Tough time watching other sports

Discussion in 'MLS: General' started by falcon6, Sep 7, 2002.

  1. I was wondering if anyone else was having a problem watching sports other than soccer? I used to be a really big NFL fan but I find i can't watch it anymore. The game has too many stoppages and very little play. I find this with baseball and basketball too. Since I started watching soccer it makes me realize how little play there is in other sports. I like how soccer has no timeouts and is played in under 2 hours. The other games take 3 hours and have constant commercials. Anyone else have this problem now too?
     
  2. the cup

    the cup Member

    Jul 10, 2002
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    You are not alone, I feel the same way. I never really liked basketball or baseball but I loved football but as my brother and I say now, "It is unwatchable." I can't sit and watch anymore than a few minutes, its terrible, I really have no desire to watch it anymore. The only other things I can watch are Formula 1 racing or rally racing. Nothing else does it for me. We need not feel ashamed though, we have seen the light and it is good.
     
  3. Ringo

    Ringo Member

    Jun 10, 2002
    Rough and Ready
    Club:
    Yeovil Town FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    personally, i've never had this problem. I've never been a baseball fan and stopped following the NBA around eight years ago for the same reason that everybody else stopped following it (too much 1-on-1, low scoring, too many dunks), so neither had anything to do with soccer. but I still LOVE the NFL. Actually, my Broncos open tomorrow and I'm as excited for that game as can be. I still love the NFL and look forward to it as much as the MLS.
    Soooo ... no, I don't think it's changed my viewing habits one bit. but that's just me.
     
  4. Sachin

    Sachin New Member

    Jan 14, 2000
    La Norte
    Club:
    DC United
    I enjoy NFL. The Steelers still are my first love. I've stopped watching baseball mostly because of soccer and I never was that much of a basketball or hockey fan.

    Sachin
     
  5. pething101

    pething101 Member

    Jul 31, 2001
    Smyrna, Ga
    Club:
    West Ham United FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I still watch golf.

    I think I am odd. Not many golf and soccer types in the world it seems.

    When ACC basketball starts, I will watch every game.
     
  6. GreatZar

    GreatZar Member

    Colorado Rapids
    United States
    Mar 29, 1999
    Denver, CO, USA
    Club:
    Colorado Rapids
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I find watching the NFL on TV OK. During every stoppage, they bombard you with replays, strategy talk, cheerleader camera shots, etc. The NFL is made for TV. However, watching a game live is HORRIBLE (completely unwatchable).

    Nobody watches the game at baseball games that I can tell (OK, there are a few with score sheets in hand). That's not why you go to a game here (you go to schmooze).

    And basketball games are the ultimate in entertainment. They do tons of stuff during timeouts and TV ad time to almost make you wish they never came back on the court.

    My point is, I go to football games to watch the game. I would never be caught dead going to another NFL game but I'm perfectly happy watching it on TV. For baseball and basketball, I go for other reasons than the game itself. Haven't really gotten into hockey...
     
  7. the cup

    the cup Member

    Jul 10, 2002
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    The problem I have with the NFL is there is too damn much of it. I used to like it back in the days before ESPN and FOX. It used to be you would only be able to watch maybe two or three games a week. You would have and early and mid-day game on Sunday and then Monday night. The pregame shows would last a half hour and you had two announcers, Brent Musberger and Jimmy the Greek. But you were not overwhelmed with info and stats. Your desire to watch the game was kept alive by getting just enough and the only time to get highlights of all the Sunday games was durring halftime of the Monday night game. But for the love of God, now you have litterally two to three hours of pregame on both ESPN and FOX plus an hour of post game. You've got games on Saturday, Sunday, Monday and sometimes on Thursday and highlights and replay of highlights and then more indepth reporting every freaking day of the week. And both ESPN and FOX will have 6 to 8 guys sitting around a desk or a coffee table talking about it and they are all talking at once and you can't understand a damn thing they're saying. Good Hell, enough already! Give me a Notre Dame game with 15 minutes of pregame and thats it. And don't ever show Ray Lewis doing that God awful dance again, you look like a freaking jerk off you idiot! And don't tell me he didn't have anything to do with that murder.
     
  8. Ted Cikowski

    Ted Cikowski Red Card

    May 31, 2000
    actually The Cup....you can get as much as 6 or 7 hours of NFL pre-game if you switched between all the channels. They got a sunday morning show on CNN, another a little later on ESPN and then the Fox one.

    you can literally watch nothing but NFL related TV from 9 AM until 11pm on sundays.
     
  9. the cup

    the cup Member

    Jul 10, 2002
    Club:
    Real Salt Lake
    Exactly, no wonder the divorce rate is so high. You have guys watching football all day on Sunday in addition to comming home late Saturday night from the sports bar. No wonder their wives get sick of them.
     
  10. crestuden

    crestuden New Member

    Apr 5, 2001
    My problem is not watching other sports it is that when sports like football start up again I forget about soccer and get in a football mind. After watching hours of football it feels kind weird watching an MLS match. The National Team I can always watch just not MLS sometimes.
     
  11. mactheknife

    mactheknife New Member

    Aug 2, 2002
    Baton Rouge, LA
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    i still watch football, but only college ball.

    and rugby.

    that's all, really...
     
  12. bert patenaude

    Apr 16, 2001
    White Plains, NY
    NFL or college football = unwatchable. Perfect cure for insomnia.
     
  13. Chicago1871

    Chicago1871 Member

    Apr 21, 2001
    Chicago
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It is true. However, I think the reason the difference is so clear to us at the moment is that we, as soccer fans, have been exposed to a great deal more soccer in the last year than in the past 3. MLS is televised at least once a week, you can find the EPL on FoxSports, you can find the Champions league on ESPN on occasion (every two weeks is it?), and the World Cup gave all of us a month of great entertainment.The fact is, we are being exposed to more soccer than ever and this has jaded us (in a good way, sort of).

    Tomorrow most NFL teams start their regular seasons. And although there is virtually no flow to games, and you get more commercials than actual game time, I for one am looking forward to seeing the Bears "home" opener.

    I am one as well. Been watching since I was a kid (now that was wierd. Being the only one of my friends who ever watched golf as a kid). They are a little different to watch, but each is just as enjoyable.

    I think a combination of the two would be interesting. Robin William's (on his July HBO Special) said, "I want the guy who does Mexican soccer to do golf."
    --(quite voice) "The ball is rolling, breaking perfectly...HHHHHHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOLLLLLLLLLLLLEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
     
  14. Daniel from Montréal

    Aug 4, 2000
    Montréal
    Club:
    Montreal Impact
    Nat'l Team:
    Canada
    I used to be a big fan of CFL football and the Alouettes, but since I follow the Impact, it just doesn't compare (I also care less).

    Hockey (mostly Habs games), I can watch as it's quite fast paced and exciting. Plus, well, it's the Habs!
     
  15. Flying Weasel

    Flying Weasel Member

    Mar 22, 2001
    Harrisburg, PA
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Yes, my viewing of other sports has changed, but not due to soccer. I still like a lot of sports. I like the diversity of different sports. Some have more action, some have shorts spurts of high intensity, some have more continuous action, some have more strategy, some have more nuances. Soccer is my favorite, but that doesn't mean that other sports have to be a distant second. They could be (once were) a close second.

    The reason I watch less NBA is because of the NBA . . . it sucks these days with the over-emphasis on one-on-one play and dominating physical defense. Some teams struggle to score 80 points and I'm suppossed to like it becasue its tough, gritty "blue-color" defensive play. Maybe it's just plain crap. Maybe players don't know how to shoot jump shots. Maybe players lack the fundamentals. Maybe players can't hit free throws. And there's nothing to like about that. Give me back the passing of the the Lakers' Showtime or Bird's Celtics. Give me back the days when they didn't use (waste) all of the shot clock just to set up an isolation for a one-on-one move as the clock winds down. The problem for me isn't the timeouts and the commercials breaks, it's that even when the clock is running, there's often times not much going on. College basketball is still better style-wise, but the quality of college ball has decreased with the flood of underclassmen leaving early for the NBA. Basketball is being ruined by soccer . . . its ruining itself.

    I've been a Steelers fan my whole life, but never been a real football fan. And football has become the most overcoached sport there is, which isn't going to help convert me. Yes, it's more overcoached than baseball IMO. But it has more physical intensity and excitement than other sports, but only in short spurts between long stoppages. Football really is the antithesis to soccer in so many ways. So I still watch the Steelers when they're on, and little other NFL or college football just as I always have.

    Baseball has always been a slower paced and less physically intense sport. It has strategy and nuances (like soccer, btw). It may have less excitement on average, but that doesn't mean it's necessarily less enjoyable . . . to a true fan (like soccer, btw). It's not for everyone (like soccer, btw). Baseball is what it is. If you don't like it, you don't like it. I still like baseball in general. My problem with Major League Baseball is that the game has gotten even slower in the past decade or so. Batters and pitchers both take way too much time between pitches. I remember when batters didn't leave the batter's box between each pitch. I don't know if this is due more to the painstaking rituals some players have or an increase in signs from the dugout, but it makes the game slower than it should or has to be.

    So . . . my interest in watching other sports has waned, but not because of soccer. However, it's nice that the opportunities and options for viewing and following soccer have increased at a time when some of these other sports seem to be shooting themselves in the foot.
     
  16. Jambon

    Jambon Member

    Mar 3, 2000
    Austin, TX
    I've fallen into a very comfortable sports calendar. In March MLS starts up and I get ready for a summer of fanatical soccer viewing. By September, I've been watching lots of soccer, so NFL football is new and refreshing while the MLS season winds down. I watch tons of NFL until December when college basketball gets started, when I start following my college team. When the thrill of the NCAAA tournament is coming to an end, we're back to March and the start of MLS action. Torture for my wife, heaven for me.

    I guess I could watch European soccer after the MLS season, but I just can't get into watching someone else's team from 10,000 miles away. Sure it's the best players and leagues in the world, but I'm a sports homer, and I just can't manage to care about any team that I would never have a chance to actually see in person. They're just someone else's teams, not mine.
     
  17. Dr. Wankler

    Dr. Wankler Member+

    May 2, 2001
    The Electric City
    Club:
    Chicago Fire
    I mostly watch soccer and rugby (still playing the latter for another year or two). I like watching baseball, especially live and in person. Can't deal with the NFL or college football, though. Too much like the sportinig equivalent of factory work for me. And if the NBA ever stops looking like they have a rule where only one guy is allowed to run off the ball at any one time, then I might start watching that again, too.
     
  18. hangthadj

    hangthadj Member+

    A.S. Roma
    Mar 27, 2001
    Zone 14
    Club:
    Columbus Crew
    I used to be a diehard eagles fan and would watch every game even the preseason games at the bars. This was even when they had doug Peterson as their QB and Mike Mamula was about to be the savior of the defense. A strange thing happened last year. The Crew was playing Tampa in a game that the Crew needed points for playoff posistioning while the Eagles were also on. I watched the whole crew game even when it was in hand at 3-1. Yesterday I am visiting the fam in south jersey and my brother in law comes over to watch the game and is suprised at how calm i was walking away for 10 minute spells during the game. I noticed the stopages were really gettin to me. But I still love baseball (phillies) and college basketball (iu hoosiers), but the nfl just doesn't do it for me anymore.
     
  19. zcgf02

    zcgf02 New Member

    Mar 30, 2001
    Houston
    I found I had trouble watching much of the 49ers/Giants game last week, especially when there was an MLS game on one channel up. But here's the weird thing: I still consider myself a die-hard 49ers fan (I still have a Jerry Rice jersey) but was more interested in watching an MLS game between two teams I don't really care about (I'm still clinging to DC United's former glory). My wife commented that it was odd of me to watch an MLS game instead of a 49ers game. So I guess I've got more soccer in my blood these days than football.

    Of course, I don't ever go to and NFL message boards, but I go to bigsoccer almost every day.
     
  20. total_football

    total_football Member+

    Apr 2, 2002
    Chicago
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    As a kid, I watched all the pro games (NASL, MLB, NBA, NHL less so). Now, I can only watch football; one by one, all the others have fallen by the wayside; it's a shame about the NBA--the BBWC exposed why it's a crap league these days, as typilfied in the play of Allen "Me, Myself and" Iverson (2nd best nickname, right behind Duncan "Disorderly" Fergeson), who couldn't even be bothered to show up at the BBWC. Too many legal entanglements, perhaps.

    Thanks to FSW, in the last couple of years, I've found something to replace that made for TV monstrosity known as the NFL: Rugby Union. I was totally blown away by the most recent Tri-Nations--great, great matches, exquisite finishes--end to end action, great skill, endurance, speed, strategy (fluidly developed on the fly)and, best of all: no commerical interruptions!

    I just bought EA Sports Rugby from ebay New Zealand just so I can simulate more games. Am anxioiusly looking forward to this year's WC in November!!

    I am constantly amazed by the media's need to compare the Beautiful Game with the NFL, particularly to the degree to which they deride the former for lacking the "toughness" of the later..they never, ever try to make a more valid comaprsion between the NFL and the actual sport it was originally based on...Why do they fail to make this comparison? Possibly because the NFL would be found lacking in almost every respect!

    P.S.-- I think Max Bretos was actually a rugby player..
     
  21. skunktrap

    skunktrap New Member

    Mar 22, 2002
    madison, wi
    My viewing habits haven't changed since I started following soccer. I am, however, aware that I watch them very differently. When soccer is on, I'm tuned in to the screen. I have to watch every minute of action. With football, basketball, golf and college basketball (all of which I "watch" frequently) I tend to be more likely to being doing something else at the same time: reading the newspaper, making dinner, dozing off. They're comfortable and relaxing. Soccer is full committment.
     
  22. total_football

    total_football Member+

    Apr 2, 2002
    Chicago
    Club:
    Arsenal FC
    An excellent point.
     
  23. The Cadaver

    The Cadaver It's very quiet here.

    Oct 24, 2000
    La Cañada, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    No - you just need the right technology. Tape the NFL or college game of your choice on a VCR with automatic commercial advance feature. Watch the game with the tape auto skipping through the commercials and it is still a worthwhile spectator sport.
     
  24. NACIONAL

    NACIONAL New Member

    Dec 31, 2001
    Medellin, Colombia

    i did the same thing with the 49'ers/Giants Game!!! it was really good..... i don't like commercials....... (Its true.. i really did that)



    well i think that its happening something strange to me.... i love soccer... i watch almost every soccer game that is on tv (and if i have time of course), i watch live every game of my team here in home...

    but I'm liking the NFL matches... i don't know.. maybe its the factor that the NFL is something relatively new for me... i found fun in th game...

    It is a different sport than soccer... sometime its nice to see something different...., this is the first season that i will watch and follow on a regular basis... i will tell you if i liked that experience... i don't know the results by now...

    i only watch basketball in the final games... not even playoffs..., i used to be a big BULLS fan... after Jordan went off.... well.. i never watched a complete basketball game again....

    i like baseball, but like basketball, only in the world series... , i only follow the cardinals because renteria plays there

    i never had the oportunity to watch a lot of NHL... so i cant say anything about that, but i liked the NHL 2003 game for PC...(EA Sports Game)


    remember... I'm from colombia.... they only sports that a child knows here are soccer, soccer, soccer, some of basketball and volleyball.... did i mention soccer?????
     
  25. billf

    billf Member+

    May 22, 2001
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I used to be, as recently as the 1999-2000 season, a huge Philadelphia Flyers and NHL fan. I watched soccer passionately too, but I usually just focused on the nats. Now the Flyers had some off ice things that contributed to this, but I subscribed to the MLS package and started following MLS and WC qualifying full bore after the 2000 NHL season. After a summer full of off ice drama with from the Flyers and lots of MLS games, I found it hard concentrate on a full NHL game. It was nearly impossible to sit there for three hours and all of the commercial breaks, which are about 90 seconds a piece make my mind wonder and I almost always switch channels for a bit.

    I also started to referee, so now soccer dominates my life. I don't have that kind of connection to hockey, nor do I have $60 to spend for a ticket to a game.

    The NHL game is just boring these days too. For a three hour game, it's too defensive. The games don't have as much flow, and the number of teams means you can develop a connection with opponents that make you dislike them. With all due respect to people in Atlanta, Raliegh, Columbus, etc, I don't care about those cities as NHL opponents and can't care enough to hate the teams that play there. It's sad because I used to be out of my mind about hockey.

    Ponder this, Donovan McNabb makes $2.5 million playing for the Eagles this year. John LeClair will make $9 million with the Flyers. What's wrong with this picture?
     

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