Taken in context perhaps, however a 6'6" 300lb adult wearing PENN STATE livery after regaling us with his football history asks us undersized beings 5;8 and 5-11, 170 +185 shrimps and after we had told him that playing for PENN STATE WAS AWESOME and that I am a University of Southern California fan since 1960, he asked us if we played. I mentioned it only because of the question posed by this heading. He called it a Sissy Sport. That is the gist of the Average American opinion of Soccer. However to judge others and calling people douches, I see that is a bit douchey in itself...in any case I agree that we both, my son and I, are douches. Glad that makes you happy.
While I still think that your comments were antagonistic, calling your son a douche was unnecessary. I apologize.
Yesterday I spoke to a couple who used to live in Portland and saw Beckham play against the Timbers. The husband didn't even remember his first name. The wife remembered his first name, but clearly neither of them had any idea how famous he was.
Here's something from Law & Order: Los Angeles, which is realistic fiction. In one episode, they claimed a woman playing soccer in Mexico could make enough money in one summer to buy a car. I don't know if Mexico has a professional women's league, and even if they do I doubt it pays as much as the show said.
As a registered Republican myself, I find that very strange as Henry Kissinger (very prominent Republican) is a soccer fan. I'm assuming that there are others.
There is an undercurrent among some soccer fans where soccer is lauded for being more advanced than the "primitive" American sports. Some soccer fans are pretty douchey in their opinions on the matter. Unsurprisingly, that attitude leads to hostility towards soccer, and its fans, from some conservative Americans. There's also issues like Mexican-Americans cheering for the Mexican national team, which pisses off patriotic Americans.
So douchey, in fact, that they hipster-ize the sport and become insufferable as a result, dragging the sport along with it. It's sad, as for the most part, politics has almost nothing at all to do with whether any given American likes or dislikes soccer. Usually where politics is cited, it's a justification rather than a cause of enmity toward the sport. Some of the most virulent anti-soccer people around here (bluest Northeast Ohio) are rank-and-file Obamabots and/or party apparatchiks.
This is probably a bit of a generalization, but many of the more hipstery fans of soccer (who tend to be the douchiest when it comes to other sports) also strike me as the types who probably didn't play sports in high school, and may have some lingering resentment towards the more popular kids on the high school football team. Which is kind of funny to me, because when I was growing up in Canada, I knew a number of serious high school hockey players (who are the athletic elite in Canadian high schools) who played soccer during the summer and appreciated both sports. And I know plenty of American professional athletes are also soccer fans. I've seen a number of posters here, especially ones from the PNW, talking about how soccer is the sport for more enlightened and progressive sports fans. Which just shows their ignorance of the politics of soccer in many places around the world, where the fanbases include neo-nazi and fascist groups (which is something we've avoided in this country in our professional sports, thankfully). There's nothing inherently more "progressive" or liberal about soccer as compated to baseball or football.
While I love to pile on to any "Portlandia Hate", I think this mentality pre-dated the PNWs entry into MLS. Of course I'm not arguing that the incidence has increased (rather markedly). Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World addresses this quite well with very prominent examples, and while I feel he overplays the politics angles of his examples in a "good vs. evil" way, roughly aligning with his predilections - thus resulting in a pretty heavy dose of projection, bordering on the very mentality we're pooh-poohing - the book is a very informative and well-written read. I highly recommend it. EDIT: Heh! After reading this Boston Globe criticism of it, I remember many of the reasons why I didn't totally love the book. I had totally forgotten that in the end, he came perilously close to making the very douchey argument that we're talking about. So, again, not a spectacular book, but I still recommend it for the insights it does present.
I agree with much of what you are saying. I have come across people who fit into this very stereotype. They like sports but hate jocks, and soccer offered a a way to follow sports but without having to interact with jocks. I sense this is disappearing as the sport becomes more mainstream but the residue is still there. (full disclosure I am halfway in this category, love sports but don't like meat head jocks, but I never turned my back on American sports, love them to much, especially football) As for the hipster element it makes complete sense. A sport that is not mainstream, but has infinite levels of knowledge to follow and appear smart (key to hipster culture, knowing more than the other guy about beer, bikes, food, chili sauce, anything). And yes some hiptsters can be douchebags, but I guess I prefer that to brainless NLF guy, who's idea of a football game is drinking beer talking shit and kicking ass (and the beer is almost gone leaving only 2 options). I guess at the end of the day you get more than 5 people together someone is going to suck at a soccer game or Football. Finally the politics. Hate to even weigh in on this but in a very broad world view it makes sense that soccer would be a more "Liberal" sport. It makes sense, that if you are a member of the party that uses the word "European" as code for "Bad" you are most likely not going to be interested in a sport with major influences from Europe.
Except that some of the most virulent right-wingers (the global definition, not the idiotic, narrow Democrat-American one that makes anyone to the right of, say, Ralph Nader an "extremist") are massively into soccer. The real truth is that populist authoritarians of all stripes (including lefties) glom onto whatever is the most culturally relevant force among their rank-and-file.
That's an odd view. Very few fans of any sport can be characterized as "jocks." For example, given the NFL's incredibly wide demographic appeal, their fanbase is is going to be pretty reflective of society as a whole. If we're talking about the players, there's equal amounts of meatheadedness and stupidity to go around in all sports. It's not like the average professional soccer player in Europe is a model of civility, decorum and good behavior. They have the same proclivities (partying, wretched excess and nailing anything with two X chromosomes) as their American counterparts.
FOX through their Sky subsidiary have a major stake in the global soccer TV market, that is probably enough to keep politicians positive towards soccer.
What? No, really. What? Please try to follow the actual conversation and try to avoid bringing up TV stations as if they are some remotely accurate proxy for a particular region's local politics vis-a-vis soccer.
Hmm yeah, you're right. It would go to far off topic to discuss newscorp/Murdoc involvement in politics in relation to soccer. I'll leave it at this, my bad. Carry on.