything in the U.S? What do we actually know about each other? Isn't it about time we were all given access beyond ESPN and Sky TV?
I don't think we get enough, but Fox Sports World and ESPN broadcast a few matches each week of EPL, Bundesliga, Brasiliero and Argentine. Somtimes La Liga matches get through. I used to get Eredivisie, but no longer. Many broadcasts are tape-delay, but at least one per week is live. Also, my cable service offers one live PPV EPL match each week. There's satellite coverage that some of the NYC pubs show, and I go there for matches I can't get elsewhere. I wish there was more, and I think with time there will be more.
1) With Fox Sports World, we had a French league match on tape delay yesterday, and we'll have another one today. Also this weekend, there will be two Bundesliga matches. This summer, FSW has shown matches from MLS on saturday night, and from the A-League (our de facto second division, even though we don't have promotion and relegation yet [and for the love of God, don't start a thread telling us how great that would be ]). Anyway, FSW will also give us two-three Premiership matches every week, one or two of them live, the other on two hour delay (we get the Monday night matches live). In addition, there are PPV options. In any case, while the Premiership and MLS seasons are overlapping, we'll have about 7-8 games every weekend just on Fox, mostly from Europe (not counting the Brazilian and Argentinian match here), plus an MLS match on ESPN. 2) To the people who post on bigsoccer as well as those who follow the sport by getting up early and going to pubs, yes. For the average American sports fan, no. You could get a line up with those guys and Phil "The Power" Taylor, and the average American sports fan would have to guess which one doesn't play soccer. 3) This is bigsoccer, not bigepistemology.com 4) Well, if you shell out for a dish here, you can get more, but I already have more soccer than I can possibly watch right now, so I'm not going to complain. I can remember when the only soccer we had was 1 hour of a bundesliga highlights show called Soccer Made in Germany on some public TV stations, and the (very) rare tape-delayed and abbreviated game on ABC's Wide World of Sports.
Sorry, I didn't want to put anyone on the spot with the three players, Bergkamp, van Nistelrooy and Kluivert. The reason I mentioned these three was to illustrate the lack of coverage of world football. All three have been or are prolific Dutch strikers within Europe and because of where they come from we can only guess at pronouncing thier names. Patrick Kluivert plays for Barcelona whilst Denis Bergkamp is an occasional striker for the London club Arsenal. Ruud van Nistelrooy used to play at PSV Eindhoven but is now a super striker at Manchester United (also known as "The red scum"). As for what do know about each other, well I was getting carried away with myself. Cheers, Hellbottom Hunter
You didn't put anyone on the spot. The Americans that use this website know who those players are. It's your average American who wouldn't know those players. The Americans you meet on this website are not average.
Actually, I've heard that we in the States are, at least in theory, able to watch more different leagues than someone in the UK. In the Los Angeles area, there are enough Spanish-language channels to be able to see most of the matches played in the Mexican league each weekend; FSW shows various European leagues and ESPN shows some Champions League; and there are a number of satellite channels, independent cable channels, and pay-per-view outlets that offer lots of other competitions. In theory an American viewer (with enough VCRs) can watch over 20 matches this weekend from a dozen different countries. Why does the name "Walker" stand out to you? The only active American pro named Walker that I know of is the Metrostars' new goalkeeper Johnny Walker, who's never been capped before and has played most of his professional career in Chile. And his main claim to fame seems to be sharing a name with a brand of whisky. I'd expect names like Friedel, Keller, or Reyna to be more familiar to you than Walker... What I'd like to see is more soccer on "mainstream" channels like ESPN or even the big broadcast channels. Unfortunately, at the moment soccer on TV in the US is a money-losing proposition unless it's either the World Cup or the Mexican league.