The Growth Of Soccer In The U.S. Suffers From A Lazy Media

Yup. Although, it's not just laziness, most of it is outright detesting the sport by the old guard, good ol' boys that run sports talk radio/ESPN in the US, from sports down to the local paper Sports editor. It's not just that they don't want to cover it, it's that they don't want soccer to be big. They want baseball and American football and basketball to be tops. They want golf to be more popular. They'll throw a bone to hockey and boxing and MMA and tennis before wanting to cover soccer. The local sports paper will devote scores more attention and space to high school or college sports than to soccer. It's not just laziness. A large segment of the sports media are old school guys who romanticize baseball and the gridiron and spend their weekends at the country club links. They hate soccer and can't stand it growing in America.

Or, as any American soccer fan who reads this article would say, "Duh!".

 

But what possible reasoning do they have for that? If they don't like the sport, then thats one thing, but to not want it to be big? That just doesn't make sense to me.

 

They see it as something strange foreigners do, it deligitimizes their favorite sports as the pinnacle of human sport, they don't like the younger generation liking different things than they do, etc. They see it as the culture changing, and they don't want it to change. They are threatened by it and wish everyone would enjoy only what they know and love already.

 

It's paranoia. As Americans (since 1776), we have historically defined our existence as "anti-foreign" (especially Anti-British) and "anti-Communist," which obviously works against soccer, which many Americans believe to be the "sport of those evil foreigners that Americans emigrated away from." The Cold War, in particular, solidified this mindset.

American Exceptionalism also plays a part in that we, as Americans, believe we are superior to all other cultures, thus, we are not the rest of the world and do our own thing.

 

I don't necessarily think this is a left vs. right discussion, but here's a take from a guy that The Atlantic calls the "most powerful conservative in America." In "The Ninnies of America" Erickson basically claims that "Normally, Americans roots [sic.] for Americans, but the ninnies of America, who tend to also love soccer, root for teams other than America because we are number one. They feel comfortable rooting for the USA team in soccer, because we are not."
Hopefully his influential reach isn't polluting minds into thinking that soccer is a "ninny" sport. In any case, can this can easily slide into the notion of soccer being "un-American."

 

While there are exceptions to the rule (Keith Olbermann, for example) most soccer fans here tend to lean to the left, primarily because of the left and soccer sharing similar demographics (millenials, latino, etc.)

 

You're painting with an awfully broad brush here, but yeah, I'd say for the most part this is true(although becoming less and less true with each passing second of the twenty-first century).

I think most intelligent Americans hold the more nuanced view that while we are definitely superior militarily to the rest of the world, most other cultures are just different, not inferior.

 

A slightly different perspective…

First, it’s not the job of the media to grow anything…most media is a for-profit enterprise…and despite its growth, I am not sure there's much of a profit motive, especially at the local level, outside of MLS cites, to cover soccer in all its glory…and without that profit motive, there is no reason to do so…I struggle to believe that if local newspaper/radio started covering soccer (more or at all) it would actually boost their ratings or readership….

Furthermore, the article, I think. correctly points out it’s the younger generation that is driving this growth/interest in soccer….Local newspaper and talk radio chasing the 12-20 something market? Are you kidding me? That market group has little interest in those archaic technologies…

I would also add that our growing interest in soccer is neither solely nor even primarily domestically focused…understanding your local target audience for football, baseball or basketball is relatively easy and self apparent…for those sports all you have to cover is the local pro team, a few regional college teams, the local high schools, and mix in some general national coverage…easy breezy, most everyone’s happy….I don’t think is nearly that easy for soccer…lazy is failing to do something easy…

 

Agreed. You often hear the same thing about the lack of coverage in tv and radio about hockey. They wouldn't mind talking about hockey, but their ratings start dipping when they do. It's just more profitable to talk about the bigger sports.

 

Where are his facts? He says soccer is being under reported but fails to actually say what that means.

Does he mean soccer isn't being covered in the local paper? I know my local paper has had a dedicated soccer reporter for 20+ years, but now he is also the college basketball/football guy the Olympics guy and probably about 3 other hats, but that's because local papers are dying and shedding staff. The Baseball beat reporter has other beats now as well.

Does he mean ESPN? You mean the same ESPN that now has a dedicated nightly soccer show, even though they no longer have a major club competition? The same ESPN that basically became all soccer all the time during the W.C. and will show every match of the Euro's next summer.

Does he mean the new Sports Networks, Fox and NBCSN? You mean the ones that have made soccer (Champions leage for fox, Premier League for NBCSN) a central part of their programing.

Does he mean Sports Talk Radio? I am guessing that is what he meant, but sports talk is very local and one dimensional. For the most part it's all gridiron all the time. At least in my city. And that's for good reason NFL is king. But even with that I still hear soccer talk on my local station occasionally (one of the hosts is a big soccer fan) and even Nationally. Dan Patrick talks soccer (thanks Pauly), and during the W.C. ESPN radio was full of soccer talk. I have to be careful driving home now when sports updates come on so I don't hear a score for a match I recorded. Mind you I don't live in a city with an NHL team but I hear more soccer talk locally and nationally than I do Hockey.

I honestly strongly disagree, but would be interested to see some numbers maybe we can get a break down of ESPN radios content for some real data.

 

Unfortunately, the mainstream US sporting media is not among those people.

 

After watching them (attempt to) interview my Seattle Seahawks over the last couple of weeks I'm inclined to agree.

 

I think he is talking about mainstream coverage. But I don't think it is laziness. The U.S. is already oversaturated with sports. Writers and hosts will pick what draws an audience and soccer is not one of those things.

At least in North America, soccer is not a big part of ESPN. ESPN FC airs on ESPN News. A niche show for a very niche network. ESPN might show an occasional Messi highlight, and they were all over the WC, but they are driven by sports stars playing in North American domestic leagues and college. Even hockey, which fits that criteria, barely gets coverage on it because it doesn't draw ratings. It is about demand.

The new sports networks are niche networks. They don't drive any discussion. Fox makes UFC a major part of their programming, but its not like UFC gets great mainstream coverage. NBCSN is still an obscure network. NBC is also committed to boxing now. That doesn't mean we will see boxing become embraced by the mainstream sports media again. Or horse racing and tennis.

Sports talk, which might be the only profitable thing left in terrestrial radio, is massive. And outside of the growing Spanish language stations, soccer talk is nonexistent outside of the WC. If your local station gives the scores of the local MLS team, that is progress. Dan Patrick almost nevers talks about soccer and it is more of a lark stressing its foreignness. Similar to Bill Simmons. If these guys, along with the Neanderthals like Mike Francesa, Jim Rome, Colin Cowherd, Tony Kornheiser, ect, started to pepper their shows with MLS and U.S. nat team talk, then you could say soccer has reached a national consciousness. But we are decades from that. Until then they will discuss what gets them an audience and that is not soccer. Maybe during the WC, but that is a brief moment every four years.

MLS has a strong online presence with podcasts and plenty of blogs and boards. Even many smaller clubs in the NASL and USL have good online communities. But if you are looking for mainstream changes, we will have to wait awhile and it has nothing to do with laziness.

 

Your key word is 'fans here'. I'm fairly conservative - in that I believe in the constitution and the values stated within. And when I was in my 20's I haunted BigSoccer quite a bit. Now that I'm in my 40s and have a family - I'm no less of a soccer fan, I just don't have time for the BS on BS. In my anecdotal experience, the young and the 'left' haven't been soccer fans en masse until the last 3-5 years. It's growing as a sport overall, and it's becoming trendy. So it's skewing more young and thus more 'left' these days as youth typically follow trends more than older people do by default. I'm happy for the growth of the game. More fans means fewer percentage of truly knowledgeable fans, which is sad, but it comes with the territory. I grew up watching the NFL and I wouldn't talk football with 99% of the people out there as I don't believe they have one idea what they are talking about. Enjoyed soccer because most fans were more informed. That's leaving us - but the numbers and eyeballs are great for the quality of our teams. Now just get the millenials to support MLS and we'll be fine...

 

Imagine that you have been a sportswriter for 35 years. You have made your living writing about sports that you know a lot about, such as baseball, basketball and American football. Now along comes a sport that you know nothing about, and it is growing rapidly and becoming the thing that sportswriters are expected to be able to write about. Many of them can write about it, both young writers who grew up with this sport and many older writers who realized decades ago the change that was happening and made the effort to learn about it and appreciate it. But those like you, who chose to ignore and it hope that it would go away, can't write about it. So now your ability to earn a living is threatened. Why would you want this sport that you know nothing about to become big? This isn't about being nice.

With many people who don't have an economic stake in the manner, I don't understand why they feel the need to make a big deal over how much they hate soccer. After all, I feel no need to shout from the rooftops about how much I hate liver and beets. But for those who do have an economic stake, like many older sportswriters, I understand it, even though I disagree with it.

 

Part is the old guard not giving up ground, part is that the subject of soccer isnt popular, and finally lack of familiarity.
Watching anyone at Sportscenter describe a soccer highlight is horrible.. They know they are seeing something "great" but dont have the vocabulary to convey it.. They trip up enunciating foreign player names that we are all too familiar with. It gets amateurishly bad, the terminology etc is always way off..

 

One thing that I see improving in American media coverage of soccer is fewer photographs of goal celebrations. These photographs used to be a staple of American soccer coverage, especially in the NASL era, because many photographers hadn't watched enough soccer to be able to recognize a potential goal-scoring situation developing, and thus didn't react until after the goal had been scored.

 

As if others who would consider themselves fairly to the left of you don't believe in the constitution and its values. At least its stated ones, minus the subtext ("all men" referring, of course, to white, land-owning males and no one else).

As for the "old guard" and their soccer bashing:
( a ) It seems to me to be less pronounced in recent years, because while they had plenty of ammunition through the 90s and into the early 2000s, many of their go-to moves ("no one cares about soccer," "the league is going to fold any day now") have been cut off. Maybe it's just because I pay less attention, but I don't think you can make a living with those old, rote cliches about soccer anymore. (Plus, a lot of those guys have, literally, gone to the great beyond.)
( b ) It was not at all a new phenomenon when most folks here became aware of it when soccer was invented in America in June of 2002. Dick Young was one of the leaders of the art form back in the 70s. And he did it less because he was threatened (though he may have been) and more because he, like Bill Conlin and Joe Falls and people like them, were miserable old ********ing bastards to begin with.

 

Keeping it short and sweet.

Sports radio is for old people, I've heard soccer disliking expressed there.

TV will follow anything that grabs ratings and ad revenue. Same with the papers.

This leads to the major problem in America. The Soccer scene is way too diverse. So many leagues and competitions and the best are NOT in North America despite being more popular than their homegrown counterparts.

Therefore there is less incentive for domestic media aimed at a general audience to cover soccer with the same level as the big 3 (or the big 4 if you live in the North).

Basically, that whole anti-soccer schtick is not as potent as it once was and if domestic soccer wants the media brain share they have to earn it.