Well not really, I have been watching the Saturday matches and I decided to to bone up a little on the sport and tell you what I think. I will give you a few seconds to run for the hills 1. I like to call it soccer, not because of the NFL though. I just LIKE saying the word soccer for some reason. 2. Some of the team names can be corny, but all the team names in America are a liitle corny. That being said I like the team names. I like the Crew best of all. It's catchy and sligthy menacing. It's the best name in the MLS. The three guys should be drawn on the badge instead of using a photograph. The photgraph is a little bit too corny. The only team names I dislike belong to Dallas, DC and Utah. 3. Don't worry about the ties. It's possible to tie in hockey as well, but I can't remember the last time a hockey game I was watching ended in a tie. The longer the league sticks around the less ties we are going to see. As for playing abroad, as long as it means we get to advance or win a game no one is going to have a problem with it. 4. I just don't see the hatred most of you claim the mainstream media in America has toward soccer. 5. I have heard that in some leagues losing teams are sent down to other leagues. If this is true this practice is best left out of the MLS. Thanks for you time.
Welcome to BigSoccer. You're relatively benign for a newbie. I'm always curious about where people are located and how they got into the sport.
4. I just don't see the hatred most of you claim the mainstream media in America has toward soccer. 5. I have heard that in some leagues losing teams are sent down to other leagues. If this is true this practice is best left out of the MLS. Thanks for you time.[/QUOTE] Hi Newbie, welcome to Bigsoccer. I'll tackle a few of your observations gently. The promotion/relegation system of sending teams up and down between divisions is used throughout the world. The implementation of this plan in the US is often debated on these boards. The advantage of this system is that all teams are playing for their lives every week. A couple of bad losses in a row and you're in the relegation zone, and panic starts to spread amongst the supporters. Many fans here feel that most games in MLS are simply meaningless and it would certainly add drama. I'm on your side of the debate. There are many reasons why, and here's just one. We are trying to get new owners and investors shell out big bucks to start MLS teams all over the country. Would they invest knowing that their teams could be sent to the minor leagues? As far as the media quiestion: It's not that we think the media hates soccer, they just seem to ignore it. It's the "Great Silence." Us soccer fans think highlights of MLS games should be shown on ESPN, and there should be regular articles in newspapers and magazines (SI, etc.) about the sport. Right now the majority of the nation's media doesn't cover the sport unless either the US Men or Women do something at the World Cup.
Well you soccer guys are going to have to have a little faith. Look at how popular poker has become lately. It's all over the televison. If Poker can take off, so can soccer.. Here are some of my other thoughts/habits 1. I can accept advertisers names on uniforms but I don't like it. The same holds true for football and basketball though. 2. Not really interested in watching soccer when it's not MLS. Don't know why... 3. Not really big on Freddy Adu. It's not his fault, it's just that MLS is pushing really hard for everyone to like him which turns me against him. 4.The only players I know by name are Adu (grrr...) Donavon, Beasely and Pope. I have no idea why I remember Pope though. 5. First game I saw was the Crew, stayed and watched it because they were from Ohio. Forgot who they were playing against though. 6. You can make alot of money selling jerseys to people who don't even watch soccer as long as the jerseys look cool.
Cool. But I doubt soccer can approach poker for these two reasons. 1. It's much easier to set-up/learn/play a poker match than a soccer game. 2. Poker tournaments can be shown five months after they occur, allowing for editing and all sorts of things that make it look really good and exciting (I'm not interested, though many people obviously are). 3. Commercials or lack thereof on broadcasts during play.
OK you're a good newbie, the newbie I saw today in world rivalries pissed me off. Anyways: 1. No one's really gonna care if you call it soccer, well every now and then a European'll get on you but hey you live in america and we call it soccer over here. I tend to switch between soccer and football, it's soccer in the summer and fall when I'm watching MLS and playing (my teammates got really confused one day when I called it football all practice) and in the winter and spring when I'm watching serie a I call it football because the announcers call it football, of course when I watch MLS in the spring I switch between soccer and football every 10 minutes. 2. There's a reason teams are changing their names, but you're right a lot of american sports teams have weird names. Dallas is changing their name next season next season to FC Dallas even though I'm willing to bet that that'll confuse a lot of people who might start to think Dallas has two football teams. Most people agree with you on Salt Lake, almost everyone thinks Real Salt Lake is a stupid name and just doesn't sound right but everyone likes the logo. 3. In other leagues there aren't nearly as many ties. Like right now Chelsea is on top of the EPL table with 29 points and Arsenal right behind them with 27 and that's just in 12 games, for MLS New England and Chicago had the lowest number of points at the end of the season (33) and they played 30 games and then Columbus and KC had 49 points at the end of the season, a lot of other teams in other leagues will have more points than this in 30 games because they're winning and getting 3 points instead of tying and getting 1 point. There's no problem with an occasional tie but MLS has an unusual number of ties compared to other leagues. The average number of games tied in MLS this season was 9.2, of course now that I'm looking at the overall records a lot of teams lost quite a bit too. 4. The american media doesn't like soccer because Americans aren't the best at it and no one here is going to tell you that the USMNT is the best soccer team in the world, of course a lot of people will tell you that the team has potential. Sometimes there are 20 games going on in one day in the best leagues all around the world but while these games are going on, some at very convienient times to watch here in the US like 2:30 or 3 in the afternoon or if you want to wake up to a nice game at 10 or 11 on saturday morning, but while these games are going on week after week after week ESPN and ESPN2 the sports leaders choose to show the more exciting and more interesting sports that we americans all love so much and talk about day in and day out. You know sports like fishing, hunting, pool, and who can live without the world series of poker, now poker is a sport that i just couldn't live without, if there were no world series of poker I think I might die . That and how often do you hear about soccer in the US? I don't think it was on the front of the sports section when we beat Panama 6-0, even though considering it's Panama not much to brag about there. 5. We don't have enough teams to send the worst one down to a lower league, even though I agree that's something I think they should keep in Europe.