Why isn't football / soccer that popular in North America, United States / USA ?

[ChefChiTown]

So why don't US-teams want to win world cups / championships in their big sports?

The USA wants to win. That's why we participate in almost every major international sport that there is. Unfortunately, some of the sports we compete in aren't "in our blood". Soccer, for example, is not an American sport. Unlike Spain, Mexico or Brazil where you are brought up to worship the game of soccer, it isn't a big part of our history so we aren't bred to have the same passion that other countries do. Still, we compete just like every other country that wants to win.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baseball_World_Cup

According to the stats provided, the USA is the 3rd most successful country in regards to winning medals. We send college players and minor league players to these tournaments and look how well they do already. If we wanted to send our "best of the best" to these tournaments, we would have to pull both coaches and players off of their respected teams during their regular season, which is something that is pretty much frowned upon here in the USA.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FIBA_World_Championship

According to the stats provided, the USA is the 1st most successful country in regards to winning medals. We used to send our "best of the best" (back in the days of The Dream Team) and the USA absolutely dominated. We then started sending pretty good players, but not our best. I believe this is because, in all reality, playing against The Dream Team just wasn't fair to anyone else. The USA backed off a little bit and got punished with loses because of it. Currently, we have assembled yet another Dream Team and are, once again, dominating the teams that we play.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Football_World_Cup

The USA has only played in one of these tournaments and finished in first place. Look at the scores of the games too...

1st Round: USA 77 - Korea 0
2nd Round: USA 33 - Germany - 7
Championship: USA 23 - Japan 20

Look at the USA's roster too. It's full of names that no one has ever even heard of. If we're beating teams by 77 points and 26 points with no-names, imagine what we would do with an all-star team. We would dominate.

( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IIHF_World_Championships )

The USA has never really been a hockey country and we never will be. In the IIHF World Championships and in the Olympics, a lot of NHL players (our "best of the best") usually go and play for their respected countries. This leaves the USA with little to no talent when it comes to international competition. Still, we don't make excuses and send a team to the tournament without hesitation.

If you could easily win with your best team, why don't send it?
(I guess it's economic reasons, but any other suggestions?)

A lot of it, IMO, has to do with money. Why would an athlete here in the USA, who makes millions and millions of dollars playing their respected sport on a professional level, want to go and compete internationally for free? There is so much money that can be lost, in so many different ways, if one of these players participates and gets injured during one of these tournaments.

For example, it's hard for the USA to send it's best players to compete in baseball on an international level because the MLB plays it's games all summer long and even into the fall and that is when these tournaments are held. The Major Leagues would have to allow it's players and managers to leave their respected teams during mid-season...not a good idea.

 

[D-rock]

How does America do in the Olympics? :booty:

What people also have to keep in mind is that anymore we really don't care that much about the Olympics either. Most of our athletes are just a bunch of hardcore individuals that like their event. It's not like we have to the best of the best continually going into the events like with our professional sports. Yet over time the only countries that have ever really competed with us were the former USSR and China. China has the worlds largest population and both of them, China now and the USSR in it's prime, pretty much had their governments hand select youth when they were young to groom them and shove a bunch of government resources into making them that way. With the US it's just been people that have grown up and liked what they do for fun, and yet we still dominate.

If the US cared as much about soccer a long time ago as it did about baseball in it's prime and American football now we probably would have won 7 or 8 World Cups already. Or at least had a good chance, because of the dumb nature of Soccer a lot of luck is involved in winning only a few games in succession. Look at women's soccer. Pretty much the only real segment of the population that take it seriously and play it are girls for a few years when they are in school. It is more of a girl's sport over here. Not only have there been stretches where we dominated, but it could be argued some of those teams were the greatest women's soccer teams ever assembled out of a country where the girls growing up don't even care that much about it relatively speaking. As far as being good in a sport if that's what we really want when it comes down to it we still have the economy to have free time, the large population, and a very genetically diverse background of people that no other country can compete with even now. If we don’t do well with it it’s usually because we either care very little about it or the people that play it don’t care about it as much as the professional league they play in like the recent basketball dream teams we have had.

 

[poggy]

"Time for a word from our sponsors"

Opps....I thought we was on US TV there for a minute and a break was long overdue. After we have to fit one in every 10 minutes

 

[nightwanker]

You want to talk about the Olympics ( - not quiet sure if it's all about Soccer ):

Let's see
for example Athens 2004:
USA
36 Gold, 39 Silver, 27 Bronze

So, compare it to
for example
Germany, France and Italy:
34 Gold, 36 Silver, 34 Bronze

Population:
USA 301 mio.
Ger., Fra., Ita.: 204 mio.

So let's add Great Britain
43 Gold, 45 Silver, 46 Bronze
265 mio.

So let's add Poland
46 Gold, 47 Silver, 51 Bronze
301 mio.

conclusion
USA with a population of 301 million
36 Gold, 39 Silver, 27 Bronze

Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, Poland with a population of about 301 million
46 Gold, 47 Silver, 51 Bronze


according to
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Summer_Olympics_medal_count

by the way:
"The International Olympic Committee (IOC) does not recognise global ranking per country; the medal tables are displayed for information only."

 

[KungFuDude]

conclusion
USA with a population of 301 million
36 Gold, 39 Silver, 27 Bronze

Germany, France, Italy, Great Britain, Poland with a population of about 301 million
46 Gold, 47 Silver, 51 Bronze

Oh, well that is just BRILLIANT.

Five times as many competitors for those European countries there genius.



:helpme:

 

[mongo18]

Australia with a population of about 20 million:
17 gold, 16 silver, 16 Bronze.

Not bad for about 1/15 of the population?

Medals per millions of people:
Australia
gold:0.85, silver:0.8, Bronze:0.8
USA:
gold:0.1163, silver:0.1296, Bronze:0.0963

But anyway, that's just picky bullshit. I don't have the time or the inclination to wage war over this. But I would like to see the USA get competitive in some more international sports, particularly in sports like rugby league or rugby union, which are both much harder games than the US version of football.

 

[nightwanker]

Oh, well that is just BRILLIANT.

Five times as many competitors for those European countries there genius.



:helpme:

But only three medals in every competition.

(Do You really want to say, that if the best three US participants (this is the least number in nearly every olympic contest that every country is aloud to send, except for the team ball games with only one medail chance for every country) don't get a medal, the fourth will win gold?)

 

[ChefChiTown]

What does the population really have to do with it? :dunno:

Let's use soccer as an example, as this is a soccer thread...

If country "A" (population 750,000,000), who never played soccer as a major competitive sport went up against country "B" (population 250,000), whose children were born, bred and raised to play soccer for hundreds of years...who do you think would win?

Chances are...country "B". Although the population is smaller, their talent, education and passion of the game would absolutely dominate the larger country "A". Even though country "A" would have a superior population, the talent pool would be rather small, as it wouldn't have the history of playing the game.

Yes, there is obviously a line that would have to be drawn when talking about population, but when pitting 2 of the world's larger countries against one another...population means absolutely nothing.

 

[juballs]

my reason... diving

 

[nightwanker]

But if You compare the passion for football in Germany and the Netherlands
and the wins of the world cup,
You could come to the reasoning, that more people might bring up more talented people, if the status of the sport and the passion for it is similar.

If You compare the Netherlands with China the Netherlands of course are the more successful football nation,
but don't You think China would have better chances than the Netherlands, if they would have the same amount of players per capita and the same standards as them?

Did it only happen by accident that all World Champions of the last 53 years had quiet alot inhabitants? Since those 53 years smaller countries with great passion had it hard to win.
The Netherlands reached the final twice thirty years ago,
Czechoslovakia once 45 years ago, once 73 years ago,
Sweden 49 years ago, Hungary 53 years ago.
That's all.

You need great passion and significance for a sport in a country to get success in international competitions,
but then You also need a high "assortment" of talents.

 

[BlueBalls]

Who cares whose won more gold medals in the olympics. Who cares about the olympics. The dullest sports in the world huddled together under one event, ''puke''.

 

[ChefChiTown]

But if You compare the passion for football in Germany and the Netherlands
and the wins of the world cup,
You could come to the reasoning, that more people might bring up more talented people, if the status of the sport and the passion for it is similar.

I get what you're saying.

In my opinion, if two countries have similar history, knowledge and passion for a certain sport, then, and only then will population matter.

To be blunt...

Unfortunately, the USA doesn't give a shit about soccer. Yes, there are people who play the sport and people who are fans as well, but we don't really care about soccer what-so-ever.

We live in a country that lives and breathes football, baseball and basketball...and, awkwardly enough, NASCAR for some fucking reason. We are raised as children to look at these 3 sports (I refuse to call NASCAR a sport) as part of our heritage. Soccer is looked at as a "foreign" sport, even from a young age, so American children don't develop a passion or love for the sport. This is why, even though the USA has a huge population, we usually don't fair that well in international soccer tournaments. Soccer isn't a part of our lives, as it is in other countries.

 

[titsrock]

I criticize enough about my country's foreign and domestic policies in various threads here and elsewhere but one thing I will defend is the overall US Athletic Policy with respect to competition. On Balance, I am satisfied with our approach to the Olympics and World Competitions like Basketball Championships/Baseball Championships and, yes, the US Soccer approach. I would prefer that we invested more money in Soccer, in this country, because I believe it's the best sport to play and watch, but we're on the slow, upward track to a World Cup in Men's Soccer.

I do want to reset this point--Why is it important for the U.S. to SERIOUSLY compete in Soccer/Football? Aren't the British/French/Germany/Italian citizens content with the game and the national rivalries as they are today? What would the U.S. bring to the game? Why are most the "largest" countries in the world Nonfactors in Soccer/Football? Countries like India/Russia/China/Japan. Why has India embraced Cricket but turned her back on Soccer/Football?

 

[nightwanker]

by the way
Russia, wants to be triumphant at football/soccer,
China is in stripes
Japan and the US have many players
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Football_world_popularity.png
India :dunno:

anyway. everybody should do and play what he or she wants
and it's definitive okay, that the US prefers other sports.
It's just interesting ,
and also hard to find as many Indians to talk about फ़ुटबॉल on the net, as people to talk about Soccer in the US.
btw are there any on this board?

 

[cartman24]

I honestly don't know, I love to play it but watching it seems so boring to me. I thought that maybe it is because there is a much lower chance of somebody getting hurt, but then why would basketball be so popular?

 

[marquis2]

How does America do in the Olympics? :booty:
I think we do pretty good when we compete against "The World." How about Boxing? Lots of countries have Boxers.

Not every country has won the World Cup. U.S. Men's Soccer is a legit Top 20 team right now. We're a threat to beat any team, anytime, any place. That wasn't always so. The Women's team are Top 3 in the World and were heavy favorites to the win the Women's WC. Soccer is growing slowly. We are seeing quality National squads play the U.S. in the States. We have a great rivalry in Soccer with Mexico. Translating this success to financial longevity in the US is a different matter though...

We "invent" our sports and designate a "World Championship" because, to our knowledge, back in the day when these sports were invented, we were the only ones playing them. So it made sense. Now that other countries have solid baseball and basketball teams..we're seeing "TRUE" World Championships take place.

No other country will ever attempt to field a competitive American Tackle Football team with any seriousness in our lifetimes. (Canada excepted.) American Football is a strange spectacle to "The World" and a chance to oogle celebrities.

You didn't invent baseball, it's an English game of great antiquity.
The earliest known description is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, by John Newbery. It contains a wood-cut illustration of boys playing "base-ball," showing a baseball set-up roughly similar to the modern game, and a rhymed description of the sport.

 

[KungFuDude]

You didn't invent baseball, it's an English game of great antiquity.

For the f-ing LAST time - YES WE DID!


Peace, I'm outta here.

 

[ChefChiTown]

You didn't invent baseball, it's an English game of great antiquity.The earliest known description is in a 1744 British publication, A Little Pretty Pocket-Book, by John Newbery. It contains a wood-cut illustration of boys playing "base-ball," showing a baseball set-up roughly similar to the modern game, and a rhymed description of the sport.

Allow me to put in my two cents, as I always have been and always will be a plethera of knowledge when it comes to the game of baseball.

If you're going to be specific about it...

Alexander Cartwright, an American, invented baseball. Many people, for some time, believed that Abner Doubleday invented baseball, but that is an incorrect statement.

It is documented, that in 1845, 25 year old Alexander Cartwright took elements from other "stick and ball" games and fused them into what is known as baseball. Cartwright was a member of The New York Knickerbockers (business club) and his fellow members regularly played the game of American Town Ball. Cartwright took elements from this game, as well as Cricket and Round Ball (Rounders) and fused them into what is known as "baseball". In fact, Cartwright was the one who personally came up with major rules to the game, which pretty much define baseball as baseball.

1) 9 players per team
2) 90 feet between bases
3) 3 outs to an inning
4) 3 strikes to an out
5) Fair and foul territory

Yes, some of the elements he used were taken from English "stick and ball" games, but baseball was invented by an American. Claiming that the English invented baseball just because they played other "stick and ball" games is just as wrong as saying that soccer was invented by the first person to kick something.

Every sport, as you know it, is derived from some other form(s) of entertainment from our yesteryears...baseball is no different. Hell, both hockey and basketball were inspired by the game of soccer, but that doesn't mean that the first person to play soccer also invented the other two sports.

I've always lived and breathed the game of baseball. I studied the game of baseball about 100 times more than I studied my subjects in school. Even if you still doubt my statements, feel free to do your own research on Alexander Cartwright and his contribution to baseball. I have, years ago...and it was very enlightening.

Oh, and I've seen a copy of that book before, as I was doing research on baseball a few years back..."A Pretty Little Pocket Book"...and the only mention of baseball is the WORD base-ball, which is the title of a short poem. The picture is basically just 3 people standing there...FYI.

 

[marquis2]

Allow me to put in my two cents, as I always have been and always will be a plethera of knowledge when it comes to the game of baseball.

If you're going to be specific about it...

Alexander Cartwright, an American, invented baseball. Many people, for some time, believed that Abner Doubleday invented baseball, but that is an incorrect statement.

It is documented, that in 1845, 25 year old Alexander Cartwright took elements from other "stick and ball" games and fused them into what is known as baseball. Cartwright was a member of The New York Knickerbockers (business club) and his fellow members regularly played the game of American Town Ball. Cartwright took elements from this game, as well as Cricket and Round Ball (Rounders) and fused them into what is known as "baseball". In fact, Cartwright was the one who personally came up with major rules to the game, which pretty much define baseball as baseball.

1) 9 players per team
2) 90 feet between bases
3) 3 outs to an inning
4) 3 strikes to an out
5) Fair and foul territory

Yes, some of the elements he used were taken from English "stick and ball" games, but baseball was invented by an American. Claiming that the English invented baseball just because they played other "stick and ball" games is just as wrong as saying that soccer was invented by the first person to kick something.

Every sport, as you know it, is derived from some other form(s) of entertainment from our yesteryears...baseball is no different. Hell, both hockey and basketball were inspired by the game of soccer, but that doesn't mean that the first person to play soccer also invented the other two sports.

I've always lived and breathed the game of baseball. I studied the game of baseball about 100 times more than I studied my subjects in school. Even if you still doubt my statements, feel free to do your own research on Alexander Cartwright and his contribution to baseball. I have, years ago...and it was very enlightening.

..FYI.

It's a bit like inventing the tyre and claiming to have invented the wheel.There was an element of development but very firmly based on rounders.I'm sure that when kids play an impromptu game of baseball they don't stick to 9 players a side or 90 feet between bases but they still think of it as being baseball.Rounders was never really formalised as such. But this is the point-anyone who played rounders as a kid will recognise baseball as being essentially the same game.The difference is in the detail.
All games have been revised and revamped from time to time; the number of players per side in soccer and cricket wasn't originally defined and neither was the size of the pitch.Modern cricket is as different from 1800 cricket as baseball is from rounders , the same is true of soccer but it's a matter of evolution rather than invention.

 

[nightwanker]

Baseball (see above):
Basically You're both right! You can interpret it this way or that way.
But after all what I've read here I have to say:
If baseball is an English invention,
than football (soccer) isn't.
The origins of baseball root back to England, but the real rules etc. are American.
It's the same with football.
The rules etc. are English, but the origins root back in a time when nobody even knew Angles or Saxons.