That respect has to be earned. It's coming along slowly but surely. I first became a hardcore soccer fan when I was 12 years old, back into 1989. That was when the US qualified for Italia 90. At that time there was virtualy no soccer on tv. They actually showed comercials during live matches when they did show it on tv. There wasn't any professional outdoor soccer. The national team averaged roughly 5000 people a match. 15 years later the US has a thriving professional league. The national team draws 30,000+ for just about every match. With my direct tv satelite I can follow professional soccer from 15 different countries. Things don't happen overnight. When the US gets to the point where MLS is on par with MFL and the national team is a regular quarterfinalist at the world cup the media will give the game more respect. It's all about baby steps.
I love soccer and I am American, but most Americans are indifferent to soccer. It's not that they dislike it, they just have no interest in it, like field hockey or cricket. Americans have other games which they love-- great games. To understand why Americans aren't interested in soccer, you have to understand why they love their own games and what the difference is. I won't bore you with details but Am. Football is an incredible game of innovation and strategy--a coach's game where innovators win. We identify with that. Baseball is a game where every at bat is dramatic, a duel between pitcher and batter, no matter what the score is or the meaning of the game. Basketball is a player's game like soccer, kinetic, spontaneous, and skill-intensive. Although soccer is a great game, where every goal is contested and dramatic, Soccer will always find it hard to compete with native US games. It's just too unfamiliar and unnecessary. There are some in America who hate soccer because they think it's a game of fakers (Americans cringe when they see soccer players players rolling on the ground pretending to be injured in order to get a yellow card). They think US soccer fans/players are pretentious, because, unlike other countries, soccer tends to be an upperclass sport here with strong Euro connections, which is too bad. Some of my friends see soccer as a game of very cheesy haircuts. I know it sounds silly, but they laugh at the soccer ponytails, mullets, and hair bands-- again the cheesy European syndrome. And no American would refer to one of their games as "the beautiful game". To them it sounds a little grandiose. For some, a lack of respect for foreigners contributes to the dislike of soccer, which is idiotic. Also while we are getting a lot better, but we still don't rate with the best (Brazil, Germany, France, Argentina, et al). Americans don't like watching second rate anything, which is why the EPL is so much more popular with TV viewers than the MLS.
baseball sucks because it bores you to death, and nothing happens. ever. football sucks because it's boring, and takes no thinking outside of the pregame planning, other than thinking about how to eat to make yourself fat, so that you can pad yourself up like a marshmallow and ram yourself into other players with the same thought process. most american's suck because they don't understand soccer, or they would realize how much better it really is
Did some big bad football players take little soccer weanie's lunch money at school? Poor little baby.
So, all our kids play soccer because it is not liked? We have two English language cable channels devoted almost entirely to soccer coverage because it is not liked? WTF?
2 english cable channels doesnt compare to 10 or so devoted to pigskin and basketball..and football is only approved for soccer moms and young kidsand is not looked as a major competetive sport..thats what the american media says. They look at it as some little kiddie pastime sport..and thats why its not liked and will probably remain this way until the american mainstream realizes and treats it like a real sport....
Andy, I think that is one of the problems with soccer in the US. The fact that most people have their kids play, both boys and girls, might be hurting the popularity of it. By this I refer to only the popularity of the pro game. Many of the people who have their children playing soccer do so because they view it as the safe sport. The one that poses less of a threat to the health of their kid. This fact is the reason why many people in the US view soccer as a sport for kids and not so much as the true sport it is. They view soccer as a sport that anybody can play at any level. I know to us this is ridiculus, but to them it is not. Deadrun, Is right when he says that soccer in the US is a middle class to upperclass game. This is opposite of most of the world. Here many people think of soccer as a foreign game and others see it as a "richboy sport". I could be worng but if we were to take a survey of most soccer playing boys in the US mos would mention an athelete from another sport other than soccer as their favorite sport figure.
I think it comes down the (lack of) press. Most Americans don't really view soccer as a legit sport because it's virtually ignored by the mainstream sports media (other than some fleeting attention during World Cups).... They don't see how it could possibly be a big deal if it's never even mentioned in their local sports page. It will be interesting to see what happens when all the "old school" sports editors start to retire/die off (the ones who will print 2 pages about some run of the mill baseball game, but not even 2 sentances about the MLS or the US National Team).
I call the American version of football "American Rugby". And I have satallite, and yes, I know they showed the games on ESPN, I saw them too, but I also had local channels at the time, and I would expect that they'd also say a lot about the World Cup in there, but they didn't. Also, in CNN they did talk about the world cup, but not enough, same as in ESPN. In Costa Rica, during the World Cup, you barely hear about anything else in sports news.
I never said that people hate soccer because their kids play it. Thats not what I was saying, I was saying that many people in the US see soccer as a childs sport and this is influenced by he fact that most have their kids playing it. They do not see soccer as a true professional sport, but rather as a childs game.
Don't forget people think it's a chick sport too...... It's not manly because players fake injuries all the time and they have ponytails. The NFL on the other hand is manly because everyone wears tights and they pile on and huddle up a lot. Hmmm.....
Most people in the US do see soccer as a soft sport. A sport for children. I had a good laugh on the day of the world cup draw. I turned on the local sports radio station to see if they would mention anything about the draw. I was right they did mention the international tournement being played in 2006 to bad it was the baseball one.
I remember when I was in junior high in a small town in Missouri in the 70s. The PE teachers had one soccer ball and tried for one PE class to show us what the game was about. That was the extent of my exposure to soccer until I joined the military and went to Spain. The last time I checked my home town's web page the big discussion was where to put their second soccer field, due to high demand. The US has come a long way, and will continue to do so.
are you saying you're a big bad football player? wow, I guess you're pretty hardcore then! Actually i donated my lunch money. When you meet someone too stupid and lazy to hold a job you just feel pity sometimes.
Survivor wherever Trading Places America's Next Top Model Fear Factor Home Makeover Just about any other show that falls under the "Lack of Reality" category.
elchiverio's first post was correct. US people don't like soccer cuz they aren't the best. That is why Marcelo Balboa said what he did, i doubt he actually believes the US is a contender. But if the US believes they are good, if the fans believe it anywayz, then they will watch it CUZ THEY WANNA BE THE BEST. and the sports analysts know that is true, that's why they say stupid things like that.
mmmmmmm I don't know. By saying the US doesn't like it because they aren't the best is really flawed. Lets say the US wins the 06 World Cup. Would that really change soccer in America drastically???? Doubt it. It may add some spark but it wouldnt mean soccer would be top 3 anytime soon. If soccer is gonna make it in America its gonna require for our NT to continue their great work and the MLS to evolve.
This thread contains way too much ignorant rambling. Where do you people get your theories on soccer in America?
The fact that soccer is ignored doesn't bother me. The thing that does though is the emasculation of those that like it. E.g the idea that soccer is played by ******** and you are somehow a wussy or socially inept if you follow it, no true red-blooded American male would like soccer.
Soccer is not popular here because the American Media won't let it be. And not because they don't like the sport, or because they think it is "childish" or whatever other reason, it's simply because they can't make money off it because there are no stoppages in the game for commercial breaks. Think about it, NFL games are 4 quarters of 15 minutes. It's not even as long as a soccer game (60 minutes compared to 90 minutes), yet a soccer game is over with in less than 2 hours and NFL games regularly last for 3, sometimes even 4 hours. How is this possible? Because during NFL games they spend more time running commercials and ads than they do actually showing the sport being played. Every single stoppage in play (after a score, a timeout, a turnover, injury, etc) takes up to 5 minutes because they had to run all their sponsor's ads and whatnot. 35-40 years ago, when the sport wasn't on TV (or at least didnt get major coverage like before) these stoppages would take 10-20 seconds to get the offense off the field and get the defense on. the media forces the game to slow down, so they can run their stupid ads. If they could stop the game (in soccer) for 2-3 minutes every time there was a corner kick or a throw in, I think they would show soccer on primetime all the time. But they can't, the best they can do is ads at halftime and occassionally have the announcer mention who is sponsoring this "portion of the game". To them, that's unacceptable when they have sports like basketball and [american] football where they can show hundreds of ads per game. So, they put the sports where they can show lots of ads in primetime and really push those sports, and put the ones that aren't "advertisable" on the backburner and hope no one notices the lack of coverage. I mean, basketball now even has a rule where there is an automatic "TV Timeout" called if there hasn't been a stoppage of play in a certain amount of time to make sure they can show their ads and whatnot. It's completely ridiculous... but it's the reason why basketball is on TV every night and soccer isn't.