Most fellow soccer fans whine about the bashing of the sport yet act the same exact way when it comes to baseball. I like soccer , baseball, hockey and many other sports. Why do we have to demean others sports?
I think you may be barking up the wrong tree. Most baseball fans have been bashing soccer for decades, so shouldn't you be asking them first? I agree there is no need to bash any sport, no matter how irrelevant that sport may be to you. But again, I think you are questioning the wrong side.
Bashing baseball on a soccer forum is different than going to a baseball forum and bashing it there. It seems like fans of other sports go out of their way to visit soccer forums or articles and bash soccer.
Whether in a forum like BS or in person most people that say they love one sport but bash the heck out of another either speaking out of ignorance or lack any or good experience with the other sport. Regardless it's their prerogative to feel how they feel no matter how ignorant they may sound. I learned to just overlook those type of responses here on BS since it doesn't usually add to the discussion and the poster of such bashing or demeaning remarks just loses all credibility with me. Every sport has those supposed "hardcore" fans that just want to trumpet their own sport. Soccer is not excluded.
Soccer fans would probably be the worst if push came to shove, its just the majority of our fanbase doesn't concern themselves with it as you won't see soccer bashing in German, Spanish, Brazilian, Iranian (list goes on) media. But thats part and parcel of the fear exhibited by other-sport/non-soccer fans. When have you ever seen baseball or hockey articles being trolled by soccer fans? Anywhere? When have you seen baseball/football/hockey/basketball articles trolled by any set of those fans? Yet its constant in soccer articles in this country. Ultimately its because those trolls fear that soccer could really encroach on their turf. And thats what it comes down to. Theres no reason why soccer fans should be "above it" though, the time is soon approaching when they can start dealing it out in equal measure. I would say that soccer fans are the most elitist, containing traces of exceptionalism not really seen in too many other sports fans. We are so sure that the sport should be number 1 everywhere, and are completely confused and bewildered when it isnt.
Before I moved to America, I did not even know there existed a culture where a whole sport would be bashed. I mean hardcore Rugby fans in France and England do not bash soccer. Hardcore cricket fans in England and India do not bash soccer. Conversely, I have never heard of soccer fans in France bash rugby, or bash cricket in England or India, or bash field hockey in Netherlands or bash handball in Germany. Everywhere else, if people are not in to a sport, they are just indifferent to it. Nowhere in the world do fans of a sport go in to reactive and tribal "protect my turf" mode during discussion of another unknown sport. My personal opinion is it boils down to American culture, where from a young age, people are under peer pressure to prove their machismo at every moment in life. It is not enough if my opinion and preference can co-exist with yours, for my opinion and preference to be valid, your opinion and preference has to be completely destroyed and buried in to the ground.
What cracks me up are soccer fans who bash baseball ("boreball") and football ("pointyball, etc") but when they get called on it say, "but they do it too." When you encounter stupid behavior like soccer bashing, I don't think it helps to emulate it by engaging in bashing their sport.
Well calling baseball "boreball" and American football "pointy/egg ball" is just stating the obvious and no bashing in any form! The bashing of football/soccer on the other hand is usually based on pure ignorance and usually is so far off from reality that it´s mostly comical.
I agree. There are more inane stereotypes associated with soccer that haters bring up repeatedly than vice versa. Even though I have no problems with baseball, baseball (and basketball) bashing by soccer fans is a bit more justified IMO because it really is jammed down our throats (in the USA) whether we want it to be or not. Meanwhile avoiding soccer if you hate soccer must be the easiest thing in the world to do.
I do see a qualitative difference in the bashing: it all depends on where it's done. I rarely if ever see comments on articles for other sports bashing those sports; but I frequently see soccer articles' comment sections fill up with anti-soccer posts. I'll explain why I don't watch certain American sports if I'm asked about it, but I'm not going to go out of my way to attack them on their own fan forums.
The American idea of what soccer is has a lot to do with how people attack it. Ask most people over the age of 40 what they think of soccer and listen to them laugh at you. People watch the news and other outlets and see that soccer was looked at as more of a nice thing for the world but we have real sports here in the US. That ideology was passed down and well you get the idea. I think when soccer is taken serious by more popular people who are always in the media or on TV you will see a decline in the bashing of the sport. I love all sports and find time to watch them all. Personally I just like soccer a little more because of the complexity but that is also a huge turn off to a lot of people.
Completely untrue. It happens all the time, you just aren't looking. Countries with a determined summer/winter combination has far less bashing, because people grow up playing both of those sports. One in the summer, one in the winter. You may develop a special bond with one of those, but you will probably go on enjoying the other in your adulthood. Example: soccer and cricket in England. Countries with more than one option for one season (again England for example, which has 3 professional football codes) tends to breed bashing, because those sports are in direct competition with eachother. The bashing happens all the time in England, mostly directed towards soccer by rugby union/rugby league fans. Because soccer is so big, soccer fans are quite confident in their stature and they dont usually go out of their way to bash other sports. Though anytime soccer bashing takes place with soccer fans around, you will undoubtedly hear "eggball or eggchasers" bandied about.When they are provoked, they give as good as they get. Most of the vitriol though is from the two smaller sports in rugby union and rugby league, who obviously feel their sport should be bigger than soccer. To give you only one example, go to the Wigan newspaper online. The amount of fighting on there between rugby league (the traditional sport in Wigan), and soccer (the recent upstart) is astounding. Do you speak French? Its kind of hard to know whats going on in France if you dont speak French. I bet there is plenty of hatred on both sides in France. Other English speaking countries where it takes place regularly: Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Wales... the lesson is that as long as football codes are trying to exist next each other, there will plenty of animosity.
The "bashing" of sport happens here in Australia too. Australian rules football fans bash soccer fans and rugby league fans, rugby league fans bash soccer fans and Aussie rules fans and Rugby Union fans etc. Soccer fans got more stick as the sport was perceived in Australia as one for ethnics only. Truth be told though as much stick as I encountered growing up ( im from an italian background) I still followed the other sports and I have developed a real liking for baseball and American Football now. If people dont like a sport, thats their choice, but ive always believed in taking the high road and not stooping down to criticise others.
Yeah, I think others have made the point, but you don't see fans of those sports bash other sports (besides soccer) because no one really bashes them much. When you take as much abuse as we soccer fans do, it's only natural that we will react.
Sorry, but you are quite wrong. I played football from the time I was able until I finished high school, and could have played in college if I had chosen to. I spent 25 years as an ardent fan, watching every game I could, buying every magazine I could, playing fantasy football. Baseball likewise I grew up playing until high school, watching as much as I could, playing multiple fantasy teams. I loved those sports. Over the years my tastes have changed and I find both to be horribly boring. The only sports I find remotely interesting anymore are soccer and hockey. Personal taste. It doesn't mean that I'm ignorant of those sports or that I have never had good experience with them. I just don't like them.
And that pretty comes down to fear. There aren't too many of us bashing rugby or Australian rules because they aren't on the radar here. If rugby had as many participants, was becoming part of the sporting landscape and pop culture, selling out stadiums and so on, you would see a lot of animosity towards rugby. Its the sports that are encroaching on someones turf that get blasted left and right. That, in a nutshell, is soccer in its last few frontiers.
They might not actually be ignorant when they bash a sport, but they come across as ignorant. I mean, every sport has their weaknesses. With soccer it's probably the diving, money and reluctance to enter the 21st century with such things like goal-line technology. So its just too easy to bash a sport, and someone who focuses on these 3 things to bash soccer will probably exaggerate, come across as a bit over zealous to try to make their point and all-the-while sounding unoriginal. So we're likely to just label them as ignorant, but at the same time they would have half a point. The back-and-forth bashing comes, I think, as a result of it being easier to bash another sport than defend the weaknesses of the sport you like. It's much easier for me to poke-fun at how an NBA team gets 12 timeouts each per match than to defend diving in soccer.
I will take a stab at the original question. Baseball and soccer are effectively positioned as rival sports in the U.S. in a few respects which builds some antagonism. PRO LEAGUES (soccer community resents baseball) The U.S. MLS calendar basically matches the MLB season. MLS revenue is currently largely attendance driven - here MLB poses a competitive challenge with its large # of games and roughly 2 million per team attendance - add to that the large number of minor league teams out there. MLB has also gone out and secured local government backing for first class, expensive stadiums in every one of its markets. Take DC, the Expos / Nationals came in and secured a few hundred million government dollars for a stadium while DC United is still on the outside looking in. Now my impression is there is little antagonism in the DC area soccer community towards the Nationals or baseball but you can see the possibility. YOUTH PARTICIPATION (baseball community resents soccer) Youth soccer has definitely eaten into the Little League baseball participation rate over the last several decades. Little League is no longer seen as a Must Do activity for young boys as it was when I was growing up. Now Youth Soccer is not the only reason for that, but it is one of them and I think it looms large in the minds of the committed Little League / Youth Baseball crowd. Multiple times I have heard the migration to Youth Soccer from Little League chalked up to kids / parents not having the nerve and ability to face up to their time at bat or a ball hit at them in the field. Now I think there is some truth to that at the participate for a few years level. But it is so exaggerated in these people's minds - they actually can't see that there are athletic kids who could do well at both but just prefer soccer. My brother-in-law who coaches on Little League / Travel baseball teams talks about poorly coordinated kids on his teams and how he just wants to tell their parents to put them in soccer. There is a local baseball academy around here that has a paragraph on their web site that says they will help struggling players or suggest that there future is on the soccer field. These are funny characters - they resent the relative decline in youth baseball participation but trash the marginal kids they have lost. Guess they want their dollars while laughing/snickering at them behind their backs.
SuperGiGi: Maybe you missed the part where I said "most" people? People and tastes change so no longer liking baseball, football or any other subject anymore is completely understandable but that's not the same as bashing it.
Check out any news about soccer on major media. You see tons of soccer bashing. Like this one - http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/13/sport...chester-city-united/index.html?iref=allsearch I don't think many soccer fans do the same.
Again I don't go to baseball or american-football sites or articles and bash them. I'm indifferent and my time can be used better. Once in a while I express my disinterest in those sports when they are brought up by others in places like bigsoccer. However seems like there are a lot of Americans doing that. See above example.
You know most Americans think soccer is boring. That's only because Americans don't know what they are looking at when they watch a game. They watch the ball we watch what is happening away from the ball. So they are missing all the beautiful off ball movement that helps lead to goals. They are missing all the off ball positioning that stops goals. I have a friend that played in the minor leagues for over 12 years trying to make it in to the major leagues. There is much more to real baseball then even most American realize.