or this...
Posted on 02/15/2012 5:36:05 AM PST by Colonel Kangaroo
If the sport of football ever dies, it will die from the outside in. -- Jonah Lehrer
If an increasing number of economists and trend analysts are to be believed, we may one day look back at something like Colt McCoy's concussion against the Pittsburgh Steelers in 2011 as one of many galvanic events that blew football apart, and reduced the country's most popular sport to a marginal pastime. It's unlikely that such a colossal financial concern as football could be killed off entirely, but as Malcolm Gladwell first wrote in the New Yorker in 2009, it's not crazy to think that an increasing number of player concussions -- and the NFL's real lack of concern about those injuries despite its public face -- could have Americans looking at football very differently down the road.
Gladwell's article, which compared football to dogfighting and revealed some truly horrifying information about the effects of concussions on the minds and bodies of football players...
(Excerpt) Read more at sports.yahoo.com ...
Your story reminds me of the line in the article: soccer is popular where the only alternatives are starvation and badminton......
or this...
I hate to ask the obvious, but, medically speaking, what exactly is a concussion?
Well, you could read the article linked in earlier post, but quickly a few items
Soccer's offsides rule is the equivalent of taking away the fast break in basketball or the bomb in football, disallowing mean spirited free enterprise folks from the risk reward option of sacrificing defense or protection for the chance to get beyond all defenses.
A route in soccer is like 3-0, which does not hurt feelings the way a 30-0 football score would.
The article is pretty funny, and written by someone who has been familiar with soccer for almost 40 years.
No wait, it's not. They all like baseball.
In other words, stop making a fool out of yourself on FR by talking about things you know NOTHING about!
Thanks.
After starting for two years at quarterback for the USC Trojans, taking the team to two Rose Bowls and a national championship, Pat Haden went to Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. However, when he was invited to join Oxford's rugby team, he declined, saying, "I love my body too much."
Why is it, that you never hear people complain about the low scoring in hockey, or their offsides rule, like people complain about soccer?
Thank you for proving how humorless soccer elites are, not to mention woeful at reading comprehension. I have played and observed soccer for 40 years and know a lot about the game. I think as a rec sport is it fabulous, but I do think the whole concept of soccer as the worlds 'most popular sport' is simply flawed and I like to make fun of that aspect of soccer. I also think the lack of a real risk reward equation (and yes, it does exist to some extent but not nearly the amount in football or basketball) keeps it too low scoring and too un dramatic for American audiences.
Now, having said that, your logic about baseball being popular in Cuba and Cuba being a socialist country misses the point entirely. I am talking about the essence of the sport as being socialist and not about the economic system of those who like it or don't like it. You have proven prickly, humorless, and not very percetpive.
OK, now we're getting somewhere with some good conversation. First, the rules are not that similar though they are called the same thing. The blue line in hockey changes everything about the comparison. HAVING SAID THAT I would say that hockey's low scoring is a factor in its popularity problems and the league addressed their offside rule a few years ago and loosened it for this very reason. If hockey could ever get to a norm of say 5-4 instead of 2-1, it would take off.
Second, a hockey puck can easily be rifled the entire length of the ice so there's a more practical need for such a rule and a blue line and red line, etc.
And third, your premise that no one complains about it simply is not true. Hockey talks about their rules all the time and is much more flexible in changing the. Recently they reduced the size of pads goalies could use.
BUT, you asked an excellent question.
But thanks for the laugh (and, yes, I'm laughing AT you, not with you.)
That you don’t have the sense of humor or the IQ to follow me is not my fault. You have not issue a single syllable of evidence to back up your premise, which of course is flawed.
I am one of those who actually prefers a 2-1 pitchers’ duel, over a 10-9 slugfest.
And what about basketball, sure teams score a ton of points, but you could still tune into the last two minutes of most games without really missing much.
In soccer, if you blink, you could miss the important moment of a game. Plus you don’t have the constant stop/starts of the other sports, with TV Timeouts and all that nonsense.
Also soccer is about the drama over a long season, the best day of the season is the last week, not because of the teams battling for the title, but because of seeing which teams would avoid the drop......It was amazing on the last day of the EPL season last year, because the situation changed from minute-to-minute as teams scored goals, that made them safe, at the expense of other teams. It was hard to top that for pure drama. And avoiding the drop, in terms of financial impact, means even more than winning a title. It’s a huge drop in revenues between being in the EPL and the Championship (the 2nd Division).
——Soccer will remain a joke as long as it allows the possibility that the whole two-year process of determining a World Champion can boil down to the equivalent of a free-throw contest.——
I played in HS and college, and I never liked this tie-breaking method.
At one time, in HS, goalies were not allowed to use their hands in double-OT, or be penalized if they did. At least this way, you had to earn a penalty shot, and midfield play became very important.
Relegation is one of the most beautiful concepts in all of the wide, wide world of sports. I so wish it would catch on in some sport here.
On that, we agree.
I don't understand why they can't do it like hockey and just keep going until somebody scores.......IMHO they had it right with "The Golden Goal", but for some strange reason, they got rid of it.
I would just waive the substitution restrictions in Extra Time, and allow free substituting. That certainly would be an improvement.
That is one of the better solutions I’ve ever heard. Though it sure has to be tough on the guys to fight off that instinct to make a save...
“Kinda like a motorcyclist drives slower, and is less likely to take risks, without a helmet. It would seem as though it’s a trade out. Fewer incidences, but more severe when they occur.”
Quite possible but I would think a good study of Rugby and Football would yield some valuable information and maybe on the whole helmets will be found to be valuable or counterproductive. Both sports have similar types of contact so it would seem going back through the archives of player history some valuable data could be gleaned.
You make some fair points, and let me clarify something that got lost in all the nuance of the rules, etc. I was not slamming soccer per se. I played it in little league in NC when that area of NC was one of the first areas in the entire nation to know what the sport was. The high school I attended was a pioneer in the sport in the Raleigh Durham area.
I do not dislike soccer per se. What I was making fun of is the soccer elite attitude. The fact that some folks took this ‘attack on soccer’ so personally proves my point that there is an elitism among soccer folks that is akin to the elitism among Prius drivers or folks with pink ribbons for breast cancer.
It is THAT and THAT ALONE that I am tweaking. I use some of the nuances of soccer and the bogus claim that it is the world’s most popular sport as a jumping off point - but the commentary was really a tweak on the similarities between the liberal mindset and the soccer elite mindset.
Yes, some folks prefer defensive oriented games in all sports, but not the majority of fans.
There's always some sideshow going on that's very entertaining to somebody.
But scorring? If they made the goal about 5 ft wider they'd get up there in basketball's numbers!
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