buckshot
Well-Known Member
SambaMike said:
Well played.
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Americans (U.S.A.) ...
- Thread starter Dr.Faustus
- Start date
Well played.
laserblue
Well-Known Member
Andouble said:it's not very popular in the midwest.
comes a poor second to shagging their sister.
Dr.Faustus
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 22 Oct 2008
- Messages
- 782
Joycee Banercheck said:This 'American's don't understand football' shite gets on me tits.
They do. They'll probably prime it into kid's heads soon too. Say what you want about them, but they want to win everything and they probably will. You've gotta like them for that.
Apart from terrorism, obviously.
I don't think American's don't understand football; it is more a question of enthusiasm for the sport and preferential treatment for the 'big 3' as to why football is not more popular in the USA.
TFC
Well-Known Member
DalbeyINUK said:fair enough but USA has a population of what 300 million? While UK has 60 million (only 47 million are English which is obv. the only UK national team in the world cup) Germany has 80 million and Australia something like 30 million I think, tops.
The truth is our country as a whole just has a whole lot more folks with disposable cash to spend. That's why the numbers.
As far as football in America. It's MAYBE sitting fifth now in popularity. Behind (American)football, Basketball, Baseball and Hockey. At real issue here in getting and keeping new fans is a lack of quality games to watch. Sure there are MLS league games that one can watch, and those can be entertaining, if not overly skilled, but they are lacking the crazy insane passion that a Barcelona v Real Madrid or City v United match are bringing to the table. It's that sort of craziness, that frenetic atmosphere that will attract and keep people. When you can feel the tension through your television set, watch the players kick the crap out of each other and give it all to try and win, that's what creates new fans.
The rivalries that exist in the MLS are not up to this yet. None of the teams have been around long enough to engender true rivalry yet. So we're stuck trying to gain new fans through the prism of "sports" when they are already bombarded with American sports all day everyday. What we need over here to truly capture fans is a way to bring that spirit that exists in all of us when we look at United and a way to transfer that via matches to possible fans. Football matches always being aired early in the morning(at times as early as four or five in the morning) makes that very difficult to do. Those of us who are devotees of football will continue to be so, we'll teach our kids to be so, keeping them playing and introducing others to it. That will hopefully over time bring more and more new fans into the fold. As well over time the rivalries in the MLS will grow, become more serious and start(again over time) to engender that feeling we get when we think of United. Or Barcelona fans when they think of Real Madrid. In truth I've allready seen budding promise in that regard from my cities team the Portland Timbers and the Seattle team the Sounders. They moved to the MLS last year, and we will be next year. The rivalry goes back twenty- twenty five years allready but is still in it's infancy. It offers hope though.
Agree about the rivalries, taking the piss out of your mates after a crushing win over their team is one of the things I look forward to....(dont get to do it that much with fooking City though! ;)
One good 22 man brawl between two 'rival' teams (NY/Chicago last night would have been a good one) or a sex scandal (a la Terry/Bridge) should be enough to get people interested!
Watched a little bit of that NY/Chicago game last night, and the standard has certainly improved over the years, and footy is grass roots in pretty much every school now. The US national team is only going to get better over time (and they arent that bad now!)
The main issue Americans have about football is the 0-0 score or any other score draw. They cannot understand why the game isn't played until someone wins. The sports over here all play out until a team wins, with the exception of the NFL which starts off with a 15 minute 'overtime' where the first team to score wins. If no one scores in that 15 minute period, the game is a 'tie' as they like to call it. Extremely rare that happens though and that is just in the regular season. Play off games are played until there is a winner.
There was a match the other night here in North Carolina between Mexico and Iceland. Almost 65000 turned out at the Panthers stadium which amazed the local media.
However it ended up 0-0 and the local radio sport nobs thought it was hilarious there wasn't any goals.
A few years ago (before the MLS) when they had the Cosmos etc., footy was very popular but they changed the rules to have a 'shoot out' so there was always a winner and the fans went home happy (or pissed off) - but it beat having a 'tie'.
It just boils down to the fact they do not want to learn about a game they didn't invent.
There was a match the other night here in North Carolina between Mexico and Iceland. Almost 65000 turned out at the Panthers stadium which amazed the local media.
However it ended up 0-0 and the local radio sport nobs thought it was hilarious there wasn't any goals.
A few years ago (before the MLS) when they had the Cosmos etc., footy was very popular but they changed the rules to have a 'shoot out' so there was always a winner and the fans went home happy (or pissed off) - but it beat having a 'tie'.
It just boils down to the fact they do not want to learn about a game they didn't invent.
The absurdity of this thread actually got me to register, as an American it's sort of hard not to laugh at the ridiculous generalizations some of you are making. You all act like we Americans are some separate breed of human, but let me tell you, our heads don't explode when a match ends in a 0-0 finish.
All in all, this is very easy. The sports isn't as big here because we haven't had a high level of play league here, which makes the most interesting variety of this sport still European. Many people in the US support and follow European teams, which makes sense in two ways. First, the most talent is in europe, and when you include champions league football you've got a very compelling and entertaining product. It would be silly not to follow it because it's European. Secondly, all of our best players play in Europe at this point, so if you got into this sport via the World Cup that was here or some variation of our National Team, you're going to follow the teams those players play on, which sadly led many Americans to examine Fulham but that's beside the point.
It is true that the sport is surging here, but mostly at the youth level. Every young kid in America plays football with their feet at some point in their youth it seems. It's a more forgiving sport than baseball for the uncoordinated and it's cheap and outdoors, so it's got a mass appeal to parents. Time will tell if that translates to something as far removed as our National team, and I'd guess that it won't because overall, our best athletes are playing other sports, and for more than the foreseeable future they will continue to make that choice because there will be a lot more money in basketball, baseball, or american football for these athletes than there will be in the MLS. It'll probably take 3 or 4 dozen american youth trailblazers getting hyped and bought at a young age, sort of like the Adu saga, but the players probably need to work out better than Adu before anyone would seriously consider it.
Finally, as an American, some criticisms of how all of you follow sport. It's been one hell of a ride following the lot of you on this forum this season. Maybe there's another forum that has more of an analytical bend, but it's very surprising to me as a follower of many American sports how little thought goes into the arguments presented here. Maybe it's the nature of the sport in that it carries few statistics, but on any forum for the Boston Red Sox, as an example, people are just as passionate as you folks are, but when arguing about the team you always bring detail and data to the table. As an example, as a City fan I agree with the consensus that right now the midfield is not performing and it's causing serious issues, which is an improvement on the leakage the defense had earlier this season, but I've yet to see anyone try to use any pass completion % data or any other data set to try to see where the team is actually failing. Or, in the absence of stats, there's a true dearth of people really talking about formations and tactics, pretty much every thread follows the same guideline, initial post, someone mentions hughes, someone mentions mancini, someone mentions mourinho, everyone makes fun of MUFC, someone claims to be ITK, everyone harps on that person. There's a slight variation of this where if you say something negative you're accosted for not loving City enough, and the thread moves into yet another discussion about whether love for team should overcome ability to criticize it. I don't necessarily expect this last part to be particularly well received, but if we're going to talk about a society's approach to sport, I'd say that as an American, it's surprising to me how much of the approach of this team's supporters, at least, seems to be more about the soap opera than the sport itself.
All in all, this is very easy. The sports isn't as big here because we haven't had a high level of play league here, which makes the most interesting variety of this sport still European. Many people in the US support and follow European teams, which makes sense in two ways. First, the most talent is in europe, and when you include champions league football you've got a very compelling and entertaining product. It would be silly not to follow it because it's European. Secondly, all of our best players play in Europe at this point, so if you got into this sport via the World Cup that was here or some variation of our National Team, you're going to follow the teams those players play on, which sadly led many Americans to examine Fulham but that's beside the point.
It is true that the sport is surging here, but mostly at the youth level. Every young kid in America plays football with their feet at some point in their youth it seems. It's a more forgiving sport than baseball for the uncoordinated and it's cheap and outdoors, so it's got a mass appeal to parents. Time will tell if that translates to something as far removed as our National team, and I'd guess that it won't because overall, our best athletes are playing other sports, and for more than the foreseeable future they will continue to make that choice because there will be a lot more money in basketball, baseball, or american football for these athletes than there will be in the MLS. It'll probably take 3 or 4 dozen american youth trailblazers getting hyped and bought at a young age, sort of like the Adu saga, but the players probably need to work out better than Adu before anyone would seriously consider it.
Finally, as an American, some criticisms of how all of you follow sport. It's been one hell of a ride following the lot of you on this forum this season. Maybe there's another forum that has more of an analytical bend, but it's very surprising to me as a follower of many American sports how little thought goes into the arguments presented here. Maybe it's the nature of the sport in that it carries few statistics, but on any forum for the Boston Red Sox, as an example, people are just as passionate as you folks are, but when arguing about the team you always bring detail and data to the table. As an example, as a City fan I agree with the consensus that right now the midfield is not performing and it's causing serious issues, which is an improvement on the leakage the defense had earlier this season, but I've yet to see anyone try to use any pass completion % data or any other data set to try to see where the team is actually failing. Or, in the absence of stats, there's a true dearth of people really talking about formations and tactics, pretty much every thread follows the same guideline, initial post, someone mentions hughes, someone mentions mancini, someone mentions mourinho, everyone makes fun of MUFC, someone claims to be ITK, everyone harps on that person. There's a slight variation of this where if you say something negative you're accosted for not loving City enough, and the thread moves into yet another discussion about whether love for team should overcome ability to criticize it. I don't necessarily expect this last part to be particularly well received, but if we're going to talk about a society's approach to sport, I'd say that as an American, it's surprising to me how much of the approach of this team's supporters, at least, seems to be more about the soap opera than the sport itself.
DalbeyINUK
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- 2 Sep 2008
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- 859
Someone in here mentioned the World Cup this summer as well. I think ESPN is pushing it extremely hard and will be airing every match. It could really prove a big boon for football in the US as I don't ever remember ESPN pushing it like this.
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Anonymous
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DalbeyINUK said:Someone in here mentioned the World Cup this summer as well. I think ESPN is pushing it extremely hard and will be airing every match. It could really prove a big boon for football in the US as I don't ever remember ESPN pushing it like this.
Isn't it being aired on ESPN when previous have been aired on ESPN 2?