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 ...
The U.S. Soccer Federation was founded in 1913, so you can do the math . . . .
i get by with a little help from my friend Erasmus :)
Fit, smiling young women always make me smile!
The pound for pound ignorance on this thread is very high.
Soccer...emasculating young American males since 1984.
My daughter played soccer until high school. Then, like virtually every single other player on her team, she moved on to another sport. Most of them moved to basketball.
It’s not just a “girls” sport. It’s a young girls sport.
Oh sure, there are a few niches that might use the metric system out of necessity, but we don't seek it out. If we need a metric wrench to fix something, we'll use it. If we're channel surfing and see a soccer game on ESPN, we might watch it for a few seconds (mostly to see if there's any serious injuries, a fight, or (rarely) a goal being scored. And then we move on.
At the same time soccer is being pushed harder, the physical risks of playing football are also being brought to the surface.
Soccer - just let me die boring
So football wins by a narrow margin.
Football would be a lot better if they would quit stopping the game every 30 seconds.
Hmmmm...establishment of Federal Reserve, 19th Amendment, Wilson administration, soccer...
Coincidence?
I equate soccer to ping pong or tennis, while might be fun to play, it sucks to watch. Not a big Nascar fan either, look another left turn!
ESPN and some other network has a daily show about soccer.
A number of sports channels broadcast EPL, La Liga, Serie A, and French first division matches.
ABC broadcasts 1-2 EPL matches on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
At the highest levels, soccer is very entertaining. The drama towards the end of a close match can be captivating.
The skill level at the highest levels is amazing.
Most of the most valuable sports franchises in the world are soccer teams. The sport also has more of the most highest paid athletes in the world.
The wives and girlfriends of soccer players are much hotter overall than in any other sport.
I wonder when the NFL is going to start putting the names of team sponsors on the jerseys like soccer does. The money would be huge.
Here are some reasons why soccer is not that great: It is a game designed for skinny little foreign guys who can run around all day on a too-huge field and not get tired. Upper-body strength is actually a detriment in soccer. You can’t use your arms in soccer. There is almost no scoring in soccer.
Here’s my list:
1. You can go take a bathroom break with little fear of missing any scoring.
2. See #1.
“Football would be a lot better if they would quit stopping the game every 30 seconds. “
You stole my point. Add to that the prima donna skirted quarterbacks, and a rulebook that is growing faster than Obamacare.
The writer missed a main point about the dominance of soccer. It’s Nationalism. I experienced soccer over in Europe, and the nationalistic fervor during the Weltmanschaft gets to you.
America has nothing akin to it except the Olympics, and the medals are so parcelled out among the nations it dilutes that sense of nationalism.
I never liked soccer until I experienced it in Europe.
And the author is dead spot on about the abysmal state of sports commentary in all American sports.
This was explained to me by a women's soccer coach as she and two of her students had suffered ACL injuries from the sport.
False. Baseball is way more popular than football. Compare the total attendance and viewership for MLB games over the course of a year--compare those numbers to the totals for NFL games, and Major League Baseball is far ahead. It's not even close.
I've always been a baseball fan first. I watch some football, but not as much as I did back in the day. Also, I see football going on a bit of a decline in popularity. The concussion and injury issue is leading to fewer kids participating. The thug culture is a turn-off. Football could go the way of boxing.
That being said, I think that soccer games are about as interesting as watching paint dry.
In the media and money driven market of America, if there were big bucks and tremendous interest in soccer, you'd not be able to get away from it. Instead, it's relgated to the 3am filler spots on regional sports channels. My guess is there's a reason for that.
Thank you, “mountn man” and THANK YOU, Lord!
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