Posted on 01/09/2014 7:21:34 AM PST by C19fan
Soccer is, without a doubt, the world's most popular sport. Football is, without a doubt, America's most popular. Football absolutely dominates in the U.S., but once you leave North America and nobody cares about Brady vs. Manning, or Auburn vs. Alabama. Messi vs. Ronaldo? That's more like it.
The new year dawns, like always, with a zillion college bowl games and the NFL playoffs, and the over-saturation of football has us puzzled as to why its popularity so outstrips soccer's in this country. Football's flaws, some unredeemable, are there for all to see: serious injuries, drawn-out replay reviews to interpret Byzantine rulebooks, and - let's be honest - extremely creepy commercials for Old Spice. What good reason is there to choose all that mess over "The Beautiful Game"?
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearsports.com ...
All I know is soccer is growing and it’s going to get bigger here before it gets smaller. Will it be a ‘big four’ sport? Who knows?
...the only reason soccer is seeing any growth relates to the generalized overtaking of our culture by the gender equity crowd, which is dedicated to the elimination of sports which cannot be played by both genders...and of these, soccer is preeminent, because the gender talent level is not nearly as evident...
It feels like it’s 1936. I like that.
...interesting point...a decade before my time, but from all I’ve read, baseball had a good flavor then...my major critique is its too long...seven innings could just as easily produce a satisfactory result as nine...
Huh? As is the case with most sports played by both genders (and in the case of soccer, I've coached both genders), boys and men play with greater pace, power and speed than women, who tend to share the ball better at youth level and, while they play well, do not play at the level of the top men.
And since women's soccer is rarely televised outside of the Women's World Cup, the growth in ratings in the game is mostly attributable to men.
As is the case with most sports played by both genders (and in the case of soccer, I’ve coached both genders), boys and men play with greater pace, power and speed than women
...come now...quite obviously my point is that the extremely conservative nature of the scoring opportunities in soccer, as well as things like the size of the field, tend to mask the obvious power and pace differential, which is music to the ears of the gender bunch...also, I’m speaking strictly about interscholatic sports, not professional...
...in addition to which, just imagine a boys soccer team playing a girls team, and then imagine a boys-girls basketball matchup, and you’ll see what I mean about de-emphasized gender performance differential...
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