I'm gonna watch these guys kick a ball up and down the field for more than an hour and end up with a score of 1-0?
I don't think so.
Reduce the number of players and allow them to sub so they have the energy to really go all out and you may be on to something...but that's more or less already a sport called ice hockey...
Soccer is a foreign invention. Americans don't play cricket, do we?
I would also point out that soccer is not popular in the U.S. for the same reason that baseball is losing its popularity: It simply has a reputation for being a Third World sport.
I'm gonna watch these guys kick a ball up and down the field for more than an hour and end up with a score of 1-0?
I don't think so.
Whether you're on the edge of your seat waiting on a 3-2 with two outs pitch, or anticipating a fourth and inches with 45 seconds left - the moment gets to be savored.
Soccer is just ants running back and forth.
It's paintball!
This is a dumb article.
The reason soccer hasn't taken off in the US is because it is not a TV sport. For several reasons its not a TV sports. For one.. Soccer is best viewed in attendance, not sitting on your couch watching it.
Number two, there is less advertising opportunity in soccer. You can only run TV ads at half-time. .
Also, the quality of soccer has alot to do with it. You can't see much world class soccer in the US, anything less than world class soccer is horrible on TV.
Soccer is too subtle for most American sport's fans, hockey has the same problem. People get irritated by movement without scoring, they don't understand flow and positional mechanics. Add to that the fact that the TV networks hate sports without regular and predictable stoppages of play for commercials and you've got a sport that will never crack the top three.
That being said I don't understand why so many people on both sides of this discussion have to be such insulting doofuses. So you do/ don't like a sport, who gives a damn, neither position makes you special or interesting.
My solution:
400 players on the field at once.
50 balls in play at the same time.
Ditches and barbed wire across the field.
Topless cheerleaders.
Then I'll watch it!
We don't like soccer? News to me. It can't be because it's lacking in violence -- we don't watch Aussie Rules Football either (well, I do, but not many others).
I think the biggest reason is because we don't dominate. Like Patton said, America loves a winner. And we don't like being in a sport where we know we aren't the best and don't even have the ability to win world titles. However, we are getting better, from total nobodys to the quarter finals in the World Cup rather quickly.
Wait until we start winning, then see the crowds. And we WILL start winning. Nothing stops Americans once we get our hearts set on something.
This article was pretty boring too.
Perhaps the physcially distinguishing characteristic of human beings---opposable thumbs, digital dexterity---and you play a game where that is the one thing you DON'T use? Makes no sense to me. Of course, look at the acheivements of the US (where the loved sports pastimes are football, baseball, basketball) and then look at the societies that play soccer----they generally can't figure out basic hygeine and civil utilities. What does that tell you?
I guess I am a little different. I have played soccer all my life. I played football in junior high because they didn't have soccer. Once in highschool I played soccer again.
I love the team effort in soccer. I could watch it everyday if it was on. I don't have cable or satellite though.
The other sports are way over rated. Just because they have big time ad money doesn't make them fun to watch. If I do watch them it is when there are finals.
And why does the winner of the superbowl or world series become a "world" champion? That is just absurd to me. They don't play anyone outside of America.
By the way I was born and raised in this great country of America. It is the Greatest country on God's green earth.
Hockey does have one thing that I think would make soccer very exciting. When a player commits a foul, he should be sent to a penalty box for five minutes. It sounds ridiculous, but this kind of thing would add a bit of uncertainty to the game and require additional strategy on the part of both teams when the game is played under "penalty time."
good old fashion American Kick-ball is more fun to play let alone more exciting to watch...I played Little League soccer and football as a young kid. I quickly decided I preferred football. I enjoyed wearing the gear; like a knight going into battle. I enjoyed the more clearly defined roles of each player; a bigger but slower kid, like me, had a better chance to shine in the game (defensive end). Even bigger and slower kids than me had a place on the field on the offensive and defensive lines. Basically, from a kid's perspective, I found it a lot more inclusive and exciting than soccer.
I saw a comedian a few years ago, I think it was Denis Leary, and he said the reason Americans don't like soccer is because Americans don't like to watch a sport with a bunch of 150 lb. guys running around for 90 minutes and the final score would probably be 1 - 0. And that would be a HIGH scoring game.
Soccer would be more popular if Major League Soccer in the U.S. had more world superstars playing in them. I remember when I grew up in New Jersey in the late 1970s, Giants Stadium would consistently have 60,000+ fans watching because the New York Cosmos (remember that team??) had world-famous superstars like Pele, Franz Beckenbauer, and Giorgio Chinaglia.
BTW, at least I understand the rules for soccer. Watching a cricket match is truly confusing!!
"Soccer was invented by European ladies to keep them busy while their husbands did the cooking."
-Hank Hill
And speaking of ladies, Paglia's Gridiron Feminism essay is a worthwhile read.
ping
