Posted on 06/24/2010 1:22:08 AM PDT by Chet 99
By John Houder Columnist
Published: Thursday, June 17, 2010 at 6:01 a.m.
Last Modified: Wednesday, June 16, 2010 at 2:12 p.m.
The United States is a nation of differences. We all live together under one flag, but we're divided by geography, religion and socio-economic class. We disagree on trivial subjects like politics and important ones like whether or not the series finale of “Lost” was a complete disappointment. (It was.)
The only thing that transcends those boundaries and ties us together as a country is our mutual understanding that soccer is a pretty stupid game.
Everyone, from the richest Wall Street CEO to the poorest, bus-station hobo, will agree that soccer is an intensely boring sport where players are more likely to get hurt writhing around on the “pitch” in fake agony than they are while actually playing the game.
Where is the excitement in a 90-minute match that ends in a score of 1-0 or, often enough, 0-0? How many games can you watch before you lose all hope that something interesting will ever happen? Why don't they just pick up the ball or punch each other like in a real sport?
If we don't hate soccer, we certainly approach it with the same detached ambivalence as we do the metric system or photographs of other people's vacations. We understand that it's important or interesting to someone else, but we just don't have the time or energy to care about it ourselves.
(Excerpt) Read more at gainesville.com ...
The numbers would have to be understated by at least 75% for it to be getting more viewers than the spelling bee. 3.35 is still less than the spelling bee.
Again world viewership (especially world viewership of the olympics opening) has NOTHING to do with soccer becoming America’s 5th major sport.
And, again, spike in audience has nothing to do with becoming a major sport. Major sports need CONSISTENT audience, not spikes.
Pay attention to what you’re quoting and where your sticking emphasis. I said, and you bolded it, IN AMERICA the world cup is a minor event. Your own numbers show it getting NBA regular season ratings, that is NOT a major event IN AMERICA.
11.1 million viewers for the games with American team is less than an average MNF game. Again, minor even in America.
But if you understand the context of a game within the Group structure, it becomes bigger than just the game itself.
For example, every goal scored is huge, because the results of one game carry over to the next. So even a tie is a good result sometimes, in the larger picture of your standing in the group. And every goal is big, because of the role Goal Differential plays.
It’s not just the final score, but what goes on between scores. In Football, you are gaining yards and making 1st downs. Hockey averages 40 shots on goal. In baseball, the bases get occupied. Soccer may be likened to poker- lots of inactivity dispersed with a few moments of thrilling action. Poker solves this problem on TV by airing only a small percentages of plays.
The problem with the MLS is that it cannot compete with European Club Football.
The UEFA Champions League today is the big stage. And big money players want to be there, not in the MLS.
Imagine if you are a great basketball player from Europe, do you want to play at home, or do you want to play in the NBA?
But it does go against the American grain.
If you said to most Americans, "We can change the rules to make goals more common or we can keep the rules as they are but rig the group structure to reflect goal differentials," most of us would say, "Go ahead, change the rules!"
U.S. viewership of the NHL playoffs increased 24 percent from 2009, the league's highest average first-round audience in 10 years. The NHL said Friday that NBC and Versus combined to average 742,000 viewers per telecast. That's the most since ABC/ESPN/ESPN2 had 750,000 in 2000. Compare that to the average viewership of the first round of the World Cup.
Ratings and viewership rose double-digits for the start of the 2010 NBA Playoffs on TNT. Sunday's NBA Playoff tripleheader on TNT averaged a 2.2 U.S. rating and 3.3 million viewers, up 10% in ratings and 15% in viewership from last year (2.0, 2.9 mil). Compare that with the first round of the World Cup.
The 2009 Major League Baseball playoffs have attracted 15 per cent more television viewers during the first two days compared with the same time in 2008, Turner Broadcasting System Inc reported. Viewers totaled more than 4.5 million for the first six games, which included every matchup of American League and National League teams at least once. Last year, more than 3.9m people watched the two-day period. TBS said the average viewership by household for the October 7-8 games was the best for the start of a division series since 2005. Compare that to the first round of the World Cup.
FYI: The Spelling Bee is not a sport.
Agreed. The best want to play with the best and the pay doesn’t hurt either. Europe is the place where most of the top players play. The MLS is really a farm team. However, it is essential if we want to cultivate our home grown talent. And there are plenty of foreign players in the MLS.
The US is becoming competitive in soccer at the world level in much the same way that we rose in gymnastics to take on the Soviets, Chinese, Romanians, and Japanese. Success breeds sucess and draws an audience. We have so many tremendous athletes, a spirit of competitiveness, and national pride. How great would it be for the US to be at the top of the world's only truly global sport? It will happen. It is inevitable.
And I’d love to see Landon back with Everton this season, he had a huge impact while he was there, they might have even qualified for Europe had he stayed through the end of the season.
I would dare say, that as a result of yesterday’s game, there are a lot of young boys who will now pursue soccer as their main sport, and as a result, that seed will result in the US truly becoming an elite team in the next 10 years.
No I’m comparing ratings to ratings. And actually NASCAR regularly gets ratings superior to the NBA and the NHL, it’s really the #3 sport with the NBA and NHL competing for 4th, which is why to be 5th soccer would have to pass one of them.
Aggregate numbers are meaningless. You don’t sell commercials or contracts on aggregate numbers, they’re sold on simultaneous viewership, ratings. If 2 million people watch game X then 2 million people watch game X, all the money changing hand is based on those 2 million people, and if game Y also gets 2 million people that doesn’t give you 4 million viewers, it gives you 2 million viewers twice.
Spelling bee might not be a sport but it’s on ESPN and it got better ratings than the world cup is averaging.
Success doesn’t draw an audience, that’s one of the great lies fans of unpopular sports always tell themselves. We’ve won the vast majority of America’s Cups and 75% of the populace probably can’t even tell you what sport awards that trophy.
I think that hits the nail on the head.
99.9% of soccer fans fervently support a team. Hence the game is never boring when their side plays. Many soccer fans - including myself - can be bored with soccer at times when my team does not play.
As you say, any sport can be boring without a vested interest. We see the difference in the last US match. If that was another team many Americans would still not get it, but when it is your team you finally understand the joy of it.
Well, we - the US - are out. Good luck to The Netherlands today!
Congratulations to The Netherlands on their huge win and good luck against Uruguay.
Thanks, that is really nice!
BTW: I hope that Mick Jagger won’t be attending the match this evening, and support Holland. Why? Because every major team he supported until now has been kicked out of the tournament...
(Never was a Stones fan anyway).
Cheers mr(s?) Rummyfan -
yup. Van Bronkhorst did exactly the right thing when the game was a bit narcotic... just hammer that thing in, no matter the distance.
He is a gentleman player, 36 now, and will stop at the highest level after the final. What better way than to go out as a World Champion?
(Am writing this in oppressive heat, which doesn’t go well with me. About 21 Celsius is my favourite temperature.)
Thank you for posting, A&M.
I would watch soccer if a bunch of hookers from the red light district were playing!.
As opposed to basketball, which is boring no matter who is playing.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.