Holy God, those are atrocious.
Oh well played sir! well played indeed! I now have that on as I type. Now where is the smilie for “nod of approval” when you need it?
I think this is further proof that there is Pink Floyd song reference for any given forum situation.
Perhaps a Eugene’s or Emily’s Law?
Googlefight isn’t working right, but if you just look at the numbers the top soccer teams have way more search results.
Real Madrid - 174,000,000 results.
Manchester United - 93,600,000 results.
Juventus - 70,800,000 results.
FC Barcelona - 54,500,000 results.
Inter Milan - 31,200,000 results.
[New York Yankees](Google?
hl=en&safe=off&q=%22new+york+yankees%22&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&oq=) - 25,800,000 results. (If you just enter “Yankees” it goes to 54,900,000 results, even if you assume every use of ‘Yankees’ refers to the team it still can’t match the top soccer teams)
Dallas Cowboys - 19,200,000 results
LA Lakers - 14,800,000 results
FIFA World Cup - 32,600,000 results
Superbowl - 14,600,000 results
Before somebody argues that more results don’t necessarily equal greater popularity, here are a few of my control searches. I feel they will prove beyond a doubt that the number of Google results correspond with IRL popularity.
Tits - 230,000,000 results (not linking this, take my word for it or google “Tits” yourself)
Duodenum - 2,810,000 results
Sex - 1,540,000,000 results (also not linking)
World Peace - 9,870,000 results
Kittens - 42,400,000 results
Sea Slugs - 366,000 results
See, perfectly scientific!
The other week I was walking through the school yard here in a small city in Sweden, and I had my NY Yankees cap on my head (not because I care about baseball, but the cap looked good and I needed one) and a seven year old guy cries out: “Hey, what’s that on your cap?!” I said, “It’s the logo for New York Yankees, an American baseball team.” He never heard of New York or of baseball, obviously, and then he said: “It should say ‘Messi’!” (a bloke in Barcelona FC).
That aside, there is absolutely no comparison in how well known baseball and football teams are in the world compared to soccer teams, and I believe that is true for most of the world. I love American football and watch at least one game a week during season, I’m a big football fan, but outside of the US, NFL is generally speaking non existant compared to soccer. In Sweden, the only time football is mentioned in the press, is when Superbowl is coming up, and then mostly because of how great a spectacle it is and how much the commercials cost per second. Thinking that “Cowboys” for instance is a well known team world wide (compared to Barca or Real) is so off I don’t know what to say.
Motto for this thread:
“Free games for May
See Rondembo play”
Note also, by the way, that the Googlefight figures are based on the US version of Google. Using, say, google.co.uk brings the Yankees (no city specified) down to 43.8 megahits, and brings Manchester United up to 94.4 megahits.
Ferrari F1 - 53,000,000
McLaren - 49,900,000
The OP’s favorite teams aren’t even close to the most famous teams in the world.
- Tottenham Hotspur.
- Wolverhampton Wanderers.
- Wigan Athletic.
- Aston Villa.
- West Bromwich Albion.
What the hell is “base-ball”?!
You forgot Accrington Stanley.
[scouser]Accrington Stanley? who’er dey?[/scouser]
and you forgot Barnstoneworth
As a Villa fan, I resent that association
Actually, that Canadiens kit is not any worse than what they have actually worn in the past; historically and just a few years ago for their 100th anniversary season. That barbershop jersey looked horrible!
Your contributions in this forum seem largely related to threadshitting, Rondembo, far past the point of reasonable doubt that you are not trying to be a jerk here.
If you want to start a “soccer sucks” thread, do so in the Pit. Otherwise, please stop polluting interesting threads with your anti-soccer screeds.
The barbershop one is surprisingly popular amongst fans, though! It’s hideous, but still much better looking than that Hilfiger monstrosity (a sash? Really?). And I’ll take Habs barberpole over thisany day!
- The Los Angeles Dodgers
- . . .
Ummm, is there another sports team? I guess, intellectually, I have to suspect that there must be one, if only so the Dodgers don’t have to just show up and not have anybody to play against, but for them to be FAMOUS, I’d kind of want to be aware of them…
Americans broadcast their sporting events around the world to hook other countries. The Yankees are known around the world. Baseball is played in lots of countries and broadcast in more. Same for NFL football. The SuperBowl transcends the sport,. When Micheal Jordan was playing in Chicago ,he captured much of the worlds interest.
America is a huge audience. You can not dismiss them as inconsequential because they are not a bigger part of the worlds population. I doubt people in Borneo care about Man U.
The “United Fans in Borneo” Facebook group has 403 members.
You think people in Borneo care about the Pittsburgh Steelers?
Red Wings have to have some exposure in Sweden and Russia after the Fetisov/Larianov/Federov eras and the Lidstrom/Zetterburg eras.
I think baseball and (American) football are great sports. I enjoy watching them. But they are not and never have been anything other than niche interests outside their home territories, even here in the UK where they have been relatively well-covered.
Part of the problem is that they are not easily accessible. Compared to soccer, hockey or basketball, where the structure of the game is very straightforward – one team tries to propel an object into the opposing team’s net or basket – baseball and football have not-immediately-obvious systems of “strikes”, “bases”, “downs” and so on. These are not mere details; they are the fundamental mechanics of the game. A casual viewer who’s never seen the game cannot immediately work out what’s going on. If you’re American and you have chanced upon a game of cricket on TV, you will probably know what it feels like. It’s not that these games are incredibly complicated, but nevertheless that initial barrier to understanding is enough to deter much of the potential audience.
So I think that baseball and football will continue to be a hard sell to a truly global audience, just as cricket is. Basketball has a much better chance and does indeed seem to be more popular globally. Ice hockey seems pointless when you already have soccer, and I don’t see it catching on in tropical countires.