Soccer and the United States

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Before I begin.
Congrats to WoW. WoW has been averaging 85 - 100 unique hits per day now for about a month . . . Yesterday though that more than doubled to 220. Analyzing the stats, it seems our movie reviews are getting a ton of hits, with the review for Cars, and Nacho Libre being in our top 5 pages hit (Cars was actually number 1 this week). We will see if this continues.

Something else interesting is that we have gotten a ton of links from a Google translation page. Look out for suicide bombers.

Why Soccer in not Popular in the US.
This post is inspired from a discussion Toyi and I had over at my blog. Before I begin, I would like to add, Malach enjoys soccer, and is a fan. I watch it (though not religiously), and I enjoy playing it. I like both women's and men's soccer. That was not always the case. Malach did not begin playing soccer until his early 20's, and that is when he became a fan.

But enough of that. Why is Soccer, the most popular sport in the world, not popular in the US? It seems it should be; persons younger than my generation all play, and there is a large population of minorities from countries that soccer is popular in who have come to this country. But Soccer is barely a blip on the radar here, unless it is the World Cup. To me there are several reasons.

1. Soccer is not an American Sport: Soccer was not invented in North America, like Basketball, Hockey, Baseball, and Football. Over the past 150 years Soccer has had little to no exposure in the US sporting scene. That has changed over the past 30 years though. Soccer is played by almost every kid in every part of this country, but after a certain point (high school), the best athletes abandon the sport to play Baseball, Basketball, and Football. Interest wanes and soccer in nor more popular than it was after these kids grow up.

2. Soccer is not exciting enough: Soccer is very low scoring. Americans like high scoring affairs, and find low scoring defensive oriented games boring. Look what has happened to hockey (hockey and soccer are good comparisons, they are very similar games with similar strategies). In the 50's, 60's, and 70's, hockey was extremely popular. It was high scoring and very violent. As better safety equipment came in, goaltending and defense became better, scoring became lower. As Hockey incorporated similar defenses to soccer, i.e. the neutral zone trap, hockey became a very boring low scoring dump and run game (like soccer is) and interest waned . . . At least though in hockey, there is fighting and checking.

The NHL made major changes after the strike to open the game up. We will see if it works.

3. Soccer players are pussies: Having played soccer, soccer is a very physical game, similar to the physicality basketball. The problem most Americans have is the diving, and the acting injured. How many times during the course of a game, do you see someone tackled; they end up writhing on the ground like they broke a leg, drawing a yellow card. They are pulled off the field on a stretcher, only to get up a second later and run back out on the field. Yes, it is part of the strategy (like in basketball drawing fouls), but to an American whose grown up with violent sports, soccer players are just sissies.

4. Americans are too psycho about other sports: As a native New Englander, we are psychotic about our Red Soxs, close to psychotic about the Patriots, formerly psychotic about the Celtics and Bruins. There are no cities in this country psychotic about soccer. Why? Well the MLS sucks. In cities without pro sports teams they are nuts for college football and basketball. Down South they are nuts for NASCAR, up in Canada, hockey. The entire country is nuts for football, and in the Northeast, it is Yankees/Red Sox. There is no room for soccer.

Will this ever change? Probably not. Soccer does not have financial clout in this country to take on NASCAR, MLB, NFL, or even the NBA. Soccer might be able to take on the NHL. Will the influx of immigrants change this? I don't think so. Malach lives in a part of the country that has had huge influxes of Latin Americans and Europeans over the past 200 years. Those of Portuguese and Hispanic out number those of other European descent around here. Soccer is very popular in the Greater New Bedford Area. Between the current wave of Latin Americans, and the previous wave of Portuguese, there are as many soccer fields and soccer club teams as there are baseball and football ones. But still the kids of these immigrants get caught up in Red Sox and Patriots nation, and lose interest in Soccer. Part of it is marketing, part is tradition.

Can you change soccer to appeal to Americans? Sure. Make the field smaller, get rid of offsides, allow more contact and less penalties. Will soccer ever do this? Why would they, they are still the most popular sport in the world.

I am Malach and I am a soccer fan.