I have NO idea what to make of this. There was a story in the N.Y. Times today about differences in auto ownership, recreational activity and TV sports watching preferences between Dems and Repubs. A couple of intuitive examples that make sense: -45% of Volvo owners are Dems (only 32% Reps) -WNBA fans are 55% more likely than average* to be Dems, and 33% less likely to be Reps *The recreational and sports-on-T.V. questions were plotted against a national average, the car questions were just plotted as a percentage of ownership. OK, here's the weird part. The ONLY preference, out of 11 sports viewing and 19 additional recreational activities where participants (or viewers) were less likely than the national average to be either a Democrat or a Republican? Watching MLS on T.V. MLS viewers are 30% less likely than average to be Republicans and 18% less likely to be Democrats. And there is nothing even CLOSE to rating that way. Like I said: I have no idea what this means (lots of Libertarians and Communists watching MLS Soccer Saturday? Lots of hispanic independents tuning in to the inDemand games?) I just thought it was weird. (also, sorry, no link. I was using a hard copy of the paper.)
My suspicion - it's a matter of youth. I recall seeing (don't know where) that MLS fans are younger on average than fans of other sports. And young people are less likely to be party members (less likely to vote too). That would explain the numbers. Here's the chart: http://www.nytimes.com/imagepages/2004/12/05/national/06STRATEGY.ready.html
Notice you have to be registered Rep/Dem to count. So registered party members are less likely to watch MLS than the "average American." Which implies that MLS's audience is. . . middle-of-the-road?
Alot of young people self-identify as independent, even tho they're loyal to one party or the other when it comes to voting. It's a faux-rebellion thing. Anyway, that's my take...young self-identified independents are disproportionally MLS fans.
I'll bet if you did a poll there, and shot everyone up with sodium pentothal, you'd find the number of self-identified Dems to be lower than the national average. Not as much lower as for GOPs, but still low. The number of 3rd party or independents would be massive.
Well, with John Galt and Hank Rearden trolling around on these boards, there may very well be something to this thesis.
If that's true, then there's an easier explanation -- disproportionate numbers of MLS fans are from Illinois, where you don't register by party. But then, I don't think you really had to be registered as a Dem or Repug to count.
I think these polls tend to be on self-identification. I live in Illinois, a state with no registration. Yet, if asked by a pollster, I would describe myself as a Republican. I think two things are going on here. First, younger voters tend not to self-identify as much. So yes, you have lots of independents in a young MLS fan base. Second, judging from the politics forum, you have a lot of people far to the left of the Democrats, so they do not identify as either!
I remember about 10-15 years ago during the height of the micro-brew revolution there was a brewery that ran print ads stating the "9 out of 10 people don't like our beer." What does this have to do with anything? I don't know, but seeing the numbers on the graph made me think of it.
MLS to the other "major league" sports is kinda like how a third party (Green Party for example - Libertarian if you prefer) compares to the Democrats/Republican parties: - MLSers as a group are smaller in number but are fiercely loyal to their sport, tend to be better educated, tend to be younger, etc. just like members of the Green Party. MLS fans also have delusions of grandeur about the time when MLS will be the dominant sport in the US. (ie. when we will have "made it" - just like third party supporters). - Likewise, MLS is newer than all of the established leagues (same for third parties); MLS has trouble getting the same kind of corporate media coverage that the established sports get (same for third parties); MLS doesn't get the same level of support from the political establishment that the other sports get (for example, see Mayor Bloomberg's efforts to build the Jets a $2,000,000,000.00 stadium - not so for MLS or third parties); professional soccer is considered a minor sport in the US (but is the largest sport world-wide just like the Green Party is the largest international political party). Ummm...the world cup happens every four years - just like presidential elections. (Help me out here! ) Face it - you've stumbled on BigSoccer's BigSecret: you're all Greens/Libertarians/Independents and just don't know it yet. Even the quality folks who post in the politics forum.
Think what you've got for soccer fans in this country, though: --Foreigners/First Generation Immigrants --Youth/Younger Adults --People who have traveled abroad (generally an educated, independent-minded class) These are marketing gold mines, but not usually loyal party types. Besides, I myself would not have self-identified as a Democrat pre-Bush. I always considered myself a fiscal conservative and a social liberal--hence, an independent--but what's gone on over the past 4 years has been so outrageous that it literally forced me into the arms of the Democrats with my money, time, etc. We've got a war without justification or visible exit, a record deficit that will bring the country to its knees, and a bunch of Bob Jones University types blaming gay people for the failure of heterosexual marriage. That's the reality of today's Republican party--so I guess that makes me a Democrat.
I feel the same way too, and you know if you ask around it seems like this is the view of a huge number of people - perhaps not the majority, but I believe its more common that all-out liberalism or all-out conservatism. I've always thought there should be a political party for people like us, the fiscally conservative and socially liberal, but one that's not as extreme as libertarians sometimes are. Such a party could really dominate politics. Too bad it'll probably never happen b/c people can't get over the third-party stigma.
He was a bit of a fanatic, but people generally misunderstood Goldwater all these years. Goldwater was a libertarian at heart.
Of course, a (the?) key liberty to which he was referring was the right to exclude coloreds from your store, or to discriminate against them in hiring. But like whores and ugly buildings, pols who were on the wrong side of the civil rights movement get more respectable with age.
Here is the link (I think the NYT requires registration) no soccer references in text, have to get the graphic http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/06/politics/06strategy.html
Uh, no. Barry Goldwater said that, he's from Arizona, and he was talking about Communism. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwaterspeech.htm As to where he stood personally on segregation, that's not so obvious. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/daily/may98/goldwater30.htm
The only thing I believe these statistics confirm is that MLS is way outside the mainstream right now which should not be a surprise.