No, I don’t regret the lack of international competition. Then again, I’m not a big fan of the Olympics either, with some exception made for ice hockey, figure skating, and gymnastics.
I grew up in a town where sports was huge, at both the professional and college level. In my home town there were three professional sports teams and four high-profile college teams. I love sports, and frankly it’s a challenge to keep up with what’s going on even if I limit myself to professional sports only.
Also, during my lifetime I’ve seen an increase in the number of baseball players trained outside the U.S., and in the number of players in the NHL that are not Canadian or American. It’s interesting to me that these American leagues are becoming international.
Actually I hadn’t allowed for that because we are real sports nuts. I remember years ago one of the great US swimmers (I think Mary T Meagher) said that no-one in her home town knew who she was but when she was in Australia she was stopped on the street.
And I recall Dutch swimmer Pieter van den Hoogenband was surprised when he was out here for the Olympics. He turned up with friends to a full restaurant without a booking but the maitre d’ knew he was and arranged a table.
Most NHL players are Canadian and a good many come from Europe.
Americans start to care about some foreign events when the US does well in that event. For example the Tour de France gets way more coverage and interest when an American wins like LeMond or Armstrong.
Who says “our” sports DON’T have international competition? There are lots of great Japanese, Korean, Mexican, Dominican, Chinese, and Cuban players in Major League Baseball.
There are lots of Germans, Spaniards, Russians, Chinese, Argentinians, Italians, Serbs and Nigerians playing in the National Basketball Association.
Foreign players are often extremely popular here. Most American players would LOVE to be as acclaimed or popular as Ichiro Suzuki or Yao Ming.
But while we gladly embrace foreign athletes, Americans rarely care much about international competition. An American basketball fan cares passionately his favorite NBA team, but doesn’t generally bother to watch international tournaments- in his mind, it’s unimportant if Spain or Serbia wins a world basketball title, because he knows the Los Angeles Lakers are REALLY the world’s best basketball team.
And an American baseball fan generally cares about his favorite local team, NOT about the patchwork teams playing in the World Baseball Classic. A Yankees fan or Red Sox fan would prefer that his favorites players SKIP the World Baseball Classic, which he regards as a series of meaningless exhibition games. If, say, Derek Jeter broke his ankle while helping the U.S. team defeat the Cubans in the World Baseball Classic, New York fans would be HORRIFIED, not proud. They’d call Jeter an idiot for risking his health in a game few Americans care about.
Oh one more thought: if the game is not popular in the US, there’s a steep learning curve. I had to study for about 5 hours to understand what the heck is going on in the World Cup.
Reading most of the posts it seems the initial points made in the OP are dismissed (a bit) and that you guys (the americans) don’t need/like the international side of sports, or at least, they are secundary to the domestic league. The last point is totally valid and if that’s how you feel fine, but I do want to chip in and ‘defend’ Don’t ask’s question.
Like most of Europe, Holland’s main sport is football (see username) and it is played a lot in different competitions. Teams play nationally, on the European level and there are the internationals between national teams. While I have favorite teams in most national leagues that matter and European football - which is probably most comparable, also according to a previous poster, with the American pro sorts leagues - adds a bit of natinalist interest to the game, it is nothing (NOTHING!) compared to watching the national team. In Holland if the national team is playing in one of the championships the country comes to a standstill, I mean about 11 million of our 16 million inhabitants will be watching…after a victory street parties erupt and go one for quite a while.
I’m just saying that for ‘us’ missing this dimension of the game (even though these games are few and far between) would really be a big loss. So, like Don’t ask, I have wondered if fans of sports that are really only layed in one country (and the US seems to be the most obvious example) don’t miss this aspect of sports. I’m not saying this should be the case, just that it’s a fair and reasonable question.
Again, you’d have to find another country to make your comparison, because almost all of the US’ sports are played internationally. And we regularly dominate those games (or at least, put in a good showing).
Obviously, the USA is a continent-sized country, so it gets some of the benefit of what we in Europe and elsewhere consider “international” competition without having to actually engage other countries in competition. But I do I think that perhaps people don’t realise how the international level competitions that we non-Americans are talking about are on a completely different plane to club-level competition. In US sports, there is nothing above the Superbowl and the World Series. That’s the highest level a player can aspire to. In rugby, cricket, soccer, there are rough equivalents of those competitions, and then there’s a whole other level above that. Top players, no matter how many club trophies they’ve won and how much money they make, still strive to play in their national teams, because it is the very pinnacle of their sport.
I’m not talking about the Olympics-- in the major team sports, the Olympics are just a sideshow. The soccer World Cup, the test matches and World Cups in rugby and cricket-- these are the most prestigious events in those sports, and are followed with an intensity of interest that is beyond mere club-level competition. Even people who aren’t interested in the sport will watch these games.
One of the major problems in the U.S. is that soccer is considered a little femme beyond high school. That isn’t a value judgment, it is just a kids game in our mind and not something that is to be valued above the adolescent level. American super-star athletes are freaks of nature and tend to be huge and aggressive.
Soccer simply isn’t violent enough and is too low scoring to hold most American viewers interests plus the TV production value is horrible. American NFL players, even those over 300 pounds can outrun me in the blink of an eye and crush my head with one hand. A lot of New England Patriots players live around where I do and it is obvious when you run into them in the Home Depot (which oddly is where I usually see them). Tom Brady used to live directly across the street from my in-laws. He is one huge and talented man. They are unusually large and gifted athletes and you can figure it out on your own just looking at them even if it weren’t for the gold chains around their necks and the custom license plates on their Mercedes-Benz.
I hate to say it but international soccer players always strike me as someone that could make a good living whoring it up on the streets of San Fransisco just by their looks alone. I am happy that other countries find that type of thing appealing but it simply won’t work in the U.S. I am not even sure if it is a really well designed game either. It is all cultural.