....
didn't say it's beyond the American sportsfan's ability to fathom. I said it's more subtle than they want to watch.
More subtle than setting up a tailing changeup after coming hard inside?
More subtle than the applied leverage at the line of scrimmage that allows the RB to look like a star?
My point is, there are subtleties in all sports. So it is rather an empty argument to say that soccer is on some sort of higher aesthetic level.
Definitely more subtle than setting up pitches, largely because every player is doing that same kind of mental combat with every other player every moment of the game. In baseball it's just the pitcher vs the batter and only on the pitches. In soccer and hockey you're trying to teach the other player to expect every aspect of your movement so that you can do one thing different and leave him behind.
When was the last time you actually heard an NFL broadcaster talk about applied leverage at the line more deeply than "you've got to get under your opponent"? While the actual battle in the trenches of football is highly intricate and subtle it never gets discussed in the coverage.
I didn't say there aren't subtleties in all sports. I said there are MORE subtleties in soccer and hockey and the subtleties are deeper and require more dedication by the fan to learn, and are also more necessary to understand to understand the game. It's not an empty argument, it's the raw truth, and I'm not saying it's on a higher aesthetic level. I'm saying it's more subtle than the average American sports fan is willing to watch.
In the last month, Major League Soccer has received
- $4,000,000 from the sale of Bobby Convey and DaMarcus Beasley, could be more depending on incentives.
- $20,000,000 in expansion fees from Utah and Chivas USA
- $15,000,000 from Chivas for playing in Los Angeles
- 3 new stadium announcements within 6 months
This equates to around $40 million dollars for MLS in a month time period.
Hmm.
http://www.mlsnet.com/MLS/index.jsp