Goal.com's George Tsitsonis gives us a British perspective on the state of American soccer: http://www.goal.com/NewsDetail.aspx?idNews=37049&idSez=1 An intelligent commentary, and very well-written.
Good read. Interesting to read a piece from over the pond that doesn't backhandedly compliment MLS. This one was actually a little sunnier than even I would have written, but a solid review.
I think he's confusing the lack of popularity for the US brand of soccer (MLS, USMNT) with the attraction that world soccer has achieved here, largely via immigration. If you add the ratings of the Mexican League on Univision, Galavision and Telefutura, random internationals on Telemundo, EPL on Fox World and En Espanol, Gol TV, ESPN Deportes, MLS on ESPN2, you'd probably get a combined audience equal to hockey. Which ain't that bad.
Good article, except for this part: In here is the implication that the Americanization of "soccer" is a bad thing, and as this forum's self-proclaimed extreme progressive I can freely attest that it is not.
I am not sure who the author is, but has the feel that it was written by an outsider. I thought it was alright.
Definitely nice to see this kind of press. On the other hand, it reads like it was written after perusing these boards for an hour. It's like the first post in a "State of Soccer in the US?" thread.
Can't complain about this level of coverage, and I agree with Chicago1871--this may be even more upbeat than I might have written. Good stuff, nice to see MLS and the state of our game getting some props.
Whether you prefer to call it Soccer’s Siberia or the Land that Football Forgot, the United States of America has long been football’s last frontier. I don't think the US as football's last frontier is accurate. What about South Asia (India and Pakistan) and to some extent China? Since the lingo is 'frontier', soccer is more 'conquered or inhabited' in the US than in China or Australia for that matter. But overall, it's a great article. It's a good time to be a fan of MLS, USL, and US Nats.
Wouldn't be surprised if this guy at least lurked around here. He certainly made an effort to shout out for us hardcores.
No one disputes that soccer doesn't get much coverage in the mainstream media. The dispute is over whether it gets less coverage than it deserves given the level of interest, or at the more extreme level, whether there is some sort of conspiracy among the media to deny coverage to soccer. I'm sure more media coverage would help soccer's popularity to some extent, but that puts the issue backwards. Sports media cover what they think their audience is already interested in; they don't consider it their mission to interest people in certain things so that they can cover it for them.
I know this is anecdotal evidence at best, but my wife is a journalist. She's worked at four different papers in three different cities. Whenever she's quizzed the sports department on the lack of soccer coverage, the answer is always "Soccer sucks" or "Soccer is boring" or something similar. They never cite "lack of interest" as the reason. It certainly does't explain the lack of box scores from MLS or national team matches. That "statistical" page of the sports section in newspapers could very easily have at least that basic info, but it's often passed over in favor of box scores from local high school basketball, etc.
Well, since the article is more about the US brand of soccer (MLS and national team) than it is about soccer in the US, immigrants being interested in their teams (whether club or national side) from the "old country" is largely irrelevant to the points he's trying to make.
What does that have to do with the price of rice in China? The article is about the state of MLS and the US National Team, and the perception of soccer in the media and society in general. It doesn't matter if attendance at those matches is 100% immigrant or 0% immigrant, it still is talking about US Soccer. I was saying that TV ratings of foreign leagues is of peripheral importance to the points the author was trying to make.
Right now, many MLS teams don't get the local media coverage they probably deserve because they're still considered a fringe sport. And sports departments tend to ignore them because they can get away with it. But if/when MLS teams start to regularly draw 18,000/game or higher, I expect we'll start to see a more coverage, particularly on TV. Soccer goals make for nice highlights, especially when compared to a sport like ice hockey where it's often hard to follow the puck. My impression is that the Crew and DC United already have pretty good media coverage -- Columbus, because of the big fish/small pond factor; DC, because of Freddy and 4 championships. And in cities like Chicago and hopefully Denver and Dallas, I expect we'll see much more coverage of the MLS teams as fans start packing the new SSS's.
There have been one-on-one shootouts to decide matches, 35-yard lines where shots behind that mark have counted for more than one goal, and various playoff systems that have confounded even the best mathematicians. Good article but the 35 yard line was used for offsides (as opposed to midfield) and not for bonus point goals (unless the author is combining this rule with indoor soccer scoring rules).