Well, yeah, the London match has sold out three years in a row now, I think. But selling out one game a year really doesn’t translate to much of a following. I really enjoy NFL, but I’d say it rates somewhere below the triple jump in terms of national interest here in the UK. It’s got a small but dedicated fan base, and it attracts a bunch of corporate interest because the one match a year is the place to be, but beyond that, not much.
They’ve probably just about got enough traction from the Wembley matches to significantly expand their TV audiences though, which I imagine is the point.
It’s too bad you couldn’t get something of value for him before he inevitably gets hurt again.
I agree with this post. I think the OP and some of the posters in this thread are displaying a commonwealth-centric point of view. Outside of the former British Empire nobody cares about cricket. In fact, if it weren’t for Inida’s massive population, the amount of cricketeers worldwide would be pretty small. So other than cricket, which major international competitions is the US really missing out on?
Rugby? That is pretty much the same situation as cricket, except I think the French like it too.
Soccer? The World Cup is a big deal here. It may not be to the level it is in Holland, but it is popular. In fact, the most tickets to the SA World Cup have been sold to Americans.
As to the rest, baseball and basketball are big sports worldwide (despite attempts to minimize them), they just never really developed big international competitions for various reasons. It is tough in baseball because the club season is so long, but they are slowly getting there with the WBC. Basketball is also slowly staring to develop the international aspect with the Olympics and the Basketball World Cup, but until recently the US was so dominant that there wasn’t really much point. Hockey, despite being a small sport globally also has international competetions, but because of the small fanbase they understandably aren’t that big of a deal. That leaves only American Football, and really, there isn’t much we can do about it because only us and the Canadians (and 9 people in Germany) play it.
And, even then, there are enough differences between the U.S. and Canadian rules sets that you wouldn’t be able to easily play an international game between the Americans and Canadians. Not saying you couldn’t, but there’d be a number of fundamental differences that would need to be ironed out (field size, team size, number of downs, offensive motion, etc.)
Just wanted to say that tickets sold isn’t really something to go by. I can’t remember the last tournament where there weren’t 100 times more applications for tickets, than actual tickets. I feel confident to say this is also the case for England and probably most European countries. Every country officially gets a small percentage of the tickets, a few thousand per game, but the countries with large fanbases will somehow still seem to occupy 70% of the stadiums; most of these did not get their tickets through the official lotteries.
On the other hand, cool that the US is getting more into it!!
I think you’re missing the point. The OP didn’t say “our sports are better, doesn’t this bother you?”, he merely asked whether the lack of international competition in your major sports (and let’s face it, there isn’t any) bothers you. Cricket is undeniably an intrinsically international sport; like I said earlier, many cricket fans would be hard pressed to name the captain of their local side, even if they can recite the statistics of their national team verbatim. It’s just the way cricket is.
This thread isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a pissing contest about whose sport is more popular, it’s about whether it matters that the highest level competition is international or intranational. I think it doesn’t. What matters is that high level competition exists at some level. Tribalism follows because we enjoy the sport, and being weird sacks of meat, we’re capable of joining tribes of completely arbitrary nature. And so what? It needn’t say anything about the national psyche, or any such rubbish. It’s just the way particular sports have grown up.
I understand your point, but his post was Commonwealth-centric in that he cited a bunch of British-specific sports and then asked “Doesn’t it such that you don’t have international competitions?” while ignoring that our sports do have international competitions (though granted, not to the same extent) and further that we like one of the same international competitions (soccer specificially) that he does.
And once again, the old stereotypes about the US get dragged out; Americans prefer violent sports, Americans don’t give a damn about the rest of the the world, Europeans are all tolerant, kind and gentle souls who have the patience to appreciate the grace and choreography that is real football, Europeans join hands and sing kumbayah with their brothers and sisters across national boundaries in the spirit of athletic competition, Europeans use every part of the buffalo, blah blah blah. And once again, Canadians get a pass.
Just start the “Europe rules, US drools, and Canada and Australia get a pass because they’re in the Commonwealth” subforum already.
Sure, granted - I still think it’s a mistake to view the question as a contest, though. Purely observationally, the pinnacle of basketball, baseball and American football are entirely domestic; Tom Brady would never trade a Superbowl ring to beat, say, the London Silly-Nannies. The Superbowl is the pinnacle of the sport. By contrast, David Beckham would give his left nut to lift the World Cup; I absolutely guarantee you he would trade every domestic honour he has ever earned for this in a heartbeat.
So at worst, maybe Americans miss out on some rarity value. We get our annual domestic leagues, and our continental club competitions, but every four years we get something truly spectacular. And sure, Americans pay attention to the World Cup too, but it’s not like they’re thinking about it for the other three years.
The reason the question is kind of moot is that there’s nothing left to prove for the Bradys and Kobes of this world. They’ve reached the top, and you and they know it. So it’s almost irrelevant to ask Americans if this bothers them. I’m sure if other countries regularly reached that level of performance, the USA would bust a nut to beat them. But I just don’t see it happening; it’d require us to abandon some of our favourite things. In the same way, “soccer” will need to supplant one of your consuming passions to really take off. I just don’t see it. It’s not a commentary on anyone’s national psyche, it’s just the way things are.
Not difficult to learn the other side’s rules. Every year, a number of US players come out of various American colleges to play in the CFL. It’s not difficult for these American players to learn Canadian rules fairly quickly. Somewhat similarly, the NFL has enough of a following in Canada that Canadians are well-aware of NFL rules.
Actually, I’d like to see a CFL team and an NFL team play each other. They need not be the best teams in their respective leagues, and it would be an exhibition anyway. But it would be fun to have, say, two games for comparison’s sake: one in Canada under CFL rules on a CFL field, and the other in the US under NFL rules on an NFL field.
I’d say it’s international because the empire spanned the globe for long enough to nurture talent in all those countries; the collapse is irrelevant, as these places would play cricket even if the empire still existed. But so what? Doesn’t get us any closer to discovering whether international competition is interesting in itself, does it?
So many people are reading this thread as asking, “we’ve got international tournaments. Are we better because of that?” It really isn’t.
Speaking of stereotypes, don’t forget that Americans have a whole different idea of competition itself than the rest of the world. It carries a whole different set of baggage - especially if you’re male and socially conservative - and if you’re committed to this kind of competing, no one else’s definition really enters into it.
No, certainly not difficult. As you note, there are American players who play in Canada (and, a few Canadian players have played in the U.S.). I’m just saying that it’d be more complicated than a “friendly” between two soccer teams or basketball teams from different countries, which could be done without having to either have a rules compromise, or having one team play by the other team’s rules.
As to the larger question, absolutely, international competitions are great. That’s part of the reason that a whole lot of people get wrapped up in obscure sports like 6-man bobseld or fencing come Olympic time.
I agree that it would be nice if the American sports had more developed international competitions, but it isn’t likely to happen, imho. As we hear all the time in soccer, the clubs paying players’ salaries really don’t like international competitions. In that sport the international game has been around for so long that there really isn’t much the clubs can do but moan, but that isn’t the case with American sports where there is no real history of international competitions (although interestingly, American baseball all-star teams have been going to Japan to play the Japanese teams since the 20’s). Additionally, in the case of the American sports there aren’t really any governing bodies like there is with Fifa, or if there is (maybe basketball has one?), they don’t have any clout. Worse, you wind up with a situation like baseball where MLB is effectively the governing body and you have a half-assed international tournament like the World Baseball Classic where half the good players don’t even show up.
I have a feeling that the NFL team would win both games pretty much all the time, especially given a couple season’s worth of acclimating to the rules differences in the CFL.
Because the “let’s compare the worst traits of the US with the best of Europe, and give Canada and Australia a pass for cultural and social traits that very closely resemble that of the US” posts are a staple here, and after belonging to the SDMB for so many years, yeah, I’m starting to feel a bit defensive.
“Europeans don’t like baseball because they prefer the sophisticated choreography, subtle strategy, international competition, and grand tradition of soccer. Americans don’t like soccer because it’s not violent enough like American football and hockey”
“Well, Canadians seem to enjoy their variant of American football, and hockey is more-or-less the national sport of Canada. Baseball and football are national pastimes, and they’re not violent. Also, there’s really no fan hooliganism associated with sports in the US; just a few drunk fans that might get hauled off by the cops during a game.”
"Uhhh … well …durrr … “”
FWIW, I’m not some conservative flag-waving uber-patriot.
