A few ideas off the bat:
- You lose
- Not enough mindless statistics
- Not enough yardages
- 90-minute match that starts at 3 and is over by five to 5
- The players don’t have to be 300lbs
- You lose
England only won one World Cup in the past 70 years- that doesn’t stop them from being obsessed with soccer.
No pauses for ad breaks.
Um…obsessed with football…
That must be why you hate baseball - in which it’s not unusual for a batter to be out without scoring, and even a whole inning can realize no runs - and love cricket, in which a batsman can stay in for hours and score a hundred or more.
Um.
:smack:
I’ll come in again.
I’ll admit that I think American football is improperly named, and that what we know here as “soccer” invloves the foot far more than football does - however, my social conditioning is so strong that it’s just instinctive for me to call it soccer.
Besides, you wouldn’t say, “The Spanish love tauromaquia.” You’d say, “The Spanish love bullfighting.” Soccer is what we call football in American.
Fédération Internationale de Football Association, or FIFA. Soccer’s just wrong.
I dont’ like football or baseball, much. Football bores me to tears–it is so slow. At least in rugby, one can satisfy one’s blood lust (vicariously). Football is gib, hulking men wearing tight, tight pants and patting one another on the ass all afternoon. What is that about, anyway?
My kids play soccer (guess that makes me prentitous-but no SUV here), neither of my boys wanted to play baseball–and thank god. The soccer parents stand on the sidelines and crack jokes and cheer. The baseball parents are so bad, there are league rules and hardly a game goes by without a parent being escorted out of the park. :rolleyes:
Baseball rewards a few good players–soccer requires teamwork (although a star on a soccer team will stand out and may make the difference in the score).
I wish soccer were bigger here, but it is growing and the folks who seem to diss it the most are usually the ones who have either never played it (or not had kids play it) or seem to be threatened by it in some weird way. I imagine that to truly understand soccer, one must grow up in it-watching games (and commentary in your native language), play pick up games of it, have it encouraged in gym classes and local leagues etc. USA has some of that, but we are lacking a nation wide league that has the same draw as the other big three sports. It is coming, though-Chicago Fire just finished a new, smaller stadium-haven’t been yet, but we’re planning on it as a family outing. Much cheaper than baseball and the kids won’t be bored.
[nitpick] While they are uniquely American now, surely they began as the British games rounders and rugby respectively?
#1. We don’t like it because we’re no good at it?
Is this really the case? I’ve been told I don’t like basketball because I wasn’t good at it but I enjoy playing pool and volleyball even though I stink at both. How do you explain the popularity of hockey in places like Texas were few people can ice skate let alone play hockey? Maybe there’s more to it then not being good at the sport.
#2. Soccer fans are more interested in good play than high scores but Americans love high scores.
Actually I think most sports fans focus on good game play rather than scores regardless of the sport. Again, if Americans require high scores then explain the growth of hockey? Even in football they usually don’t actually make touchdowns all the time so a score of 28-14 might seem impressive that’s only 6 touchdowns and 6 extra points. A little higher than soccer but not ridiculously so when compared to basketball.
#3. Americans don’t like soccer because the rest of the world does.
Wow. I’m so used to being accused of not caring what the rest of the world does I’m not used to suddenly being accused of caring about what the rest of the world does. I think this is about as valid as saying the rest of the world loves soccer because we don’t.
I think soccer is a fine sport but I can’t watch it because it bores me to tears. A common complaint from Americans I suppose. To each their own I guess.
Marc
Just to counter this - baseball is staggered teamwork. Offensively, your goal in baseball is not to score, it’s to get into position so that someone else can complete the effort and/or to complete your teammates’ runs. It’s absolutely about the group, not the individual.
Soccer (from what I’ve seen - all those damn, rainy, cold saturday mornings outside, in the fall) seemed to reward the really good individual.
I’ve joked that checking would improve soccer. Actually, though, I like the idea of a power play.
I think the real problem is that the clock goes the wrong way.
No, “soccer” comes from the last word in FIFA’s name, “Association”. Typical British slang, like “rugger” for “Rugby”.
I’m an American, with not a lot of soccer knowledge, but a sports fan nonetheless, and can watch most sports and enjoy the experience. I had the privilege of watching a few of DC United’s games including one of their MLS Championship wins. Good times, I reckon.
I gotta say “meh”, though. You can call me a spoilt American dumbass, but there simply isn’t enough action that results in either points on the board or real strategic advantage being gained/lost. Sure, there’s some scintillating athleticism in passing/dribbling/driving/whatever you call that stuff, but if all that athleticism results in nothing, as it does 90-something percent of the time, then really, what is the draw?
Add that to the fact that every time I’ve ever been to a match, there’s all these poseurs who dramatically put their hands to their foreheads and groan everytime some dude takes a shot on goal (which, by the way, only happens a handful of times a game).
I would agree with Fern Forest that just historically we had our games that we played and now we don’t really have any reason to work to like soccer. Any part of soccer that a person might like is available in a game we’ve already got–ilke hockey.
That we specifically are bored by it, I would argue is going to be true of most any game where you aren’t sharing the experience with others. Right now there isn’t any people in the country to “teach the love.” Without that most any game becomes a practice in watching a bunch of guys run back and forth for several hours.
This is the reason, for me, anyway. I tried watching it a couple of times and I was truly enjoying the action as the one team drove the ball down, and almost scored and then suddenly, oops! the other team had stolen it and now they were trying to score! But after this went on and on forever and no one even got close to the net, I got bored and changed the channel. I did give it another chance, but when the play was essentially the same, I figured that’s just how the game was played and that it wasn’t my cup of tea.
My theory is that soccer is popular with US children, but it doesn’t translate into adulthood. Why is this? . . . ?
The thing that bothers me, as a baseball fan, is this: arguing with soccer fan about which sport is more boring/tedious/interesting/etc. Almost every soccer fan I’ve ever met never actually played baseball, or if they tried, couldn’t do it (beyond little league). They simply don’t fully understand it, even though they think they do, because the premise appears non-complex (throw/hit/run). Sure, you could say the same thing about soccer, but I played soccer for 11 years, and I simply think I grew out of it.
I also played baseball beyond high school, and although I was probably physically better at soccer, I just felt like baseball is a game where you will always see/learn something you have never seen/learned before, no matter how long you’re around it. You could teach a semester long course on just pitching. Situations are infinite. Culminations of statistics, theories, matchups, and history provide the backbone for a sport where people can more easily socialize about the sport itself. At the ballpark. At school. At the office. At the bar. Whatever. And for those who played/coached/ or have young kids, the ceiling is so much higher or interests in baseball, again, with its intricacies, etc, REGARDLESS of whether you can play it or not.
The “team” aspect in baseball gets lost in the complexity as well (on the field), also in the dugout, and off the field. I think the camaraderie is different. The dynamics are different. There is more diversity (personality wise) as well… When you get hit with a baseball, you try with all your might to underplay it… but let’s face it, it’s irritating having to watch soccer guy wail around on the ground after a fall on the grass. A simple difference, but important one, to me… Ok, I’m rambling…
Lastly, more thoughts about this would be nice, but I think most males have to be selective with their sport interests more so in the US, mostly due to the number of sports available… because: most of the guys I know actively watch/follow two or so “main/favorite” sports, but can only secretly follow the others, as to not get into too much trouble with the wife and/or other responsibilities.
There’s an obvious reason. In the United States, there are sports people play and sports people watch.
Sports people play (golf, tennis, bowling, fishing) rarely get high ratings. The networks tolerate golf and tennis because the people that do watch the sports tend to be demographically attractive.
Sports people watch (football, baseball, basketball, auto racing) tend to have sudden, explosive action and are tailored to the TV camera. Football concentrates its action at the line of scrimmage. Baseball coverage is primarily set as a duel between pitcher and batter. Basketball takes place on a small court with a very large target (the ball) that’s easy to follow.
Soccer has a huge playing field and no defined focus. The camera has to follow the ball. One player gets the ball, then immediately kicks it to another player. Unlike American football, there’s almost no contact between the players. Unlike baseball, there’s no duel between two players. Unlike basketball, you can’t even see the players faces.
Soccer has really grown on me through the years, and I think it’s growing on America as a whole. It seems to me there are more people following the World Cup this year, and not just the Brazilian immigrants in my neighborhood. The basic issue is that soccer just hasn’t been part of our culture. Here, sports is dominated by baseball, football, basketball, and to a declining extent, hockey. There’s not much room in the ecology for anything new. But to the extent that hockey and soccer are similar games, conceptually speaking, it’s at least arguable that hockey will continue to decline and soccer will take its place. The fact that vastly more kids play soccer has to count for something.
And MLS does seem to have a little more viability than all previous attempts to create professional soccer in this country. From what I can see of my local franchise (New England Revolution), I think they’re putting enough people in the stands to make money.
By the way, can anyone confirm or deny that people in the metropolis of London say “soccer” as opposed to “football”?
I don’t see how any of this explains American kids ‘growing out’ of football while European ones don’t.
You’ll find few football fans disagreeing with you. Most people hate these antics.
This is an interesting point. Apart from pockets of rugby in Wales and the north-west, football is far and away the most popular sport in Britain. And it’s the only one which really provides any sense of group identity.
Deny, with the exception of Australians (of which there are many in London), who use the term to differentiate from Aussie Rules.