Why Soccer Will NEVER Catch On In America

There is a reason 202 nations of the world (including the US) play football, and only two play American Football...:cool:
sorry, you dont know what you are talking about once again


Super Bowl XLI broadcast in 232 countries


gee, must be an awful lot of fans in all those countries for them to want to watch

Now post the ratings....:cool:
Oh, and there isn't even 232 countries in the world

List of sovereign states - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


See! See!
It's good to know that insignificant sunday lives are global :clap2:!
 
Soccer already is catching on in America. There is a professional league in the country. The ratings for the final of the last World Cup in 2006 were bigger than the NBA finals. The ratings for this tournament have been higher. The attendance record for the World Cup was in 1994, which was held in, you guessed it, America!

Saying soccer is boring is like saying country music is boring. It all depends on taste. Some people will like it and some won't.

Some would say that 11 minutes of action over three hours would make for a boring game. But that's about the average time of action in a typical NFL game. And I love the NFL! I imagine it is even less for baseball.

Sports are cultural. Soccer in America will never be as big as football, baseball or basketball, but it could be as big as hockey, which would make it a fairly profitable endeavor.

Unfortunately, the final today was not a good match. But for years, the worst game in the NFL was the Super Bowl, with some hapless AFC team like Denver or Buffalo getting rolled by an NFC powerhouse. When Baltimore beat the Giants in the SB, there were seven punts in the first quarter. The game was so boring that I started doing housework in the second half. Sometimes, that's just how it is.

Excellent post! Spot on.
 
Mr. Foxfyre announced that though he doesn't usually follow soccer he would watch the finals today.
I can see the TV from my desk in the office.
Soccer was on for a few minutes.
Then "Battle of the Bulge" on the History Channel
Back to Soccer for a few minutes.
Then back to the battle.
Back to Soccer for a few minutes.
Resonating snore from the family room.
Hit wrong button on remote and landed on another channel
Watched that channel for a few minutes.
Back to Battle of the Bulge.
Watched the last minute of the soccer game.
He returned to the office.
How did you like the game?
It was great!
Men!
 
Mr. Foxfyre announced that though he doesn't usually follow soccer he would watch the finals today.
I can see the TV from my desk in the office.
Soccer was on for a few minutes.
Then "Battle of the Bulge" on the History Channel
Back to Soccer for a few minutes.
Then back to the battle.
Back to Soccer for a few minutes.
Resonating snore from the family room.
Hit wrong button on remote and landed on another channel
Watched that channel for a few minutes.
Back to Battle of the Bulge.
Watched the last minute of the soccer game.
He returned to the office.
How did you like the game?
It was great!
Men!

Sounds like Mr. F. had the right idea. Too bad he may have missed some of the Battle of the Bulge.
 
There is a reason 202 nations of the world (including the US) play football, and only two play American Football...:cool:
sorry, you dont know what you are talking about once again


Super Bowl XLI broadcast in 232 countries


gee, must be an awful lot of fans in all those countries for them to want to watch

Now post the ratings....:cool:
Oh, and there isn't even 232 countries in the world

List of sovereign states - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
take up the number with the NFL, not me, dipshit
 
I just wasted two hours plus watching one of the most boring sporting events it has ever been my displeasure to have to sit through. These guys are supposed to be the best of the best. Doesn't that mean they should be able to score goals? Apparently not.

OK - I try to like soccer. I really do. But I have never been able to get behind it. And, you will note, soccer has never caught on in the U.S. Never. Why is that? It is certainly hugely popular in other countries - clearly the number one sport probably world-wide. So why hasn't it ever caught on here? Glad you ask - I have a theory:

Americans are raised on FOOTBALL. That's FOOTBALL, folks, not "futbal." In American football, one team gets the ball and moves it down the field. Barring such things as interceptions or fumbles, usually when your team gets the ball, they KEEP IT for a while, hopefully, long enough to drive down the field and score either a field goal or a touchdown.

Compare this to soccer. In soccer, the orange team has the ball. The orange team player kicks the ball toward the opposing team's goal. The ball is in the air. At this point, there is a 50-50 chance that, when it comes down, it will still be under the control of the orange team. Now the blue team has the ball. Blue team player kicks the ball high in the air. Now it comes down. Orange team's ball. And so on, and so on, ad nauseum. Back and forth, back and forth, in a seemingly never-ending exchange of possession which rarely results in anything except the aforementioned back and forth, back and forth changes of possession.

Well - much like this boring soccer game recently concluded between Spain and The Netherlands.

And that's why soccer will never catch on in this country. We don't have the patience for it. When our team gets the ball, we want to see them keep if for something longer than two or three seconds.

Hang on, guys - September is just around the corner.

It's got to do with attention spans.

We don't have them.
 
When I was in HS I often walked to school with a boy from Poland who played on our HS soccer team. I had never seen it played so it had no reality to me. I played baseball and was on track and cross country. All boy catholic schools in those days sucked as we didn't have wrestling or gymnastics which I loved. No girls sucked too.

So when I finally started watching soccer in the world cup games, I found the sport fascinating and an interesting contrast to American sports. Allow me a bit of pretension but it can be seen as a profound metaphor on life. The clock does not stop, the ref's calls are good and bad and hardly argued, the clock does not stop, the ball can go anywhere or nowhere, or a foot a person or a post stops it in flight, there are no commercials, when hurt, you pick yourself up and keep going, luck can cause a win or loss, you only get so many chances, skill matters but so do endurance, spirit, plain hard work, sometimes you get a yellow card sometimes a red, out of the game, the clock does not stop. Players and fan emotions are excessive at times, players exchange shirts, sometimes you wonder what happened that you lost and sometimes elation is so strong you can hardly control your emotions. (Now consider life.)

I've come to love these contrasts and while I watch little sport today, they are all so boring and contain a bunch of overpaid children. This five year metaphor fascinates me.
 
The most boring games EVER are baseball and American Football.

Overall the final was a little disappointing, and Spain - for me - went from the Team of the Tournament, to the Crybabies of the Tournament....

Thought the ref wasn't up to it, but Robben missed two open goals....
baseball, maybe, football, no fucking way

There is a reason 202 nations of the world (including the US) play football, and only two play American Football...:cool:

You are right, those 202 nations don't have the heart for a real game. :cool:

Immie
 
It was a terribly boring game today. I guess that's the problem. Sometime it's just really boring.

BUT WHEN IT'S EXCITING, oooo, and there's also the factor that it depends on how you already feel about each team. Since i watched virtually every game of the tournament, there's something to get excited about when 'your team' is doing really well, or even when the game's going against your team but they're still going for it. But I feel like you already have to have some commitment to one of the teams.

Like in this World Cup, I went in supporting Spain, but tossed them for Germany (whom I usually support) early on. From then on I'd live and breath for the Germans; when they murdered England 4-1, MAN that was exciting; and Argentina (whom I also supported), when they pummeled them 4-0, that was GREAT. By the time the final rolled around, I had already rooted against both the Netherlands and Spain in semis, and I couldn't decide even who to support, not even during the game, neither team was exciting, and not being from either place it was just boring. It didn't help that the Dutch's strategy was basically to choke Spanish possession by continually fouling.

But when you have some emotional investment on a team, it starts changing, because even though nobody scores, it's the NEAR scores where you feel you're about to explode with emotion or get crushed by despair, and well, I'm not very good at describing. It's a great game, though.


ASDoHsadpaIdshaposd

I totally agree with your point about if you have an emotional investment in one team or the other, then things become much more exciting. I have never liked basketball all that much, but I will never forget going to every game when our high school team made it all the way to (and ultimately WON, thank you very much) the CIF finals.

'Course there's another way to make any otherwise boring sport much more interesting. It's called gambling . . . ;)

I have a third way...

dallas_cheerleaders_99.jpg


... of course, that is not to say that American Football is boring.

Immie
 
I love American Football. In my humble opinion there is no sport in the world like it. A game can turn on a single play at any time in the game.

I used to love to play soccer and several other sports, but there has never been any game that has captured my attention the way a good NFL game can.

But, like (I think) Dr. Grump said, a lot of the power of a sport is knowing the history of the teams and players. There is no history for me... hell, I can't even understand the language they broadcast most games in!

Another thing, I don't like is, as Divecon, said the extended play. That drives me crazy... I gotta pee and the damn ref wants to keep the game going without giving me any idea when it is gonna end!! Piss on 'im! :lol:

Immie
 
I love American Football. In my humble opinion there is no sport in the world like it. A game can turn on a single play at any time in the game.

I used to love to play soccer and several other sports, but there has never been any game that has captured my attention the way a good NFL game can.

But, like (I think) Dr. Grump said, a lot of the power of a sport is knowing the history of the teams and players. There is no history for me... hell, I can't even understand the language they broadcast most games in!

Another thing, I don't like is, as Divecon, said the extended play. That drives me crazy... I gotta pee and the damn ref wants to keep the game going without giving me any idea when it is gonna end!! Piss on 'im! :lol:

Immie
exactly, how hard is it that when someone is "hurt" to stop the clock
 
take up the number with the NFL, not me, dipshit

You're the one who posted the source, Moron. Don't believe in your own sources (rhetoricial question).....
i posted a source, you question the number only, i didn't say a number
they DID
you are the fucking MORON you pathetic piece of shit'

Again, you post sources you don't believe in. Who's the moron again, Moron? :cuckoo:
 
There are a few reasons I see clearly as why Soccer will never catch on in any big way in the US.

1. Scoring. Too low. Baseball, Hockey and Soccer are 3 sports that have too low of scoring and hence their attendance suffers mightilly. But in Baseball AND Hockey, you can have shootouts that can break into rare double digits. Never in soccer.

2. Field size. It needs to be reduced to that of an American football field at the largest. This is why arena soccer is better. There is no out of bounds unless it clears the stands.

3. Philosophy. Americans refuse to accept ties. Soccer is RIDDLED with ties. Hockey all but got rid of them, Baseball won't allow them, Football will but they remain a blot on both teams. Americans just won't watch a sport that ends in a 0-0 or 1-1 or an incredibly offense packed game of 3-3!

That's why.
 
I love American Football. In my humble opinion there is no sport in the world like it. A game can turn on a single play at any time in the game.

I used to love to play soccer and several other sports, but there has never been any game that has captured my attention the way a good NFL game can.

But, like (I think) Dr. Grump said, a lot of the power of a sport is knowing the history of the teams and players. There is no history for me... hell, I can't even understand the language they broadcast most games in!

Another thing, I don't like is, as Divecon, said the extended play. That drives me crazy... I gotta pee and the damn ref wants to keep the game going without giving me any idea when it is gonna end!! Piss on 'im! :lol:

Immie

That's probably my biggest bugbear with American Football. A game that is supposed to be an hour long goes for four.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz..........
 

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