We here at bigsoccer.com know that anti-soccer bias is prevelant throughout the media, and we keep each other up-to-date everytime it pops up. I thought it'd be handy to have a guide of typical things said by the media, with the easy-to-spot anti-soccer bias intended in their words. Here are a few I thought of, feel free to post your own! ----------- “A riot occurred today at a soccer game” – “Soccer is a terrible sport, and it’s fans are inherently violent. Avoid it at all costs, and, for the love of god, don’t bring your family. Hopefully people will stop going to games and soccer will die.” “We’re in overtime now. For those of you who have tuned in for the MLS game, sit tight and we’ll get you out there as soon as this one is finished.” – “We here at ESPN hate soccer and have no respect for you soccer fans, and would rather show anything other than soccer purely out of hatred towards it, regardless of ratings or sponsorship dollars. In fact, we bribed the refs at this game to make sure it went into overtime so we could cut into your lame soccer game. Stop watching soccer, it will die.” “I’m not interested in soccer” – “I am a closed-minded bigot who doesn’t understand soccer and refuses to learn about it, because I only like American things and soccer is a threat to baseball, and I hope soccer dies.” Frank Deford: “I had eggs for breakfast this morning” – “I hate soccer and I hope it dies.” “The goal was scored by Hernandez” – “Soccer is for foreigners, and no red-blooded American male would play it, I hope it dies.” “The USA soccer team lost to Germany today” – “Soccer is for losers. Stop being a loser and watch baseball, and then soccer will die.”
Actually, I believe the television media's LOUDEST rant against MLS is the complete ignoring of a sport that averages 15,000+ per game, and compares well with hockey in cable-TV ratings! That's the injustice. Remember, for all everyone's dreaming that the media is NOT against soccer because of some good newspaper coverage at times, newspaper coverage does not pay the bills. TV money is the only way for sports leagues in the US to grow by leaps and bounds. It will have to take time, but we must secure more TV money for MLS to break through. It's a catch-22 because of ESPN's pretty-much patent refusal to show highlights and pump the league.
Please I lived with this since NASL days,so just don,t remind me of this bias towards soccer,I care less if media likes or not. I do NOT watch Boreball and the so called Football,so we are even. Just Supprot your MLS team,watch them on TV and buy kits from your team and be happy.
Hey, I've complained just like everyone else, but the bias is slowly lessening. Whining about it will probably only make it worse. As long as fans remain loyal, and we continue to put a positive spin on the game to our friends and acquaintances, soccer will get good word of mouth pub despite whatever the anachronistic anti-soccer bufoons out there are spewing.
Actually the anti-soccer morons like Mike Lupica are beginning to sound more and more desperate. They know how much the sport keeps growing and it pisses them off so they lash out. Just keep going to the games and these morons will just sound stupid and uninformed.
Some of you need a big fat reality check. Today on TV there were games in Ann Arbour and Knoxville that combined had many fans at them than MLS draws in 1/10th of its season. The journalists are hardly "desperate". They just hate the game. So what.
I think soccer could be huge in this country compared to where we are at now. It will probably take longer to reach our goal when my local newspapers ignore MLS as if it doesn't exist.
Brent Mussberger actually made a nice comment about the footwork involved in soccer being great for college football players during yesterday's Mich. State/Notre Dame. Yeah, it was good, and then Bob Griese made some dumb crack about it. It was a reference to Shane Walton, one of ND's star Cornerbacks, who led the soccer team in scoring freshman year before walking on to the football squad. Shane said soccer helped his footwork in covering wideouts a lot. He also said that if a pro career doesn't work out, he'd go back to playing soccer. As an ND grad, I'm very split about this. I'd love to see him play well for the rest of the season, but he could probably have been 1st Team All Big East if he stuck with soccer - he's a heck of an athlete. --Tom PS - As long as ND does well, get used to hearing about Walton and his story quite a bit.
Actually Griese said positive things about soccer. He mentioned that he regretted pulling his kids out of soccer infavor of more "hands on sports." He mentioned that the training in soccer has helped the footwork of many football players and that the European Hockey players learned their great footwork from soccer. He also noted that soccer is a fun sport and that the players can grow ponytails which the ladies like.
Falcon - This was it. I should have said that Griese did say all those nice things, but I was under the impression that the ponytail remark was a little sarcastic. I could have been wrong and too sensitive. (Ugh. Not good on my part)
Soccer and the War on Terrorism Has anyone noticed that they keep on bringing up how some of the hijackers were soccer people? Then we have the Bin Laden reference on one of the tapes. Also we have the Yemenis in Buffalo. They have pictures them in their jerseys in a National Magazine. Maybe it's a conspiracy to show that the game is foreign. Whatver that means.
Re: Soccer and the War on Terrorism Actually, I took it to mean that the suspects were normal American suburban kids growing up. And what do normal American subrban kids do when growing up? Play soccer.
Well, I just wrote a letter to my local newspaper. I know people think we should write positive letters, and I have, but I won't if there is nothing positive to say. What do they care about what some Brit thinks, but someone has to stand up for MLS. "The Revolution beat Chicago 2-0." In a large newspaper, if that's all they can write then I told them what I think of them. "They still live in the 1950's..."