Posted on 06/04/2010 10:58:12 AM PDT by Big Bureaucracy
The world will be football soon… I mean the World Cup... The rest of the world knows what I mean, but this is not the case in the USA where 1-out-of-3 Americans don’t even know what sport will be played in the World Cup in South Africa next week.
A new Rasmussen Reports survey finds that 66% of adults in the USA correctly identify soccer as the sport played in the World Cup competition. 3% guess it is about baseball and 1% each vote for tennis, hockey or golf. 28% admit honestly that they are not sure what sport will be played.
Patriotically though 62% say they are at least somewhat likely to watch if the U.S. team advances to the World Cup finals. Go USA!
Despite these stats the soccer popularity is growing in the USA after the country hosted the 1994 FIFA World Cup and even more after the United States has emerged as one of the leading national women teams in the world. The US won two FIFA Women’s World Cups and three gold medals for the women soccer from the Olympics...Men’s MLS tried to draw attention to the game by turning the league into recycling bin for soccer stars at the end of their carrier. Lothar Matthaus, Hristo Stoichkov ,Carlos Valderrama and even David Beckham played whenever they were not injured to draw audience and sponsors. However up until 2007 the MLS paid networks to broadcast its games and only two teams in the league were profitable in 2009.
Americans are also watching more and more European soccer through Fox Soccer Chanel and Gol TV. Plus you’ve never really watched soccer until you’ve watched it on Telemundo. Go-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-l!Comcast has announced that it will be showing the World Cup in 3D on ESPN 3D.
(Excerpt) Read more at bigbureaucracy.com ...
Soccer? What is Soccer? A “sport”?
Heh.
Rugby, Aussie Rules Football, Hurling... now THOSE are European sports. Soccer? Not so much. Lots of running around and falling down.
:D
Hoss
I can't stand the sport. BOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRIIIINNNNGGGGG!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I lived in a neighborhood heavily-populated by Italian families (formerly a neighborhood *very* heavily-populated by Italians), and they went NUTS last time around when Italia won.
I find most sports boring, even soccer most of the time. But I’ll be watching the World Cup finals, since that’s where the best playing of any sport in the world is.
Any sport will be boring unless the absolute best players are playing.
I can assure you, watching Lionel Messi is not boring.
A good English Premier League match or El Classico between Real Madrid and Barcelona is as good as any other sporting event you can think of.
I feel for you - I grew up in Europe and I still think soccer is boring. The high school American girls play better soccer than my hubby who played soccer in the neighborhood during his all childhood.
I think Zidan head-butting that Italian dude was the most interesting part of the last time World Cup. LOL
Any sport will be boring unless the absolute best players are playing.I find lower-league soccer enjoyable to watch, too.
I think the problem is that it is an acquired taste. If you grew up watching soccer, you know about the subtleties of tactics and strategy. You understand what’s going on and can appreciate the moves of attack and defense. However, if you’re new to the game, you only see a bunch of guys running around for no apparent reason, apparently without achieving anything at all except a rare goal every half hour, with more useless running in between. Unfortunately, it is also quite hard to learn how soccer works by watching it on tv. You have to go to the stadium to see how the whole team cooperates, builds new formations, organizes attack and defense, until you’ll eventually get it.
Most grown-ups are probably not willing to invest this kind of effort. Which is a pity, because the reward is great indeed :-)
Baseball is just as much of an acquired taste. Well worth it, but it takes effort, too, to get into it if you didn’t grow up with it.
My all-time World Cup babe.
I work in deep dark mexico alot. Even the most primitive of bars in the smallest of towns always have the soccer game going. It has got to be the most boring sport on earth to watch...although it is fun to watch the place erupt into a frenzy if their guys score a goal. And the jovial party mood the bar erupts into when their team wins.
However, after watching enough soccer, I am totally convinced that when you have two relatively evenly matched teams, any goal that is scored is absolute total and complete luck.
I agree, it does take an investment in learning the players and traditions.
I like following English soccer for the same reason I like college football. The traditions of the teams, I like learning the various chants of each team. It almost becomes like a soap opera, when transfer time comes.
That is what is lacking here in the MLS, and I suppose it will never really get to that point here. Just as basketball and hockey are played worldwide, the center of the universe for those sports will always be in North America, and for soccer it will always be in Europe.
Ah, soccer...conclusive proof that the rest of the world really is that f****d up.
I’ve played soccer all my life - absolutely love playing and watching; to me there’s no other sport as intelligent and strategy driven than soccer (again, that’s just my opinion) but there is something to be said for no time-outs full out running and sprinting for two 45 min. halves and seeing top notch players do amazing things with only their feet! :)
An acquired taste, but I love it!
I’m also female so I grew up playing and watching the first ever women’s World Cup and my idol was Mia Hamm... I got to meet Christine Lilly because she came to one of my practices (she lived 2 towns over from me in CT).
Def. two different games when comparing women and men though.
The teamwork impresses me. Last WC the German team was operating like a well-oiled machine, a German player seemed to be in the right place no matter where the ball was kicked. It looked practically scripted for a movie like Escape to Victory, it was so perfect.
Then somewhere after round-robin something changed, their perfect teamwork disappeared, and they lost the WC.
You know a team is playing well when it looks really simple :-)
I agree!
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