I went out last night and had a few brews at a local sports bar. On one of the screens, they had on a soccer game-from Euro 2008. It made me think about how soccer is so unpopular here but it is easily the most popular sport worldwide. Here are 2 reasons why Americans don't like soccer:
1. Little/no scoring. I say that, but yet when they do score, it's like the goalkeeper has no clue what he's doing. If they got rid of the offsides rule and narrowed the goal, I think there would be a little more scoring and the game would not have changed that much.
2. When someone gets bumped, they act like they've been shot-and they carry them off on a stretcher for a little shin bruise. Until soccer players man up, it will never be among the favorites in this country.
So then I thought, how come NASCAR is popular but IndyCar isn't? Personally I don't like either one.
How come golf is popular but bowling isn't? They both require a certain type of athletic ability to be good, but someone with no athletic talent could participate.
Here are my personal 10 favorite sports:
1. Football-love the NFL/college is fun but I hate the BCS.
2. Baseball-love going to the ballpark.
3. Basketball-this almost dropped below hockey for me.
4. Hockey-until I moved to Dallas, I wasn't a hockey fan.
5. Golf-love to play and appreciate the pros.
6. Bowling-great sport that has seen it's glory days come and go.
7. Volleyball-women in bikinis is never a bad thing.
8. Soccer-I actually played soccer in high school.
9. Softball-I enjoyed watching the college WS.
10. Tennis-I'd rather watch the ladies play but I mute them to get away from the grunts.
I see it like you do. Action sells.
The World Cup is the Bomb!
Euro-Whenever is top notch, too.
I follow the Premier league(Newcastle, pity me) for great play.
We see far too little great soccer from the MLS, so channel surfers see a bunch of little guys practicing aerobics and switch to something else.
jaguarjoe
Soccer'll never catch on here until the men's national side actually garners a level of international success. The MLS by its own standards isn't that great and even with the advent of Beckham it'll still take time to capture the nation's attention.
I'm a martial arts buff but as of yet I'm not fully into the MMA mix .
As to women's volleyball ......hell what's not to like ?
Kerry Walsh and Misty May Treanor
justan' aka tophatal .......
Last edited by justanotherfan on June 19th at 12:52 PM.
I don't buy the fact that Americans don't like soccer because the athletes are "wimpy." I'm a huge basketball fan but even I will admit that some of the flopping that goes on in that league makes soccer players look like Chuck Norris. Pick a team in the Premier League and watch every game, I guarantee you will be hooked. The level of play is top-notch and the hitting that goes on is certainly entertaining.
I think that some of the problem lies in that many Americans (including myself) don't understand the game. As I said in my blog today, how can it be taken seriously when a team (Turkey) is down 1-0 at the end of regulation, then, in the extra time (however they come up with that), which doesn't count in the game time, they score, and then win on penalty kicks? That's what irks me. But you're also right that low scoring hurts it a great deal; when a 0-0 tie is a good thing, many Americans don't like it.
I very much enjoy soccer, but also understand how difficult it can be for people to acquire a taste for the game. The flopping (it happens in ALL leagues) is simply disgusting. Add to that some difficult to understand, but actually pretty cool rules/laws, and you've got to want to appreciate the game to put in the time to understand it.
BTW - the "extra time" isn't really extra time. In soccer, the referee keeps official time. It is up to the referee to determine when a game has reached full-time; he/she allows for the time during which play was stopped for unusual/non-routine circumstances - e.g. injuries,long stoppages due to disputes/violations, excessively long celebrations, etc. The clock you see on many broadcasts is simply "running time" - unadjusted for such stoppages (the "extra time" is called more correctly "stoppage time"). When the referee judges the game to have reached full-time, he blows the whistle.
The judgement of the referee is a very unusual feature of soccer, in comparison to US sports (with the possible exception of the judgement afforded to basketball referees).
