Sound Off: Is Football (Finally) on the Rise in America?

[tbook24]

soccer is only big during a major event like the world cup. then it goes back to being 5th amongst team sports again behind football, baseball, basketball and hockey. me i watch all sports from darts to rugby but they all fall behind the big 3 sports. soccer is not aggressive enough and americans get sick of seing the flopping aspect of the game.

[fugazi]

Quote: Originally Posted by UK0wnag3

Back on point, yes. Every time I go stateside (as I am right now, though flying home today) I notice how much soccer has grown from the year before. As an outsider it really is noticeable. There's been a huge football maturation.

Exactly...the only people who think it isn't growing or isn't popular or isn't viable are people who don't pay any attention to soccer in the first place, so how would they know?

[fugazi]

Quote: Originally Posted by eyeamg0dly

As far as american sports played internationally, I am a bit more surprised that baseball hasn't gained popularity in Europe.

the guy that wants world american football is doomed to disappointmebt...

now, basketball, on the other hand...i could be down with a club level world championship

[fugazi]

Quote: Originally Posted by NYwRiter94

Because soccer is far and away the only globally important sport in the rest of the world, people are too afraid to change rules or traditions, which then prevents the sport from improving.

I eagerly await your suggestions...

Quote: Originally Posted by NYwRiter94

There are some rules in soccer that make no sense -- why are there only three subs allowed in the World Cup with no re-entry? It doesn't make you "tough" to play a full 90 minutes, particularly because it just leads to players taking plays off and playing at less than 100%.

this IS the voice of experience talking, yes?? You were a box-to-box midfielder or full back, right?

Quote: Originally Posted by NYwRiter94

Sure, there are breaks every 10 seconds in American football, but you also don't see Calvin Johnson taking a break to stretch out his hamstring on the line of scrimmage while the Detroit Lions are snapping the ball.

yes. yes, you do. he may go to the sidelines, but it happens.

What I don't understand is why so many american football fans insist that soccer must be more like football, and if not, something is wrong. I'm amazed at how inflexible some people's minds are. Maybe not you, NY-whatever, but...yeah...lots of people.

They should make the clock stop! Why do they have draws? Why don't they do subs the same way we do? Why do they hug instead of patting each others butts? Why don't they have, like, an extra point? Why are they different? Sure, i never really watch it, and don't know much about it, but why don't they play the game the way I think it should be played? it's embarrassing.

[TimLawNYC]

I think football is really popular in the U.S.; some 112 million people watched the most recent SuperBowl--a new record! Football is one of (if not THE) most popular sports in America.

Soccer, on the other hand, is always going to be a second-tier sport here. It's too slow-moving, with long stretches where seemingly "nothing" happens, and you're lucky to see more than 3 goals in a 90-plus minute match.

Soccer is a minor-league sport in our country, to the point that you kind of seem like a pretentious tool if you try to call it "football." With apologies to the rest of the world, we already have a far superior and much more popular sport called Football in the U.S.A.

We seem to have this conversation every four years around this time. Soccer is fun during the World Cup and people get into it, but in the four year interim it is rightly relegated to "also-ran" status where most forget about it in favor of more exciting games.

[fugazi]

Quote: Originally Posted by tbook24

soccer is only big during a major event like the world cup.

IKR! I mean, if it was important, they'd have their own dedicated cable channel like golf and baseball and the nfl, etc.

If soccer was "big" in the US, I wouldn't have to read about the Champions League on weirdo sites like "BBC", I could just watch it on ESPN!!


Saying soccer is only big during the WC is like saying the NFL is only big during the super bowl.

In other news...we don't teach people to think critically anymore.

[fugazi]

Quote: Originally Posted by TimLawNYC

Soccer is a minor-league sport in our country, to the point that you kind of seem like a pretentious tool if you try to call it "football."

Why? What do you call someone that tells others how they should refer to something?

Quote: Originally Posted by TimLawNYC

With apologies to the rest of the world, we already have a far superior and much more popular sport called Football in the U.S.A.

Tell me of this superiority....

Now, mind you, I watched american football from the time I was 3yo until the present day...and have watched/followed soccer since the late 90s...so, as somewhat of an expert on both, at least as a spectator is concerned...I await your argument, though I'm sure it doesn't deviate far from the same tired arguments.

3 hours NFL games with about 13mins of action sounds ******** to me, but instead of being a cultural bigot about it...I appreciate what goes into making a few of those 13mins really great.

[NYwRiter94]

Quote: Originally Posted by UK0wnag3

The Premier League is highly dependent upon television revenues, so much so that I predict modern football will collapse upon itself within ten years. The bottom line is if you aren't good enough to play in the league, well take someone else. Also, to use Wigan as an example, it's a rugby town. Until the football team had success everyone was watching successful rugby league team. Let's not forget the whole Wimbledon/Mk Dons relocation debacle aswell.

That was part of the bigger argument I was making in the entire paragraph. There is no relegation in American sports leagues (something that is pretty cool, but probably wouldn't work in the US because of the aforementioned singularity of leagues and concentration of talent). I won't pretend to know the individual instances of each European city, but I would be willing to guess there's less inter-sport competition than in US cities (most of the major ones, at least).

Quote: Originally Posted by UK0wnag3

The flip side to that is once an NFL game reaches the blowout stage, most of the big players sit on the sidelines. You aren't gonna have Man Utd say "I know we've made three subs, but we're taking our other stars off aswell."

That's not very often and only in the NFL, where injuries are so prevalent. In other sports you don't see that happen (maybe the NBA, but I'll get to that in a second).

Quote: Originally Posted by UK0wnag3

It's gamesmanship, just as it happens in the NBA. No fan in the world likes watching it, but unfortunately it's part of the game. I'm not gonn deprive myself of watching a sport just because there's one aspect I don't like.

I personally hate basketball (college or professional, I'll watch my own school but that's about it). However, players who flop even once in a major game are attacked and criticized. It just seems like there's no accountability for it in soccer.

Quote: Originally Posted by UK0wnag3

That's because American sports are obsessed with Win-Loss records, whereas soccer realises that a season is a marathon, and it's about being consistent to accumulate points. As much as I love extra-innings and walk-offs in baseball, it's 162 games. One tie here or there shouldn't kill you.

American sports also realize that in a country with so many popular professional sports, fans are not going to watch or attend your product if there is an inconclusive result. While the overall outcome of a season is important, overtime in sports is something that usually raises the intensity and excitement of the given sport to another level.

Quote: Originally Posted by UK0wnag3

Nope, not rising to that one.

Yeah, I understand how that was interpreted, but I meant it from the standpoint of being a more fun sport to watch. I'm not implying that the players are better, because they clearly aren't, but the level I watched was high enough that the players were actually capable of completing passes and making plays, and I just thought the team game was more exciting to watch. To be fair, I also saw the game from a much better and closer angle than I have the few times I have seen professional soccer.

Quote: Originally Posted by fugazi

I eagerly await your suggestions... this IS the voice of experience talking, yes?? You were a box-to-box midfielder or full back, right?

No, but I played years of soccer in my life, have very close friends who have played their entire lives and still play at the Division 1 college level, and also have experience playing entire hockey games. In the NHL, an elite defender will max out at 30 minutes of ice time per game, half of the 60 minutes of gameplay. My senior year of high school, my partner and I would play 40+ minutes of an entire 45 minute game. It completely changes the way you play the game, as you intentionally sit back on certain plays including loose pucks and play a much more conservative style so you don't use up all of your energy.

Quote: Originally Posted by fugazi

yes. yes, you do. he may go to the sidelines, but it happens.

The team isn't playing a man down, though. I saw van Persie stretching out his hamstring on the 18 in the game against Australia while the ball was on that half of the field. It just seems mind-boggling to me that you could have players ON THE FIELD who are occupied with something other than the game that's going on.

Quote: Originally Posted by fugazi

What I don't understand is why so many american football fans insist that soccer must be more like football, and if not, something is wrong. I'm amazed at how inflexible some people's minds are. Maybe not you, NY-whatever, but...yeah...lots of people.

Quote: Originally Posted by fugazi

They should make the clock stop! Why do they have draws? Why don't they do subs the same way we do? Why do they hug instead of patting each others butts? Why don't they have, like, an extra point? Why are they different? Sure, i never really watch it, and don't know much about it, but why don't they play the game the way I think it should be played? it's embarrassing.

I don't think it should be like American football -- they are pretty obviously two extremely different sports. In my post, I mentioned ice hockey, American football AND high school soccer. The reason I brought up three different sports? Because that's what American sports are all about. People find things in different sports and apply them to their own and it makes the game better. Video replay, which originated in the NFL, is now being used in the NHL and MLB (maybe the NBA too? I have no idea) and it makes those games much better. The NHL introduced the playoff system which is now present in every American sport and some foreign competitions including the World Cup.

You complain that American fans want soccer to be more like American football. What I'm complaining about is that soccer fans refuse to believe that soccer is anything but perfect in its current form and that any changes to a sport that, honestly, is globally popular only because of its low cost and simplicity to play, will somehow destroy it.