Mary Sanders! (OK, I'm cheating. I've interviewed her -- http://www.usatoday.com/sports/olympics/summer/2004-02-17-sanders-10_x.htm) Back on topic -- I'll echo Dr. Wankler's comment that the book Offside: Soccer and American Exceptionalism shows a lot of historical and sociological reasons for soccer's failure to be a Big Three/Big Four sport in this country. Basically, Americans just have to be different. It's ingrained in our culture from the old, old days when the Americans of 100-300 years ago were on ships crossing the Atlantic. The first waves, at least after the Revolution, were anxious to establish a distinct identity. The next waves were anxious to assimilate into that new identity. We still celebrate "our" sports. If you watched any Opening Day baseball, you heard plenty of patriotic propaganda and perhaps even a retelling of the Abner Doubleday myth. The NFL is a major ad vehicle for the military. Basketball truly is a distinctly American sport, both in origins and in development. The media don't help. The people making the decisions in sports departments are all about the NFL, MLB, NBA and NCAA. They've been beaten into submission on NASCAR. Younger journalists may be more willing to cover soccer, but you don't endear yourself to the fogies by pitching soccer stories all the time. Given all that, it's quite impressive that soccer has managed to overcome its years in the wilderness to be the dominant youth sport that it is. That's a major step in changing the culture, as is the current immigration pattern in this country. So is having a top-level league building its own venues and approaching financial stability as it draws closer to Year 10, a milestone that will make many take notice. Scott's right that the league's ability to keep most teams in their original venues is a great asset. (The lower divisions don't hurt, either -- pity they're not more stable.) But these are slow processes, and who knows how far they'll go. Soccer may easily overtake hockey in all but the Canadian border states in the next few years. The NFL and baseball are thoroughly ingrained in American culture. In urban areas, Indiana and North Carolina, so is basketball. No one says soccer has to surpass the Big Three, though. MLS is currently broadcast on ESPN, FSW, Direct Kick and Yahoo, and most teams have enough fans to create a good atmosphere. If they push it to 16 teams and 20,000 average attendance in the next five years, will anyone complain? (Well, yes, but reasonably?)
I always found this argument annoying to the point that arguing with an official is a universal action. I will not say that soccer players tend to do it excessively, but it happens in all major sports. I've never actually figured out why it is that we argue that much more than other athletes...unless it's just ingrained in our psyches that maybe it will make a difference...which it never does. I've argued with many a person about the "thoughness" of soccer players and it usually degenerates into an argument about diving. I immediately try to get across that I probably hate it as much, if not more than them. However, a bit of acting is part of the game. Basketball players "draw" fouls, so do soccer players (although not in the same manner). Don't get me wrong, I'm not condoning some of the attempts at Oscar nomination, but an little embellishment has it's place.
Some really interesting stuff from everyone. Always nice to have our resident memebers of the media chime in on such as subject as well.
Speaking of resident media members and diving (sounds like I'm going to accuse Beau Dure of flopping around after the slightest contact, which I'm not. Basically...), I just want to paraphrase Jeff Bradley on this issue, who says that soccer players around the world don't feel the need to impress American sofa taters with their toughness, they feel the need to gain an advantage for their team by fooling a referee. Diving has nothing to do with toughness. And as for complaining about calls... it happens in every sport. It's harder to see when the players are helmeted, but it seems to make the highlight reel everytime a baseball manager or player goes face-to-face with an umpire. It's hard to argue that some overweight guy in his sixties dress in clothes that look like pajamas is more dignified than a long-faced soccer player pleading his case with his palms turned skyward.
Exactly! If MLS gets to the point where they have teams in the large markets (including my own, of course...), and is financially sound, so that it's clear that they aren't going anywhere, in spite of what the bashers hope, then I'm happy. Remember, it wasn't all that long ago when the NBA was in danger of going bankrupt, and the NBA Finals were shown on tape delay.
we can't push people to love soccer, lets just improve our quality of play and the fans will follow...
Our people are actualy like soccer but they've already spent all the money for baseball (beer, hotdog etc ), basketball, football, they don't have any money left for soccer...,
from my person... in the most country in europe is soccer the only sport. in austria we have good skier but its not so interesting for young people and for the many peoples the live in a city. skiing is with football the most popolary sport in austria, but skiing ist only in the winther, and the rest oft the year is football only on the top. austrian are not stadium viewer, but the sport is so present in us life. here in vienna we have to great clubs. the big rapid vienna (andy herzog ex-club) with the most fans and the established in europe and the rich austria vienna magna with his frank stronach, the boss of magna and billionaire... hundred of derbys and more than hundred of years tradition... when play rapid vs. austria the stadium is full, the police is alarmed and the streets are blank... the vater is rapid-fan the brother austrian the child rapid and your colleague is austrian and now it´s going on... when you loose you feel like the king of the world but when you loose, you know tomorrow at work, the colleague make you ill with her austrian jersey and his smile, your brother to laugh you... no child can escape them... he grow up whit this, and one day you must decide for a club, and you brother too, and the story beginns new. when my sister saith s**** rapid, she to offend only rapid, she offend me... when i go to a football match i will not see a 5-0, 6-0, i will see fight, power, passion... but over all them, i will see the life on the field. i will affliction... i will that we becomes a goal and we are 0-1 behind, and then we win this match, oh my god, it´s better than a orgasm... the top and the deep, like the life... bad times and good times! you stand in your tribune and see the austrian fans exult and singing, and you are so sad, so angry and so hopefully... and then when rapid make the goal, you feel free, you are happy, jumping and crying, and then you look to the fans of the ********ing club, and the all quiet and you look in they face and see abasement and angry eys... and you go home an feel good, or you are sad and you will hope for the next time and the next week when you play again in the chamionchip... i am a extreme example then i love rapid more than all other in the world, but i am not alone... ps: when i write football = soccer
Things are changing and the professional game (MLS) is slowly gaining acceptance.The current state of the game is light years ahead of the game in hte 80s, 70s or 60s. Even during the NASL's most successful period, there really was never any serious talk about building soccer specific stadiums... if I remember correctly. Now, even the A-League teams are building stadiums (Charleston, Rochester, Atlanta). One principal that was/is the typical soccer basher's bread and butter was the fact that, even though that millions of American kids play the game, they lose interest in later teenage years and subsequently never become followers of the pro game. I was reading an article today (from a link somewhere on the boards) in which the writer cited an ESPN poll that stated that 43% of kids 12 - 17 years of age have some interest in MLS! To me, that means we're slowly overcoming the apathy of participants towards the pro game. Hopefully, when these kids reach a certain age, they will become consistant MLS ticket buyers or TV game viewers. The transformation of the game from merely a participatory activity to spectator sport.
Yeah, I love how the bashers like Kornheiser like to trot out the platitude that "kids who play soccer just don't care about it when they grow up," as if it's some sort of absolute, henceforth and forevermore etched in stone. The truth is, for most of America, it has been very hard for soccer fans to find teams to be fans of (forgive the poor sentence construction). This is changing, and will continue to change, as long as MLS sticks around and expands, and the Nats aren't a complete embarassment. Of course, the bashers don't want this, so they will steadfastly refuse to even begin to entertain that notion. Like a lot of people, once they get an idea in their head, no amount of logic or reason will ever pry it out.
Kornheiser is nothing compared to Jim Rome. That's not bashing its stating the fact that because there are no publicized soccer stars, nobody grows up wanting to be like Tab Ramos, or Claudio Reyna, because You Cannot watch the Soccer players on TV enough. And there aren't enough commercials, so for ADU to make it big will mean kids actually want to Emulate him and play Soccer, Not other sports, but Soccer. Too many Youth Soccer teams are not about finding the best talent, but Soccer Moms putting there kids in an activity to keep them occupied and disciplined.
Why doesn't the American sports public embrace soccer? I think we are. I find it hilarious that all of these American bashers on the thread say that the US does not have the attention span to appreciate soccer, yet they are the ones that are expecting the US to move soccer from a lowered tier sport to the most popular sport in the country in a matter of months. These things take time. Someone mentioned the growth of football as a popular sport. It did not supplant baseball as the National Pastime over night. The US had a "Freddy Adu" moment in the 1920's when Red Grange dominated college football. It took a niche sport that had been growing in popularity for 40 years and thrust it into the national psche. He was legendary and front page headlines. When he chose to play pro football and not go to medical school many predicted that professional football would explode. It did not but it did slowly grow in popularity. It was not until, as someone above mentioned, that the Colts and Giants played their televised overtime championship game that the sport had its first major growth spurt. It exploded again in the late 60's with the advent of the Super Bowl. My grandfather played american football in the 1920's and brought his son to the game. My father played in the late 40's and early 50's. He went to college(first in his family) because of a full scholarship. He coached football and brought me to the game in the 60's and 70's. That is how a sport develops and becomes part of the national psche. It is not immediate gratification and it does not happen because you whine at someone like Dexter that "You are too stuuuupid to understand the game". So sit back and watch it develop. I came to the game because as someone earlier said "soccer moms are just trying to get their kids into an activity that will teach them discipline and keep them active". I put my son in soccer because it was the first sport that he was allowed to play at 5. I viewed it as a great physical activity that he could use to learn the discipline of sports and get a higher level of fitness prior to starting to play "real sports". He scored 6 goals in his first game and fell in love with the sport. He moved into a travel soccer program when he was 8. Most of the best players on that team were kids that had parents from over seas or were 2nd generation Americans that learned the game when they were very young. He and I were neophytes. I remember going to a DC United game with his team. I sat between a soccer dad from Egypt and one from Bolivia and listened and learned. But, I was still one of the American dads that would not call soccer a real sport. It took me years to develop a full appreciation of the game. But, within 2 years I bought Directtv and started watching the EPL. My wife soon noticed that I stopped following baseball and supplanted it with futbol. I learned more of the subtleties of the game and learned how the Champions League and the FA Cup took place at the same time as the regular season. What? That is not done here. I looked forward to the World Cup. I got up at 5 in the morning and watched every game live or on TiVO. I went to watch a youth soccer tournament when I was on vacation. I started reading Big Soccer. Finally, 3 years later I reached rock-bottom, I am now posting on Big Soccer. The point is that it takes time for an individual to develop a love of a sport and it takes 270 million people even longer to embrace a new game. Think of how much the sport has grown in popularity over the last 20 years. I was living in Southern California during the 1994 World Cup. The US training facility was in my neighborhood. I saw Cobi Jones and Alexi Lalas at the grocery. I only recognized them because they were both so odd looking. The only reason I watched any of those games was because our nanny was from Switzerland. The MLS was formed a couple of years later. ESPN started televising Champions League games a few years later. Soccer is growing in popularity. Freddy Adu may bring some new fans to the game. My son's generation will bring their children to games in the future and they will learn the game from the crib. Soccer will become one of the top sports in the US, but it will take time.
They think it's boring. I just compare it to baseball and football and how nothing happens for a while and yet soccer is constant movement.
Quote: Thats why they play sports like basketball and baseball. Nobody else plays that, so they can win everything in that sport and say there the best. Didn't the Dutch win the last Olympic Gold for baseball? And, correct me if I'm wrong, but Europe has a number of thriving basketball leagues. Quote: you can belive me. american football and basketball is nothing in europe. why? i don´t know? basketball ist not hard, and american football to boring??? i don´t know... i am a very sports interessting guy, i read all sport magazin, newspaper and watch the tv sportshows at austrian and german tv. i don´t know a europan basketball team or a baseball team... i dont know a player. in the firm there is a guy from philadelphia, a big football fan, he told me it´s so peculiar for him, a austrian football team wins the european cup and a little, little column in the newspaper, a soccer team wins in the qualifikation for the european cup, and the title page is full.
Sorry if I've mangled your quotes, but I think your answer about basketball would change dramatically if you were from, say, Spain instead of Austria. Basketball is a distant second to futbol in Spain but every serious sports fan will know a few of the players. The basketball league is well-attended-- teams draw 7-10k for many games which puts them on par with many 2nd division teams, and a few games are on tv. So bastketball is something in Europe-- just not everywhere.
Italy, Greece, Turkey, Israel, France, Croatia, Serbia... in these places (and more), basketball is, I dare say, more popular than soccer is in the US. In the southwest of France, rugby is more popular than soccer. In Boston, hockey might be more popular than basketball. What does any of that mean? It only means that Some Americans are imperialist swine. Some, thanks to Sesame Street, don't have the attention span to appreciate cricket. Some foreigners shouldn't be allowed to post on BigSoccer. None of that has anything to do with soccer's place in America. Americans don't, by and large, care about professional soccer because, well, their moms and dads didn't. It's really that simple. When more dads and moms care, so will the kids. Believe me. It has very little to do with the intrinsic qualities of the game vis-a-vis American mass culture. The same baseball game can be electrifying or stultifying, based on your knowledge of the game. The same goes for football. The same goes for hockey. The same goes for tennis, and the same certainly goes for soccer. And when the crowds get large enough, the media will follow (vid. NASCAR). It's not even really worth talking about.
i am not from spain, i am from austria, and here in austria we have the whole german tv. and i don´t know any european basketball player, sorry.from nba i know jordan, novitski and o´neil. you can belive me.
Oh I definitely believe you about Austria and Germany! I just know that it's difficult to generalize which sports are popular in Europe (or the US) on the basis of one region.
And, to put an even finer point on it, kids will care when mom or dad care about one specific team. It's all about the tribal culture of one team, just as it is in every other team sport in America. If dad gets happy when the Crew (for example) win, and angry or frustrated when they don't, then little Johnny will follow. Or, if Johnny hates daddy, he'll root for the Fire or some other team. Absolutely. Media coverage will come when the media finally realizes that a large part of its audience wants to know more about the local team, or, on a national scale, when lots of people want to know about how other teams affect their own. Well, and they get over their anti-soccer prejudice.... Well, I slightly disagree. I think that talking about it will help to dispell the notions that soccer, or any sport, can be so generalized and de-personalized that we forget that Sport A is not like Product A, that it can be marketed or even considered in the same way as a whole as a product, and that fans are the same thing as consumers. In order for soccer to thrive, the teams have to cultivate fans who care about whether or not his team wins or loses. Soccer, as a monolithic entity to be accepted or rejected as a whole, independent of its tribal nature, is what isn't worth talking about.
Baseball started around 1860 with Cincy. Football 20 or so years later, but football didnt dominate until the 1980"s Yes we had a national passion through the 60"s and 80's But in the begining it was college football not the Pro League. MLS is only what 9 years old, find something else to complain about, fans of football saw thier sport grow over 100 years to what we have now. A lot of the HATE from Rome and most talking heads comes from the attitude generated by most soccer players and coaches in High Schools. I come from a School in Baltimore known for great soccer, and when I was in school I played all sports, but the soccer players seperated themselves, as a click and this still goes on. I talk with the many different cultures I play soccer with now and they all say the same thing, there is an attitude amongst most Americans. It does exist because most soccer players come from upper Middle class to upper class, poor kids play the other sports. We are better than you attitude is in the memory of the talking heads of the Networks. But the general public is coming around, I see it with my circle of freinds, so is Rugby. Soon we will dominate the world..............Oh and i do have a great attention spand and Cricket is still ..........
Austraila, New Zealand, India, Usa, Various South Pacific Islands- The Last Great Hold Outs To Fifa's Quest To Conquer The World.what Do They All Have In Common? They Are Insular By Nature In Some Form Or Another. As For The United States............... 1. American's By Nature Are Not Internationalists. (see Gw In The White House For Proof) Most People I Know Think Of Soccer As Essentially "their Sport-not Ours". 2. It Is My Opinion That Americans View Soccer In The Same Way They View The Un - That Is A Nesacary They Have To Tolerate And Occasionally Participate In 3. From A Commercial Standpoint Advertising On Uniforms In The Big Four Sports Here Is Still A Very Touchy Issue (except For The Gods At Nile Of Course) And Therefore The Appeal To Advertisers Is Minimal In Regards To Television. 4. Besides- How Do Target Marketing To The U.s. Soccer Fans Such As We? Pretty Diverse Lot Without Much Common Ground. 5. Best Product- You Put The Top Ten Of The Epl On Tv On A Weekly Basis And Promote It Properly And Eventually You Will Start To Build An Audience. The Mls, However, Is Like Watching Paint Dry 4 Out Of Every 5 Matches Even To A Soccer Lover Like Myself. (and I Watch Every Match On Tv I Can) Do You Watch The Mexican League? Didn't Think So And The Level And Style Of Play In The Mls Is Similar. (mexican Nationals And Decendents Please Excuse Yourself From The Last Comment-thank You) 6. Figure Out A Way To Make Soccer Urban Cool. As It Stands Now It Is A Game For Immigrants And White Suburbia. How To Do That? I Have No Idea. 7. Dominate The World Consistantly. And Anyone Who Loves The Game Knows This Is Impossible For Any Nation And That Is A Major Part Of The Attraction Of The Sport On The International Level.
I am going to type straight from my mind with no filter so brace yourself for what comes out. One reason people may not embrace soccer is because they don't play soccer or haven't played since they were kids. One connection of fans with sports is knowledge of that sport and recognizing what pro athletes can do as amazing. The second reason the American public may not embrace soccer is because they have not been subjected to it as much as other sports. When we were growing up, the only good soccer I saw was high school in person and on TV it was the National Team with players like Alexi Lalas and Tony Meola. A third reason it is not embraced is due to the fact of not having players who are recognized like Freddy Adu is now. We need someone like Freddy Adu except for the fact that we would prefer it to be someone who is older and can be a better promoter of soccer. American football had Joe Montana and Walter Payton, Baseball had Babe Ruth and Hank Aaron, Basketball had Dr. J and Shaq, and so on and so forth. One way that the American public can be subjected to soccer more is by MLS spending less money on stupid crap and more money on promotion. We need to piggyback or learn from these big ChampionsWorld soccer matches and put an MLS team in one of those games. What do you think? We need a spokesperson that can do commercials, be flamboyant, be seen on Sportscenter, do talk shows, etc. It amazes me that a USA National Team player can walk down the street in most major cities and not even be recognized. Bobby Convey comes into the restaurant I work in all of the time and no one even thinks that he is a pro athlete. What if someone like Malcolm Glazer spent some of all his riches and instead of buying stock in Manchester United, he started up a Soccer Channel like Arnold Palmer has done for golf. Just an idea. I am full of them. Please reply and tell me if I am totally off base with all this or anybody is with me. Maybe we can start promoting it more ourselves in some form or another. Thanks. God bless. Del Shaffer