Breathtaking U.S. College Sports Story

[Lord Jim]

Well Strop, if I ever go to a cricket match, you're the fellow I'd want to see it with....










so long as you promise not to wear your skirt....

[Gob]

LOL!! I have to, it's traditional!!!

[Sean]

I must say Dave, your OP was one of the most breathtakingly ignorant and misinformed things I have read here... and that's saying something!

I’ve been hearing literally for decades the myth that the Era of Soccer is dawning in the U.S. “Millions of American kids are playing! They follow the sport internationally! When they grow up, they will be as enthusiastic about college and professional soccer as most Americans are today about FOOTBALL!”

Care to provide a link or any evidence for this being said? I mean, you presented it as a quote so I assume you can back it up... Otherwise you'd be talking out of your arse and making up bullshit claims to support your position wouldn't you?

This was the NCAA championship, and I would venture to say that it wasn’t even on the radar screen of 99% of the American males who look first to the Sports Section when they start reading the newspaper every morning. And given that this is a Monday morning when the news is dominated by reporting of pro football games, the NCAA Championship warranted about as much “sports” attention as Lindsey Vonn catching a cold. I’m surprised that the story in our local rag even got a headline (total about 4 column inches).

So nobody cares about it but it gets a headline? Think about it...

And dare I point out that judging from this story (and this story alone), it looks like the college sport is dominated by invading foreigners…Nikita Kotlov, Eriq Zavaleta, Tomas Gomez, Luis Soffner. Probably guys who couldn’t make their neighborhood “football” team in Carpatho-Armenia, so they decided to come to America and be college superstars, and get a free education in the bargain.

And this makes it different to other college sports how? Oh yes, I forgot... all other college sports are played solely by blue-eyed American boys aren't they?

Soccer – an amazingly stupid sport to start with – is just as irrelevant in the U.S. today as it was a generation ago, when it was supposedly going to rise..

.

So here we have an opinion (Which, however crass and ignorant, you are entitled to) and a flat out piece of bullshit! I dare you to provide a shred of evidence which shows that football has not grown in popularity in the US in the past twenty years.

The truly amazing thing about soccer (“football”) is its popularity outside the U.S. How boring life must be when people have to generate enthusiasm for a sport in which you are generally prohibited from using your hands. A sport in which the higher the level of competition, the fewer points are scored. Indeed, in most World Cup matches, there is only 60-90 seconds of actual play time when anything could conceivably happen that would affect the outcome of the game. The rest of the time is spent with the players passing the ball around 50-100 meters away from the goal.

It is obvious that you have never watched a game in your life! Instead, you take a mixture of jokes, bullshit and general misinformation and try to present it as 'fact'. Can you back up any of that? I'd love to see it...

I understand that soccer is fun to play. But the key question is, compared to what? Basketball, hockey, touch football, softball, golf, tennis, bowling, hunting, fishing, and riding a bike ALL provide much greater enjoyment per unit of time.

Once again, an 'opinion' from someone who has never played the game.

Ultimately, I can’t imagine why anyone would actually play it unless there was absolutely NOTHING else to do, and I’d personally rather get a root canal than have to watch an entire match. How long are they, 8 hours? Maybe it only seems that long.

Do you think that anyone here believes this tripe? You are a sad little man Dave and I pity you. I think you are very jealous of those of us who have had the good fortune to be raised with a love of the game and your jealousy manifests as bile and bitterness. Did a football player once steal your girlfriend?

That would explain a lot!

[Lord Jim]

I must say Dave, your OP was one of the most breathtakingly ignorant and misinformed things I have read here...

I see you haven't been following rube's latest contributions....

[Sean]

I did say "one of the most" Jim...

[Lord Jim]

Fair point.

[Sue U]

Well, I'll believe that soccer has truly caught on in this country at a professional level, when I see municipalities competing with each other to set up sweetheart deals with the franchise owners for the creation of "soccer stadiums"....

Most of the teams in the "North American Soccer League" play in venues that a MLB Triple A Baseball Team wouldn't play in....

Um, Jim, NASL is the second-tier league of professional soccer in North America, with teams based in several cities that are also traditionally strong on other "major" professional sports (e.g., San Antonio, Atlanta, Tampa Bay, Edmonton). The top-tier is MSL, with teams in Boston, NYC, Philadelphia, DC, LA, Seattle, Kansas City, Houston, Montreal, Dallas, Chicago, Toronto, Seattle, Vancouver, Denver, Portland, Salt Lake City, Columbus and San Jose. There is also a third-tier professional division, USL Pro, with teams in Tampa, Orlando, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Richmond, Charlotte, Sacramento, Rochester, Charleston and a few smaller cities.

I don't think soccer is boring at all; I would put it on par with hockey -- both are low-scoring, but the action is fast and there's a lot of skill and strategy at work trying to set up and defend the goals. We have a pretty large youth soccer program in my town (pop. 71,000), with two competing organizations each fielding four travel teams (two of boys and two of girls) from U8 through U17, plus the town's rec league. Baseball and softball youth leagues are becoming less popular, and our town's Little League and Babe Ruth organizations had to merge last year just to put together a season; from what I can see, baseball seems to be in decline while soccer is booming.

As far as the TV networks go, broadcasting sporting events is an incredibly low-cost operation with a very high profit margin; you don't need to be selling 22 minutes of ad time every hour to make money, but you do need a solid audience share. I think the real issue is that US Soccer doesn't have the money to do the marketing that generates enough eyeballs for prime (sports) time. But the professional leagues do appear to be getting better organized and better funded, and with more of the population having experience with the game, it's only a matter of time before soccer makes it to the big time of the US market.

[Big RR]

Also, soccer doesn't start and stop as often as many American sports, making it hard to put commercials in during the game. That will have to be addressed before the TV coverage expands. But popularity will expand as the level of play gets better in US soccer leagues.

And Sue, I agree it's not boring. The difference between soccer and some American sports (especially basketball with its shot clock) is that defensive strategy is an integral part of the game; some people (like myself) prefer that, others don't and look for a constant offensive effort with chance after chance to score(and there are plenty of sports that provide that). Neother is inherently better or worse, it's just what you prefer.

[Lord Jim]

others don't and look for a constant offensive effort with chance after chance to score

For starters, they should double the size of the goal net....

[Gob]

Ok, so to make soccer appealing to the great unwashed, (American audience,) they will have to;

Double the goal size.
Have ad breaks every 2 minutes.
Allow players to use their hands.
Make scoring compulsory, at least once every ten minutes.

Anything else?

[Lord Jim]

Cheerleaders.

[Lord Jim]

Oh yeah almost forgot...

Mascots in funny costumes....

[Long Run]

Check your numbers, long run. Auto racing is second only to football as a spectator sport.

Actually, I did do a search and this shows various results as to the popularity of a sport. Factors include, spectator versus television or other media, cash in the sport, viewing as a sport as a whole or breaking it down by league or entity, etc. I also have the bad habit of listening to sports talk radio for 30-60 minutes a day, and they regularly talk ratings and the like, and the radio show topics also offer a good barometer for the popularity of sports. Auto racing is non-existent as a radio subject and does not get good ratings (NASCAR has declined from its popularity of a decade ago, though still more popular than a reasonable person can figure out ). Soccer is still growing, though still distantly behind football, both NFL and NCAA, pro baseball, and pro and college basketball. But it is ahead of hockey in most parts of the country.

As for the popularity of college soccer, the sport highlighted at the start of this thread, I would expect it to be behind college football, basketball and even baseball. But then, other than college football and the NCAA March Tournament, college sports are way down the popularity list as spectator and television getters. The better indicators of the growing popularity of soccer in this country (and mind you we are a generation or more from it ever being mentioned in the same breath as being close to football) is found on this board as various people describe when and how they like it (ten years ago, there would have been a chorus of how boring it is), the popularity of World Cup Soccer as a television event; and the full stadiums and tv deals for Major League Soccer. And yes, LJ, 13 of the 19 MLS teams play in soccer only stadiums that hold 20-50,000, which are regularly sold out (again, not anywhere as popular as football, but getting close to baseball).

[oldr_n_wsr]

Way back when, I bought season tickets to teh NY Cosmos who played in the new Giants stadium, complete with Pele and Shep Messing. (I was a classmate of Shep brother Roy Messing). I enjoyed the day of tailgating and haging out drinking beer. Soccer was an excuse although there were some exciting moments. I was there when teh Cosmos played the Brazilian Taem and Pele changed sides at halftime.

Then I had season tickets to the indoor soccer league at the Nassau coliseum. (forget the name of the team). Hooked up with Roy Messing as he was hte goaly for the cincinatti team before he had his eyesocket broken.

I did enjoy the indoor game as it was much faster and higher scoring.

Also had season tickets for indoor lacrosse (chop chop tomahawks). That was fun to watch too.

Then I got married. No more season tickets to anything.

[dgs49]

Some responses:

Sean, not only I, but every American my age, has been hearing predictions of Soccer's rise for decades. If you are unaware of it, I suppose that's excusable, but no American over 50 would deny this obvious fact.

Soccer is a boring sport to watch UNLESS YOU HAVE TAKEN THE TIME (MAYBE YEARS) TO OBSERVE AND BECOME FAMILIAR WITH IT. The same is true of chess - also a great game, and cricket, and golf. The point is that America has MANY sports that can be played and appreciated, and there is simply no reason for a casual sports fan to watch the hours and hours of soccer that would be necessary to gain this appreciation. And without winning the favor of casual sports fans, the sport will go nowhere in the foreseeable future. It will always be off in the future somewhere, but never NOW.

Soccer cannot get advertising money in the U.S. because NOBODY IS INTERESTED IN WATCHING IT. If there were a large audience, I guaran-fucking-tee the owners of the franchises would figure out a way to have pauses in play to allow for commercials. Look at pro football. The rules have been changed to add numerous "TV Time Outs" if there are not enough breaks to get the ads on. Soccer will o only become popular in the U.S. when someone has the balls and the creativity to figure out how to make the game more appealing to American audiences - even if it means they have to create a new version of the sport. Look at what happened when the AFL was created. They intentionally modified the rules and the coaching strategies to promote more scoring. The old ABL invented the "three-point shot." Somebody has to restructure the game itself in the U.S. to make for more scoring, more breaks, and more fan involvement. If it means that American pro soccer players are playing a slightly different game than the ROW, so be it. The important thing is that the skills are the same.

American kids can't compete internationally because ALL of our competition is basically by AGE GROUP, which is patently stupid. Whether it is school soccer or club soccer, it is by age group. In the rest of the world, the top players compete on the basis of skill level. If a 12-year-old is good enough to play against 16's, then he plays against 16's. In the U.S., a superior player will spend his formative years playing against competition that is manifestly inferior, and he can never reach his potential.

Much of the "popularity" of youth soccer is the result of over-protective parents (mainly "soccer moms") who want more than anything else to keep their kids from playing football, where they might get hurt. By the time the kids are old enough to tell their mothers figuratively (or literally) to go fuck themselves, they quit playing soccer and go out for a real sport (if they have the athletic ability). Anecdotally, I would say that we have had numerous soccer standouts at the high school level in my area completely drop the sport and play baseball, football, or basketball instead. Soccer is simply not considered a "real" sport outside the small soccer community. To be quite candid, our local rugby club gets more respect than the adult soccer leagues. And softball is MUCH more popular among adult males.

I have never paid to see a motor-sports event, but when you count, in addition to the various forms of NASCAR, SCCA racing, drag racing, go kart racing, sports car rallies, and such, the total population that enjoys these sports collectively is huge. Comparatively, the number of people who would PAY to see a soccer match, at any level, is microscopic.

[dgs49]

The New American Soccer:

Shrink the field and put up sidewalls (like hockey), so that passes off the sidewalls become part of the game.

Make a rule that only 2 defensive players may play on the opposite half of the field (so that the team with the ball can more easily move the ball past midfield). Institute a time rule like the 10-second rule in basketball; if the team with the ball doesn't get the ball past midfield in a set number of seconds, they have to turn over the ball. Institute a time rule that requires a shot on goal within a fixed time after a team takes possession of the ball, and after every shot if they retain possession.

Prohibit the goalie from catching the ball. He can only deflect it. And if he deflects it out of bounds the other team takes possession.

Divide the game into four 15-minute "quarters," and allow a few stragegic time-outs that stop the clock.

Cheerleaders, preferably with large breasts.

[Big RR]

Except for the last point (although I'll disagree on bust size), I can't see any real improvement by any of those proposals; indeed, limiting defensive play could ruin the game. Face it, how many people watch arena football even though scoring cjhancing are enhanced? Those who want to just watch shots on goal can wait for the shootouts--or maybe a shootout game can be invented so fans wanting only scoring shots can have their way.

Yes, it takes some time to learn the rules and play of soccer, but American football is hardly understandable to someone watching it for the first (or even third) time (and I say this as a staunch football (college and pro) fan who generally follows no other sport, but enjoys the occasional baseball, hockey, or soccer game; but that's why there are different sport. Not everyone wants to watch the same thing; I never watch basketball, but it doesn't bother me that others do. Likewise for NASCAR and other car racing, although I can't understand how something relying on mechanical power for the distinction between competitors can really be called a sport).

[Guinevere]

In response to LJ's point about stadiums, the New England Revolution -- one of the 10 original MLS teams -- plays at Gillette Stadium, and there are plans underway to build a new stadium just for the team.

That being said, attendance peaked at about 20K per game (in a facility than holds 65K) in the first two years of the team's existence, and has steadily declined, with a small bump up the year they won the cup. Average attendance is 15K/game.

I think in Boston though (aka Titletown), it is pretty tough to compete with the other professional sports teams. In the last last 10 years we have seen 3 NFL Championships, 2 MLB Championships, 1 NBA Championship, and 1 NFL Championship, and several additional opportunities to win championships. Soccer doesn't have a prayer against those kinds of results.

[Sean]

Some responses:

Sean, not only I, but every American my age, has been hearing predictions of Soccer's rise for decades. If you are unaware of it, I suppose that's excusable, but no American over 50 would deny this obvious fact.

And are you still claiming that it hasn't risen in popularity over the past few decades?

Soccer is a boring sport to watch UNLESS YOU HAVE TAKEN THE TIME (MAYBE YEARS) TO OBSERVE AND BECOME FAMILIAR WITH IT. The same is true of chess - also a great game, and cricket, and golf. The point is that America has MANY sports that can be played and appreciated, and there is simply no reason for a casual sports fan to watch the hours and hours of soccer that would be necessary to gain this appreciation. And without winning the favor of casual sports fans, the sport will go nowhere in the foreseeable future. It will always be off in the future somewhere, but never NOW.

Absolute bullshit! Most of the rules are very simple and only a complete fucktard would need to watch "hours and hours of soccer" to understand or appreciate it.

Soccer cannot get advertising money in the U.S. because NOBODY IS INTERESTED IN WATCHING IT. If there were a large audience, I guaran-fucking-tee the owners of the franchises would figure out a way to have pauses in play to allow for commercials. Look at pro football. The rules have been changed to add numerous "TV Time Outs" if there are not enough breaks to get the ads on. Soccer will o only become popular in the U.S. when someone has the balls and the creativity to figure out how to make the game more appealing to American audiences - even if it means they have to create a new version of the sport. Look at what happened when the AFL was created. They intentionally modified the rules and the coaching strategies to promote more scoring. The old ABL invented the "three-point shot." Somebody has to restructure the game itself in the U.S. to make for more scoring, more breaks, and more fan involvement. If it means that American pro soccer players are playing a slightly different game than the ROW, so be it. The important thing is that the skills are the same.

The difference here is that the US does not and cannot make the rules for football. I remember the organisers of the '94 world cup sulking because they were not allowed to make the goals bigger or divide the game into quarters. Tough shit! It is not an American game. It is known as "The World Game" for a reason.

American kids can't compete internationally because ALL of our competition is basically by AGE GROUP, which is patently stupid. Whether it is school soccer or club soccer, it is by age group. In the rest of the world, the top players compete on the basis of skill level. If a 12-year-old is good enough to play against 16's, then he plays against 16's. In the U.S., a superior player will spend his formative years playing against competition that is manifestly inferior, and he can never reach his potential.

You have no idea how the rest of the world works do you?

Much of the "popularity" of youth soccer is the result of over-protective parents (mainly "soccer moms") who want more than anything else to keep their kids from playing football, where they might get hurt. By the time the kids are old enough to tell their mothers figuratively (or literally) to go fuck themselves, they quit playing soccer and go out for a real sport (if they have the athletic ability). Anecdotally, I would say that we have had numerous soccer standouts at the high school level in my area completely drop the sport and play baseball, football, or basketball instead. Soccer is simply not considered a "real" sport outside the small soccer community. To be quite candid, our local rugby club gets more respect than the adult soccer leagues. And softball is MUCH more popular among adult males.

Again, can you back up these 'facts'?

I have never paid to see a motor-sports event, but when you count, in addition to the various forms of NASCAR, SCCA racing, drag racing, go kart racing, sports car rallies, and such, the total population that enjoys these sports collectively is huge. Comparatively, the number of people who would PAY to see a soccer match, at any level, is microscopic.

See above. Why do you persist in showing your great ignorance of the sport?

[Sue U]

Comparatively, the number of people who would PAY to see a soccer match, at any level, is microscopic.

I was at a venue last month where 38,000 people paid to see a soccer match.