Actually MLS tried running very brief ads (10 seconds) on 1/2 the screen during play a few times each game. It seems to work, but they need to time the ads better to what is going on in the game. in other words, dont run the ad and shrink 1/2 the screen when a counterattack is well underway. wait until play stop for some reason.
Heres why Every other country around the world has had 90 to one hundred years to develop the sport their leagues their clubs, and ita really the only major sport played in the country From what ive read heres what gathered someone correct me if i miss something The US had A division one soccer league in the 20's that rivaled european leagues in salary and players foreign and domestic. US OPen cup was started around this time. They even had equal and or better attendance than some of the NFL teams.Which was starting at the time. Hard to believe i know. Great depression came and wiped out the soccer league, after the world wars ended, cold war came sport was seen as foreign and comunist. American sports flurished soccer pretty much was dead NASL came and failed but managed to create the Whole AYSO system not directly but its what caused youth soccer to be born. the 80's came and soccer was pretty much non existant at the pro levels. Soccer just never had a chance to develop itself as a sport due to financial ,political,and world events before 1990. So really the US is behind something like 80 years to the rest of the world. I think that Soccer is doing a damm good job here if you think of everything that has happened since we qualified in 1990. Better world cup coverage, a domestic league, and a pretty good National team. And all you bashers are guilty of what are americans are guilty of. wanting the best now and not willing to wait. Yes its frustrating to me that Soccer isnt covered like the rest of the world, but it all takes time and patience and besides, theres people here that want Soccer in the US to fail because we are seen as a threat. It was the one sport where the whole world could say were better than america, so maybe its a good thing it isnt as massive of a sport. Drive around LA on the weekends and tell me soccer isnt popular, Soccer is pretty much being played at every park ive seen.
The question should be. Why is pro soccer not more popular in the US when there are so many people that play sport?
I think it is impressive that ESPN and its family of networks will be covering every game of the World Cup when you consider that the World Cup is played during the Stanley Cup Finals, NBA Championships, U.S. Open, College World Series, and like 450 MLB games including the first portion of interleague play. How much coverage will be included on European TV of Iran vs. Angola, South Korea vs. Togo, or any of a number of other games? Yet, you'll be able to see them here. We have a cable channel that shows soccer 24 hours a day. Last year both games of the USA vs. Grenada(Grenada!) was carried live on ABC. I think it is easy to underestimate how much coverage soccer gets in the U.S. due to the volume of sports coverage here. Americans are just inundated with sports coverage 24 hours a day, 365 days a year that it is easy to overlook soccer when in reality soccer recieves about the same total coverage as elsewhere in the world, but the overall volume of sports coverage in the U.S. is many times that of any other nation so soccer just seems smaller than it really is.
MLS average attendance last season was 15,108. In the Coca-Cola League Championship this season to date average attendance has been 17,128. Average MLS attendance would be right in the middle of the League Championship below clubs like Crystal Palace, Leeds, Norwich, but ahead of the likes of Cardiff, Preston North End, QPR, Luton. MLS average attendance would also be right in the middle of Serie A, below Udinese and Sampdoria, but ahead of Parma, Reggina, Livorno. MLS average attendance is also ahead of regular Champions League/UEFA Cup entrants Lille, Monaco, Auxerre, AZ Alkmaar. Average MLS attendance is better than the non-Glasgow Scottish Premier. And better than the pro attendance in Denmark, Sweden, Austria, Belguim, Switzerland, Norway, Portugal. No it isn't the English Premier League, or the Bernabeu or San Siro. But, MLS is in better shape than people think. Sure, if you compare it to the NFL or college football where the average crowds are much larger than all European soccer then it isn't that great. But, MLS is doing better than people seem to think too.
I agree that soccer is not liked in America, i have lived in america ever since i was born and i wish that i was born in Brazil, Spain, Italy, or England. In America we get little or no soccer on television except the soccer channel which you have to pay extra for. I see a MLS game once a month and that is it, although i have seen some premiership games on here and i was shocked. I must admit i am rebelious of America not liking soccer anymore. In the 50s,70s it was real popular now everyone plays (American) football and baseball. For some of those posts i have seen about the media talking about the national team, to tell ya the truth i havent heard one thing about it. I guess because they won't get any further haha
I don't think 15,000 was average, Real Salt Lake had 15,000 average, and that was 2nd in the league unless LA was bringin in 45 every game, which I don't know, i'm too lazy to look it up.
2,900,716 for 160 games equals 15,108. Los Angeles 24,204 Salt Lake 18,037 Chicago 17,238 Chivas 17,080 DC United 16,664 MetroStars 15,077 Colorado 13,638 San Jose 13,037 Columbus 12,916 New England 12,525 Dallas 11,189 Kansas City 9,691 Its below average compared to other American pro sports, but its not below average compared to attendance in most of Europe.
Why not? The argument has been made that Americans don't show an interest in soccer when MLS attendance shows that the league is better attended than most of the smaller leagues in Western Europe, and is average compared to the big leagues in Western Europe. Why aren't people questioning the soccer interest of Denmark?
Relax, that's for home consumption. ESPN, the Deuce, and ABC are showing ALL the matches this summer. It is true that more Americans will watch if they think we have a crack at winning. To say that Americans hate soccer is just too general. A lot of Americans couldn't care less about the game, but that's a far cry from hating, which requires some kind of emotional investment. No doubt there are some Americans who do hate soccer, but there are a great many more who, if they don't love it, certainly like it enough to get to some matches and follow the national team. Some Americans even love it, and support an MLS or lower division team -- or a team and league from Europe or South America or Mexico, bad 'cess to 'em! -- so it's just not possible to say one size fits all. To say "Americans hate soccer" is about as useful as saying the English hate wine.
ANyone whos born in the US is american regardless of what your ethnic background is or where your parents are from. and if your implying what i think you are yes theres white kids out there too it not just in LA county.
just the city of new york, which holds a total of 1 major soccer club, has a population which is almost 1.5 times bigger than all of Denmark. you see why you can't compare the two?
I don't think it's that impressive since it's the top sports event in the world. They would have to be complete idiots to not show every game. But where was this coverage during qualifying? USA games were aired, but that's it. If you want to see any other country play, you're out of luck. How much coverage will be on European TV? Don't kid yourself, it will be a lot more than ESPN will have, a lot. Here, you will be able to watch Togo vs South Korea on one channel, maybe (if there isn't another game on at that time that ESPN decides is 'better' to show). In Europe there will probably be 2-3 stations for each game, probably more for different languages (say, in France, they will probably air the games in English, French, German, and then maybe a few other languages as well... all on different stations). And then, after the Togo vs South Korea game, ESPN will cut to some lumberjack show or billiards or something. Most, if not all, European stations will stick around for up to an hour (or longer) getting interviews from the players, recapping and analyzing the game, and all that good stuff. Back to WCQ, in Europe, besides televising nearly every continental game and then several games from other continents, they have shows that are equivalent of "NFL Primetime" (an hour long show devoted to showing highlights and scored from NFL Football for the week) to recap the whole day/week's action from across the globe. Here? If it's a huge win (like USA vs Mexico) it maybe gets 15 seconds of mention on ESPN. Otherwise, no coverage at all other than when they actually bothered to air it live on one of their backburner stations like ESPN2. In fact, I got a chance to watch one of the European highlight shows completely (I've seen bits and parts of other episodes of the same program) and they probably spent more time covering the USA's match that week (which was the first one against Costa Rica in the hex I think) than the American media spent covering our entire campaign during it's year and a half span. Which wasn't hard, the European show spent maybe 3-4 minutes recapping the game and showing highlights; but it's more than the 10-15 seconds of air we get on ESPN for the occassional victory, which is essentially our ONLY coverage here. Yeah, there is a "24 hour soccer channel", but not many people have it (I don't). In Europe most of the soccer channels are basic cable, everyone gets it. Yeah, ABC showed USA vs Grenada, that's fine. It's a step in the right direction, but they (nor did any other American stations) didn't let us see Mexico vs Dominica, St. Lucia vs Panama, Guatemala vs Surinam, Cuba vs Costa Rica, Jamaica vs Haiti (which had one game played in the USA!!), Bermuda vs El Salvador, or any of the other games which were also important for CONCACAF Qualifying. That's the problem. It's fine that they show the USA games, but that's all they do. They don't do any post-game coverage, there are no highlights, and they don't even let you watch other teams in your own region. Imagine if ABC only showed your local NFL team's game and you weren't able to watch any other team in the league play, and there were no highlight shows. Even though you get to watch your team live, that's still pretty sh1tty coverage right? I'd say so. Yet, that's exactly the type of coverage we get for soccer... I guess I am just mad because the American media has shown what it is capable of doing in sports coverage with the likes of Sportscenter and whatnot. ESPN has at least 5 stations that I am aware of (ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, ESPN Classic, and ESPN U... and this is without counting 'sister stations' like ABC, and other stations who also cover sports like NBC, Fox, etc.) yet the lack of soccer coverage is amazing. ESPN Classic will occassionally show stuff like "World's Strongest Man Competition from 1982" or "PBA Bowling Championship from 1992" but god-forbid they take the time to air something like USA vs Portugal '02 or USA vs Colombia '94. Sportscenter spends entire hour-long episodes covering whether or not T.O. said something about so-and-so, but god-forbid they announce a major trade in the MLS or spend even 5 minutes to show highlights and talk about a recent USA qualifying match. It just doesn't make sense to me.
most of the games of spanish speaking countries were shown on spanish speaking channels that are in the US
Most people don't get those channels. I don't get ANY spanish channels.... I do get (along with almost everyone else in the USA): ESPN, ABC, Fox, NBC, and major networks like that. Which is where soccer needs to go if it is going to become popular. People can claim that the stuff is on TV, but the average fan is not going to specifically subscribe to certain stations, especially in foreign languages, to follow soccer. He'll say "screw it" (like he has) and keep watching the NFL or MLB, which have almost all games televised on prime stations that EVERYONE gets. During college football season I can watch like 6 or 7 games *at the same time* because there is so much coverage of them. ESPN and ESPN2 each have games, ESPNU has a game, ABC has one, the local Fox station has a small regional game, CBS has one, NBC has one (if Notre Dame is home that week)... and this is just the public channels, without paying to get something like ESPN Gameplan where you can watch ANY game you want... where is this kind of coverage for soccer? It obviously can be done, it's just a matter of the media doing it.
Money makes the world goes round my friend. Theres not enough money for extra coverage from local tv that cover mls soccer games , certain sponsers can't make enough money yet...only when the world cup comes around that's when abc officialy sponsr. They sponser also do mls (select games for certain markets that would make them money that certain week). They exploit soccer when they can. if its every 4 yrs so be it each wc u.s. soccer gets better and stronger. A league succes can also be measured by the number of popular sponsers, for ex the mls main sponser is sierra mist and then a few smaller ones. that being said its not quite at the other pro sport league money makin ability so it won't get the same interest as abc gives the nfl or the nba , once it gets the same numbers , the sponser will follow and the extra money for coverage will came with it too. Soccer in america is still a project it takes years to build a soccer tradition that you see around the world , if the nasl had worked we would not have this arguement let these teams grow and us soccer will grow , the sport is loved by thousands in america with a passion week to week, were just not were the world.would want us
Yet, when there is a negative story , the media broadcast it to no end. We object to the aggressive animosity to soccer. It is the number one participatory sport and the most inclusive socially and racially. Yet, the media refuses to promote it. With a modicum of coverage soccer would thrive commercially.
Just wait until the old men that run the sports desks start to be replaced by the kids that actually grew up on soccer. It's really only a matter of time before soccer earns a place at the table in America. I don't think it will ever surpass the NFL or MLB, any more than it will surpass Aussie Rules football in Australia or cricket in India. But it will become a respected mainstream sport in time. The demographics are pretty clear.
The truth: Soccer is a niche sport in America. Live with it. It's an incredibly fragmented market. You've got some folks who want to watch the USNT and MLS. You've got your Eurosnobs. You've got actual European immigrants who want to watch their 'home' leagues. You've got Hispanic immigrants who want to watch their 'home' leagues. The World Cup is the *only* thing that brings all those strands together. And that's just the games. When it's over, the English immigrants will turn off the telly and click to bbc.co.uk, the Italians will turn off the telly and click to gazettasport.co.it, the Mexicans will be watching the games and analysis on Univision, etc. We've got to walk before we can run. As for the other sports and advertising breaks, well, in a world of TiVo get used to it. Live sports are just about the only thing you can count on to get people to watch advertisements.