The beautiful game

[Bobinelli]

Can anyone answer why football (soccer) isn't as popular in the US as it is in the rest of the world?

I would have thought that considering the amount of European immigrants living in America it would be. Also considering the large population, excellent sport facilities and finances available the US national team should be pushing to win the world cup rather than coming last.

[C K Dexter Haven]

Soccer is gaining in popularity in America, but there is a strong American tradition to do things different from the way they're done in most of the rest of the world. Metric, frinstance, or national health care, or gun control, or McDonald's ... oh, wait, maybe I exaggerate that last one.

[DSYoungEsq]

The answer has its roots in American Colleges and baseball.

'Football' has been around an awfully long time. In middle-ages Europe, it often was played by having the people from one town meet the people from another town at a spot equidistant from both, then attempt to kick a ball into one or the other town square. The Italian version of the sport was known as 'calcio.' England had a version as well.

In the early 19th Century, 'muscular Christianity' was a concept introduced into English public schools, designed to help educate young gentlemen through athletics. Among the sports utilized was football.

Unfortunatly, the schools had troubles agreeing to rules for the game. Some schools wanted to allow the ball to be carried and the carrier 'tackled' by physically restraining him and putting him on the ground. Others wanted to leave the game primarily a game of the feet, without being able to grab a player to stop him. Of the former, the most famous school was Rugby, and that version came to be known as Rugby Football. The other version was developed into the Football Association, and came to be known as Assoc. Football, or, eventually, Soccer.

Unfortunatly, soccer became quite popular with the masses, making it 'unsuitable' for the young gentlemen who attended such bastions of learning as Cambridge or Oxford. Those schools adopted football programs based on Rugby rules.

Jump to the US. The time is the turn of the century. Lots of people are here from England and other countries where soccer is getting quite popular. It becomes popular here, too, though never quite to the degree it did in places the English held a large degree of commercial sway (e.g. Argentina, Italy, Portugal, etc.). However, the top colleges, among them the Ivy League schools, decide that they have to be as much like 'Oxbridge' as they can. Therefore, they develop football based on rules similar to Rugby rules, with some peculiar variations thought up over here. The result, of course, is American, or 'gridiron' football. As that game becomes increasingly popular at the college level (remember that in the 20's and 30's the college game was what people followed), soccer's popularity wanes. In 1930, the US makes the semi-finals, losing to Argentina 6-1. By 1950, the US only was able to win one game, and then didn't make the finals again until 1990.

Lest you think soccer was never popular here, the American Soccer League in the 20's and 30's played to crowds of 6,000 or more, better than the original professional American Football crowds.

How does baseball fit in? Well, frankly, baseball makes soccer unnecessary. In England, and in countries England traded with, there was no single sport that had captured the interest of the population. In the US, however, we already had baseball, which used up quite a bit of our sporting effort. In Italy, soccer became virtually the only sport worth patronizing; in America, baseball made development of fan appreciation less easy.

For those of you with interest in sources of history of the sport in America, and abroad, you can read such books as 'Twenty-Two Foreigners in Funny Shorts' by Pete Davies, or go to sites like http://www.soccerspot.com/soccerhistory/ . The latter has a series of fun links to articles about the development of the game in the US. :)

[BurnMeUp]

I think another reason soccer may not be as popular could be because of the low scoring.

Baseball is the only really low scoring popular sport (and the scores are still generally higher than soccer matches).

Some might argue that Hockey (another low scoring sport) is popular in some regions, moreso than higher scoring games like basketball, but you will find that over all more people in America attend higher scroing games like American Football and Basketball than Hockey or Soccer or Lacrosse (a very excellent sport indeed).

I don't know why this is, but it just seems to be the way it goes.

(Tennis doesn't count as a high scoring game, since there really are only 4 points but they disguise them by doing huse jumpt like 15 at a time, once we Americans watched tennis, we weren't fooled and promptly stopped watching.)

BTW this is all just a guess and has no real facts or merit. Mainly I'm just trying to get attention again.

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To deal with men by force is as impractical as to deal with nature by persuasion.

[Bobinelli]

Thanks for taking the time DS. Excellent and interesting answer.

[Bobinelli]

Burnmeup - your comment on low scoring has some merit.

During the run up to the 1994 world cup it was suggested (by the US organisers) to make the goals wider (and taller?) to increase the scoring, thereby making it more interesting to the average viewer in the US. Sacrilege if you ask me...

There was also another suggestion to make the game into 4 quarters so there could be more TV advertising.

[Satan]

Because it's boring.

Also, we Americans like to use our hands...

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[funneefarmer]

Just a little shameless tourism promotion for my home county:

The Baseball Hall of Fame- Cooperstown NY, Otsego County

The National Soccer Hall of Fame- Oneonta NY, Otsego County

I think there is some merit to the scoring situation but if you think about it football is the same way, one score is either 2,3 or 6+1or 2 points. So a 21 to 14 final score basically breaks down to a 3 to 2 score, not incomparable to baseball or soccer.

[ruadh]

Because it's boring.

Funny, that's what most of the rest of the world thinks about baseball.

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Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.

[madchef]

Do I have to answer all your questions people(starting to feel like cecil)!
In America we like to chear for AMERICANS,
not e-u-r-o-t-r-a-s-h! Which have some how found there way into the NFL`s only part time
position kicker.(I am 1/2 Ialian, I don`t hate europeans just love pro football!)

[madchef]

Do I have to answer all your questions people(starting to feel like cecil)!
In America we like to chear for AMERICANS,
not e-u-r-o-t-r-a-s-h! Which have some how found there way into the NFL`s only part time
position kicker.(I am 1/2 Ialian, I don`t hate europeans just love pro football!):}

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The Chef

[RealityChuck]

The points made above are very good ones. Remember, soccer is popular elsewhere because people identify with their favorite team (or national team) quite strongly. So the low scoring isn't the issue -- it's the fact that your team was the one that scored that single goal. Baseball already existed in the U.S. as a focus for team identification.

What makes soccer (and baseball) interesting isn't the scoring -- it's the anticipation of the scoring. (He's moving upfield, he dodged the defender, he's free ... is he going to score?). Both are games of suspense, not action, and U.S. sports fans these days prefer action. So it's hard to drum up a fan base because most U.S. sports have more scoring, and because baseball has more suspense (anticipation is a part of every pitch).

[Omniscient]

This is the answer i give everytime this debate pops up.

Soccer is a great game that panders to the lowest common denomonator. All you need is a ball (or a reasonable facsimile) and a pair of feet. The rules can be explained and understood in a matter of seconds. This is why its the most played (not still the most watched, but still like 3rd or 4th) sport in the world. Most of the world is poor and uneducated, especially 100 years ago when sport became central to human culture.

America OTOH has historically been able to afford more complex games with more time and equipment requirements, this allowed more options. I don't think the Oxford bias story holds much water about the popularity. When an American kid grew up with the choices of Football, Soccer, Baseball, Basketball etc. Soccer was just the least fun. Also living in the US requires a variety of sports because of the climate extremes and seasonal changes. Soccer is nearly a year round sport in the majority of the world, but in the old population centers of the US it was too cold for much of the year so variety of sports is necessary. Comparing Football to Soccer is like apples and oranges regardless of their roots and names (Futbol et al). Baseball is the primary rival for attention with soccer because they season coincides and the requirements are similar. Simple equipment, easy rules, and not need for special facilites. Baseball is popular because it was what poor kids in the cities played in the past (as opposed to the poor kids in the villages playing soccer in the rest of the world). Why they choose one over the other is unprovable, but I suspect that its a combination of predominantly Anglo roots, and some nationality and desire for playing an "american game".

I think the low scoring arguement is lame and is used by people who don't truly enjoy any sport. They just want eye candy. For example the football scoring, as already stated, is just a way of amplifying the apparent score. While without the average game is still higher scoring than soccer, but not so much so as to be valid. 2-1 is a common soccer score, I suspect that football breakes down to about 4-2 (28-14) and baseball is 5-2. These slight increases don't tell the story, most football and baseball fans enjoy a low scoring game more than a high scoring one. A 55-38 football game is a poorly played shootout reminiscient of SEC teams, a good ole 13-6 game is usually considered a great game. (A old Army-Notre Dame game that ended tied 0-0 is still considered the greatest college game of all time.) Most baseball fans are upset about the high scoring nature of MLB today, they want moderation, not high or low. Soccer is not uninteresting because of its low scoring, but because of its freeform monotonous style. Baseball is slow moving as well, but actually the excitement is intense and frequent but short lived. Soccer is bounded by the constant jogging and from a viewers standpoint the difference between a jog and a sprint is not apparent. This causes apparent lack of action. Hockey (the closest comparison to soccer) is very very fast and shows that a speed up version of soccer is attractive to US audiences.

The big reasons are varied. The US can afford better and therefore usually chose it. The US needs a large variety and no one sport is going to be nationally loved. Soccer is slower than the other choices and therefore has a smaller appeal to the unintiated. The US wants to cheer for Americans, and similarly wants to play a American game (don't give me any bullshit that all our games come from other cultures).

[Nickrz]

Futbol? Kick the ball out of bounds.
Trip the guy with the ball, then kick it out of bounds.
Repeat as needed.

[ChiefScott]

Our great-grandparents when arriving in America were ready to cut every tie to "the Old Country." They embraced everything American -- the language, the holidays, the sports.
'Twas a better time, methinks.

[BobT]

Soccer hasn't caught on in the U.S., but it hasn't caught on in Canada either. Also, in the other Western Hemisphere locales where baseball is popular, soccer isn't (Cuba, Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and Venezuela in particular.)

Japan has tried to become a soccer-playing nation and is suffering through the same growing pains as US Soccer.

My late grandfather played both semipro soccer and baseball back in the 1920s in St. Louis, which used to be the soccer center of the USA. (It has since migrated more to the East Coast.)

Soccer's best hope in the US is for its men's national team to do well in the World Cup, which is pretty unlikely in the next 20 years I think. Until then, American attitudes toward the sport will always be patronizing.

[Mr.Sparkle]

Basketball is as "easy" as soccer and you can even have less people to play. Europeans are somewhat educated ;) and they love the sport and the hooliganary.

The things you need in for a succesful sport is :a marketable hero/antihero, team identification, public awareness, cultural hipness, flashy moves that makes you think, "with a little practice you can do it too", and the ability to play it with friends. Sometimes players don't even need any skill whatsoever as long as its entertaining (i.e. pro wreslting)

The only way for soccer to get that is to have a proven winner with a ugly ass tatooed freak scoring the winning goal...

[Therealbubba]

I think if they decided to eliminate the goalee position, the game could be alittle more watchable. It would cause the players to move faster and facilitate more strategy.

Today, it's too slow and Budweiser doesn't like slow.

Therealbubba

[Mojo]

Short attention spans.

[Satan]

ruadh:

Baseball is boring too. That's why its popularity here is on decline.

Yet it remains bigger than hockey because old habits die hard.

[c-man]

I can't speak for everyone else, but here's what I think:

I think hockey, soccer, and baseball are great to watch when you're physcially at the stadium, but wathing them on TV is...so.....b o r i n g.....

I think that's why basketball and football are more popular (as far as TV is concerned)

c-man

[DSYoungEsq]

America OTOH has historically been able to afford more complex games with more time and equipment requirements, this allowed more options.

Total twaddle. English, French, Italian, German kids have just as much ability to involve themselves in complex games with high equipment costs (have you ever seen what goes into a cricket match? Golf evolved in Scotland. Need I go on?) Yet in each of those countries, Soccer remains the main sport of choice at all levels of economic status.
I don't think the Oxford bias story holds much water about the popularity. When an American kid grew up with the choices of Football, Soccer, Baseball, Basketball etc. Soccer was just the least fun.

More twaddle. Soccer remains one of the top two participatory sports among kids in America. WAY more kids play soccer than gridiron football. And it is quite biased to assume that 'foreign' kids can't discern whether a sport is more exciting than another. If Basketball, gridiron football, etc. were so boring, the rest of the world would have switched to them long ago.
Also living in the US requires a variety of sports because of the climate extremes and seasonal changes. Soccer is nearly a year round sport in the majority of the world, but in the old population centers of the US it was too cold for much of the year so variety of sports is necessary.

Still more un-informed twaddle. Soccer is very popular in such cold climes as Norway, Russia, Sweeden, etc. Indeed, the seasons in each of those countries is altered to accomodate the seasonal freezing weather.

The only thing the cold affects is the playing season. As I noted in my post above, the fact baseball had the summer wrapped up made it harder for soccer to compete. But you might want to note that, in all those warm-climate countries you are thinking of, most soccer goes on hiatus from May to late Aug or early Sept. In other words, they don't play it in the heat.

The demise of soccer in the early part of the century in America had nothing to do with low scoring. Most sports start out as low scoring affairs, because that makes the anticipation of scoring more exciting. If soccer had remained popular in the USA, what would have happened as it became a TV sport is that the rules would have been changed to make more scoring, pandering to the masses glued to the tube, who watch not out of fandom, but out of desire to see scores.

[Brother Haus]

I believe that soccer is a slow rising sport, as far fans go, is because of the fact that there are so many other sports here in America. The four (five including golf) major sports have just dominated the market. They get a lot more media exposure. This is due to the fact that that's what many American's want to see.

I've watched some MLS and I didn't miss a game of the Women's World Cup, but in the most part, major soccer teams are in other countries. I haven't become a big fan, not yet at least.

The NHL had a tough time a few years back. Then they started to expand the market and put teams where they hadn't been before. I wasn't really interested in hockey until South Florida got the Florida Panthers. Now it's my second favorite sport, behind football of course.

If you like soccer, keep supporting your local or favorite team and hope for the best. I'm a sports fan in general, so watching highlites are a must, but to extensively watch all sports would just fry my brain. Then I wouldn't have enough of it left to post here :(.

Incidently, does anybody else hate the -offsides- rule in soccer?

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Confusious Say:
-Man who stand on toilet,
Is high on pot-

[Danny]

I think Americans, or anyone anywhere else, will pay attention to anything if the MONEY is there. That is why I am hoping that Women's soccer will get some corporate sponsors that will put in the millions needed to make people perk up and listen.

But....for that kind of money, the game may have to be changed so that you can have commercial breaks, more time-outs, etc. so that the sponsors can try to get their money back.

It will also need another look by the media at how they televise the game so that not just the individual abilities are evident, but also the team strategies involved, with immediate feedback, etc. and announcers who really know how to point out the subtle moves. Again, the game will have to be changed to allow time for that to happen.

Tough order.

[Alphagene]

What about the size of the field? I played soccer for many years, but every time I see a game on TV, the field seems enormous. To me, there is a lot of time blown where the ball is moved up or down the field with little or no contention. Sure, there's conflict as you approach the goal but the majority of the time there are very few intense battles for the ball.

Iin junior high, we'd play soccer on a small indoor basketball court after lunch. The combination of a small playing area, no out of bounds, no offsides and a huge mob of kids playing was very entertaining.

[Danny]

You are right, and that's one of the many problems. I get exhausted just watching the ball ran back and forth. It is also the reason why it always seem like the camera is on the INDIVIDUAL and not the TEAM. It is difficult to discern an overall strategy being exercised by the team or the coaching.

I don't know what the solution is, perhaps it will take picture in picture type displays with one camera on the individual with the ball and another, computer enhanced one showing what the rest of the team is doing on the field to get into position.

This game is definitely not easily a television game as in hockey or football. I remember years ago, Indoor Soccer was tried, and I watched one of the professional game. It just was not the same with hockey style rebounds, etc.. Although it might have played better on TV, the game died anyway because it seems to be too far from the original game.

It needs a complete overhaul of broadcasting methods to make it entertaining.

[Bobinelli]

Well done DS - saved me having to correct the twaddle.

[Alphagene]

Baseball is boring too. That's why its popularity here is on decline.

Actually it's on a huge upswing thanks to Mark, Sammy and andro.

[BobT]

Baseball was not a low-scoring sport when it started before the Civil War. Games used to be played until someone scored 21 runs regardless of innings. Low-scoring games didn't start until after the Civil War when the rules were modified. Also, it took a while before baseball players got hip to the idea of using gloves to catch the ball.

When baseball scoring totals dropped, the press thought it was a great idea and appreciated the style of play.

Any sport which has a 0-0 score close to the finish is exciting to me because it means that neither team can afford to make a mistake and usually both teams will be playing their best (whether it is soccer, baseball, hockey, or [rarely] football)

[DSYoungEsq]

Iin junior high, we'd play soccer on a small indoor basketball court after lunch. The combination of a small playing area, no out of bounds, no offsides and a huge mob of kids playing was very entertaining.
Actually, this describes Indoor Soccer, a game that has not one, but TWO professional leagues in the US, the NPSL and the CISL. Other, more regional leagues also exist. It is soccer's version of Arena football, and actually is called 'futsal' now, and even has its own world championship, sanctioned by the Federation International de Football Associations (FIFA).

As for the other comments on watchability: Why is it that Americans always assume they can make a sport 'better'???? The rest of the entire WORLD watches soccer without commercial interruption. The field is as large as it is to make the game MORE interesting, which is why such boring soccer is seen at the high school level in America, where it is often played on fields no more than 60 yards wide or less (international preference is 75 yards). And as for what the camera shows, well, we don't have a split screen showing us the various receivers going out in their patterns. Instead, we watch as the camera follows the ball to the intended target, and wonder where the heck the receiver was when he doesn't make it there for the catch.

Soccer is not PRESENTLY popular as a viewing sport for a few very easy to define reasons:
1) You don't hear about it much. This is, of course, a chicken and egg problem - you don't hear about it because sports editors and televion magnates don't think it is popular enough to talk about or show, etc. Major League Soccer constantly beats its head against this brick wall. The only 'solution' is to let the sport's popularity rise slowly, as more and more people become converted into soccer fans.
2) Most of America is soccer illiterate. Even kids who play soccer into their teen years are often not taught anything about soccer. They don't learn the true strategy and tactics of the game. They learn nothing about the international organization of the game. Therefore, watching a soccer game is less enjoyable than watching something like baseball, where every red-blooded American male over the age of 5 knows the game, or thinks they do.
3) Soccer is hard for Americans to watch. This isn't because of how it is shown, per se. But soccer's one difficulty is that it has constant action, with no stoppages of play (compared to other American sports). This means you can't turn your attention away from the television without risking missing a goal, a carding of a player, etc. It also means that it is very difficult to use that most American of television devices, the replay.
4) There are no soccer stars. Soccer in America has done a very poor job of marketing its stars. One of the positives from the Women's World Cup is that some of the stars of that team are becoming increasingly popular among kids. But in general, American soccer stars are total unknowns. This, of course, makes it difficult for kids to get excited about the sport on television, or to want to go to see a game at the stadium. What Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Wayne Gretzky, Arnold Palmer, Jack Nicklaus, Joe DiMaggio, etc. have done for their sports, no one has done for soccer, yet.

Soccer will never become as big as baseball or American football, why expect it to do so when we already HAVE sports that command our attention at that level? But with patience and work, it can certainly be as successful, and hopefully more so, than hockey.

[Danny]

I agree with everything DSYoungEsq wrote.

In the community where I live though, soccer is definitely a major sport for the kids, and had been for many, many years. There are leagues and very serious travelling teams, etc.. Its just unfortunate that for all the various reasons, these activities never make it to the professional level. Great for the kids, mind you.

I just want to emphasize the fact that the continuous activity in the game makes it impossible to show strategies on TV. Football has the advantage of stopping at every play so that the announcer can do instant replays with different camera angles, and they can show computer diagrams of what happened. It makes everyone an armchair quarterback. This is missing from soccer.

[ruadh]

Any sport which has a 0-0 score close to the finish is exciting to me because it means that neither team can afford to make a mistake and usually both teams will be playing their best (whether it is soccer, baseball, hockey, or [rarely] football)

Exactly, the goals are more meaningful because there are fewer of them and it's more difficult to recover when the other side takes the lead.

Incidently, does anybody else hate the -offsides- rule in soccer?

If that rule didn't exist each team would
just park a striker in front of its opponents net and the defenders would just hoof long balls up the park to them. Midfield play would disappear. No more passing game. God then even *I* would find it boring.

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Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.

[ruadh]

Futbol? Kick the ball out of bounds. Trip the guy with the ball, then kick it out of bounds. Repeat as needed.

American football? Catch the ball, run straight into a bunch of other guys, cut to commercial. Repeat as needed.

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Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.

[BobT]

As I much as I don't care for George Will, his description of American football was something like that, "It is typically American. It's violence interrupted by committee meetings."

Soccer played on a narrower field would be even more low-scoring as the defense would be packed in more closely.

I don't know why people dislike the offsides rule. Probably because it's hard to figure out if you haven't watched much soccer.

I'm in the small minority of people who enjoy both baseball and soccer. Each one is a different type of experience to watch.

The one thing to remember about soccer or baseball or any other sport you might not like: just don't watch it.

[ruadh]

BobT, I'm in that minority as well - I'm also a baseball fan (though as a native Baltimorean it's bloody difficult these days). I've lived in England and I have a lot of British and Irish friends and it really is funny how many parallels there are between their dislike of baseball and Americans' dislike of soccer. It's just different traditions, that's all.

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Never regret what seemed like a good idea at the time.

[PatrickM]

I have absolutely no evidence to support this, but I think soccer is not a popular spectator sport in the US because, like hockey, too much time and effort is spent trying to control the ball (or puck). We Americans like to get to the point, to get to the bottom line, to cut through the crap, and too much soccer is played at midfield fighting for possession of the ball. The ball is so difficult to control just with the feet that mounting an offense is difficult, just as controlling a fast moving puck with a hockey stick while on ice skates is difficult.

Also, soccer is difficult only because it is played without hands. Baseball is a better game because it is hard to play even with the best equipment and full use of one's body. Like Ted Williams said, hitting a moving pitch at 100 mph (you soccer people can convert that to kilometers per hour if you prefer) is the most difficult thing in sports. I would add that pitching a baseball with control is almost as hard to do. These motions are involved in every play in baseball. Of course, a Pele bicycle soccer kick is difficult to do and a great crowd pleaser, and Mark McGuire is not agile enough to do it, but such spectacular plays are the great exception, not the norm.

[Lucky]

I think soccer is less popular in America because there are no time outs, save for 1/2 time. With no breaks in the play, there is no time for commercials. Networks hate that. Without good coverage, it's hard to build up a fan base.

Just my cynical WAG.

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"I think it would be a great idea" Mohandas Ghandi's answer when asked what he thought of Western civilization

[DSYoungEsq]

Ok, HOLD ON. All you people who have all these fanciful notions as to why soccer isn't popular in the US: WHY IS IT EVERYONE IN AMERICA THINKS THEY ARE SOMEHOW FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT FROM ALL THE REST OF THE WORLD?

It doesn't take a lot of work to explain the difference between America and the soccer-mad countries. America had popular sports before soccer got here, America had reason to become more interested in gridiron football, and America at present has enough options during the year for sporting events, so people don't really see a need to become soccer fans.

Amazingly enough, there ARE other countries in the world where the populace is NOT soccer mad. Venezuela is one of them - the poor Venezuelan national team is constantly slaughtered by the other national teams of that continent. Not coincidentally, Venezuela is VERY into baseball. Soccer in most of Asia is very underattended compared to, say, Africa. Reviewing these situations, one can conclude that America is not alone in placing soccer lower than other sporting pursuits on a fan interest continuum.

Soccer continues to be the second most popular children's participation sport in the country. The popularity of soccer with kids makes it here makes it clear we do NOT have some inherent cultural difference that makes the sport un-interesting to us (e.g.: no use of hands, lack of breaks, lack of scoring, etc.). What we DO have is a lack of history of fandom, for reasons discussed earlier in the thread. Kids stop playing soccer in large part because other, more popular pursuits become available to them, and they are not converted into soccer fans by the simple fact of playing soccer. But soccer's popularity is on a definite upswing, as the public becomes more used to the rhythym and difficulty of the game.

[Big Iron]

[[Amazingly enough, there ARE other countries in the world where the populace is NOT soccer mad. Venezuela is one of them - the poor Venezuelan national team is constantly slaughtered by the other national teams of that continent. Not coincidentally, Venezuela is VERY into baseball. Soccer in most of Asia is very underattended compared to, say, Africa. Reviewing these situations, one can conclude that America is not alone in placing soccer lower than other sporting pursuits on a fan interest continuum.]]

Exactly -- the parts of the world where soccer is a relative afterthought contain the bulk of the world's inhabitants (not to mention its real estate).

[Monty]

DSYoung & BobT left out just a couple of interesting things (incredibly great postings though!):

1) Baseball is not the quintessential American invention cut from whole cloth some would have us believe--it's essentially a variation of Rounders (also called Town Ball and, get this, Base Ball, back in "the day" last century in America).

2) As an outgrowth of Cricket, Rounders players didn't use gloves and as an outgrowth of Rounders, Baseball players used the equipment they "inherited" from the older sport.

3) Since Baseball as we know it was developed much later than the other two sports, and this in an English-colonized land, one would hardly suspect that it would displace a similar sport such as Cricket already established in the other English-colonized lands, much less end up displacing a dissimilar sport such as Soccer!

4) An excellent book to read if you're interested in this aspect is The Tented Field: A History of Cricket in America.

[Contestant #3]

Something not mentioned in this thread yet is the earnings aspect.

Every kid in the US knows that if you grow up to play baseball (major leagues) or football (NFL) or basketball (NBA)professionally that you can make a lot of money...millions even.

Heck, it's also been pretty obvious that you can get a full ride to a college if you excel at those sports.

Professional soccer players? How much do they make? Full rides to play soccer? I've recently been hearing of soccer scholarships.

How many underprivledged inner-city minority kids see soccer as a way out of the ghetto?

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Contestant #3

[DSYoungEsq]

How many underprivledged inner-city minority kids see soccer as a way out of the ghetto?
A good point. Note also the difficulty of inner city children finding places to play soccer, especially compared to the large number of basketball courts. Of course, the same is true of baseball, and, yes, you can play stickball, but you can also play soccer in a street. Still, US Soccer knows that it needs to make better efforts to allow city kids to play.

[DSYoungEsq]

1) Baseball is not the quintessential American invention cut from whole cloth some would have us believe--it's essentially a variation of Rounders (also called Town Ball and, get this, Base Ball, back in "the day" last century in America).
Well, yes, though other informal stick and ball games had their influence on the game in post-colonial America. 'Trapball' and 'one-old-cat' have been referenced in material I looked at. References to 'base ball' exist as early as the late 1700's, including one reference to soldiers at Valley Forge playing such a game. 'Townball' appears to have been popular in New England, but it lacked the essential element of the bases. Apparently, 'rounders' appears to be more closely linked to 'base ball.'

2) As an outgrowth of Cricket, Rounders players didn't use gloves and as an outgrowth of Rounders, Baseball players used the equipment they "inherited" from the older sport.
I am not sure what you are trying to say here. Cricket was called that from very early times; indeed, there is dispute as to where the name comes from. By the late 1700's, cricket had reached a stage very similar to today's game. According to the official Major League Baseball version of the history of baseball, cricket in the early years of America was quite popular. Indeed, the first international cricket match was between two clubs from North America: one from Toronto and one from New York (1840). But cricket was played with a 'bat' that was very dissimilar from that which was adopted for 'base ball' (indeed, at one time, the cricket bat was quite similar to a golf club!). Unlike cricket, baseball did not use wickets and bails.
3) Since Baseball as we know it was developed much later than the other two sports, and this in an English-colonized land, one would hardly suspect that it would displace a similar sport such as Cricket already established in the other English-colonized lands, much less end up displacing a dissimilar sport such as Soccer!
As we have seen above, it was not developed 'much later.' While the rules of baseball adopted by the New York Knickerbocker club weren't adopted formally until 1845 (from these rules came what we know as baseball, including fixed bases 90' apart, three-strikes-you're-out, etc.), 'base ball' was already being played in various forms along with cricket. By the mid-1850's, baseball fields existed all over the place in cities of the North.

Soccer, of course, wasn't even a formalized sport with rules similar to present day soccer until the mid-1800's. The spread of soccer from England didn't occur until the late 1800's, by which time both the upper class AND the lower class had become fans of the game. So baseball had almost 100 years of head start on soccer.

For the 'official' history of baseball, found at MLB's official site, go to:
http://www.totalbaseball.com/
and navigate to the history introduction. :)

[BobT]

As to other countries where soccer is not the most prominent sport, I would point to Canada , Dominican Republic, Cuba, Japan, Philippines, Malaysia, Singapore, India, Pakistan, Australia, New Zealand and Venezuela spring to mind. I don't think soccer is big in any of the Pacific island nations either.

Baseball is only preeminent in Cuba, Japan, Venezuela and Dominican Republic. I would say that ice hockey leads in Canada, rugby in Australia and New Zealand.
I'm not sure about the others, but cricket, field hockey, and badminton are popular in many of those other countries.

[J String]

I can't speak for other Americans, but there's something sleep-inducing about a sport in which 0-0 tie games are broken by a penalty kick.