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

Why isn't Soccer popular in America?


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BNF

Ex-SuperMod
I think it has a lot to do with how you grow up, in the US **** played and watched football or baseball with their parents, So when the **** grow up they have an affinity for those particular sports because its what they know.

This is, IMO, the single largest factor. :thumbsup:

I'll tell you what my friends in broadcasting in the US say about soccer remaining lukewarm and why:

there are no breaks

no breaks mean no commercials

no commercials means that no network is going to seriously air it or invest in it

no network time means limited (very limited) audience to build

(Europe has a built audience, so the "solution" of pay TV works here)

(Remember that over here it's fairly common to not have anywhere close to the amount of commercials that air in the US. Sure, there are 10 second spots during games, but 10 seconds is nothing compared to the 2 and 3 minutes advertisers get with any aired sport or game in the US.)

Another thing they've said is that any rich American that wants to import the game, abandons the idea almost upon conception and just buys a European team instead. So, even the money flow out.

because it sucks in America... they can't play, it's like watching ***** league baseball.
and mexico

100% true and largely reversed for basketball in Europe.

...And the game is not just about scoring.

Surely, a game is about someone winning and someone losing in the end. But, I think that you are right about the European mentality about football. It also explains the popularity of another "sport" in Europe, Formula 1. Two peas in a pod here, I think. :*****: (Yes, I have warrants issued for me out of Milano and Roma.)

But the same thing can be said for people I know who are walking encyclopedias of baseball stats....
 
I think it has a lot to do with how you grow up, in the US **** played and watched football or baseball with their parents, So when the **** grow up they have an affinity for those particular sports because its what they know.

You also just described why Hockey in the States died many years ago. Sports are about history and tradition. And Hockey, soccer, whatever, just don't fit here.

D-rock said:
7. The way the game is timed doesn’t make sense. The clock keeps going when it shouldn't, and even worse when extra time is added you don't even know when it's going to end. It would be like if we covered up the clocks here and didn't tell anybody even the teams how much time they had left just for fun.

^ My biggest beef with soccer.

What I can't understand is why they are so stubborn to changing the rules to this game. They won't change the rules, even if you stuck a *** to the head of the president of FIFA. Hell, they all go by the metric system now, and the lines are still measured in yards.
 
Why isn't football that popular in America?

This question has been raised on the football thread (sexy girls there ;) ).
I already have some thoughts about that, but want to read what others say and not give this thread a direction.

This has been discussed many times on the actual football threads. Just check back on them or do a thread search in them ;)
 

L3ggy

Special Operations FOX-HOUND
Surely, a game is about someone winning and someone losing in the end.

Indeed it is but it's not the main point in the, in my opinion, it's about having fun, that's why i like Football/Soccer.
 

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
Indeed it is but it's not the main point in the, in my opinion, it's about having fun, that's why i like Football/Soccer.

Agreed -but to be honest, if the USA don't like Footy (aka soccer), then that's fine with me. Wouldn't swap this moment for all the Grid-Iron in the US:

http://imagesocket.com/view/Arsenal_Henry_v_Real_Madrid86e.gif

(just promise me you'll keep the Beckhams on your side of the pond though, folks.........:D).
 
I laugh when I see European Soccer players come to the US and play MLS.

MLS soccer allows the heavy hitting and bumping. I see the flops from new players and the refs continue play.

This is the main reason that I dont care for most soccer games.

Football and Hockey are a rough sport. The finesse teams are usually called panzies. Even Wayne Gretzky had a reputation of being a finesse player and some people disliked him for that.

I use to think that Peyton Manning was a finesse player, but in a post game conference when he had ***** pouring from a bandaged wound and was asked what happened on a play, he basically stated I got the **** knocked out of me....


Americans and even Canadians are a rough and tumble people. We identify more with Aussies and such other former British Colonies.

Notice that 3 former British Colonies are bigger fans of other sports rather than soccer. You will see a pattern amongst the people. Our ancestors did not stay home and ***** tea and play cricket, they went and colonized rough land and inhospitable areas.
 

nightwanker

Proud first owner of FreeOnes Playing Cards
Americans are a rough and tumble people. We identify more with Aussies and such other former British Colonies.

Notice that 3 former British Colonies are bigger fans of other sports rather than soccer. You will see a pattern amongst the people. Our ancestors did not stay home and ***** tea and play cricket, they went and colonized rough land and inhospitable areas.
Then why do Your footballplayers wear those funny armors?
Whereas European (and New Zealand, Australian etc.) rugbyplayers hardly wear anything?
 
I find American Football more exciting, but that's just me, I love contact sports. In the Philippines, only a handful of people play or even have heard of football, but there's a lot of soccer. It's weird though, because we love contact sports here: basketball, boxing, mixed martial arts...I've always wanted to learn American Football ever since I was in sixth grade or so. :(
 
I am a North American who loves soccer (I **** to have to write the word soccer instead of football just because someone has been dumb enough to call football a sport that is played with the ball in hands most of the times).

It is my no. 1 sport. Of course I did not develop this passion here. I lived 3 years in London (beginning of 80s) and when I came back and start to talk about it, I was hearing the same comments and objections that I read here and that could be summarized this simple way : it does not goes the way our sports go. They don't time it the way we do. The outside rule is not likd ours. Such great reasons!!! I don't eat spaghetti because it does not hold between 2 pieces of bread like hamburgers. They should do solid spaghetti.

That was generally speaking. The actual reasons are often pretty wrong and (like the above) just show a complete lack of basic knowledge of soccer.

I could take all the objections written here and write the contrary:
No goals compared to hockey.
A few results from the 2 last weeks of the Englisn Premier League.
Tottenham 4 - Aston Villa 4
Fulham 3 - Man City 3
Man U. 4 - Wigan 0
Arsenal 3 - Sunderland 2
Portsmouth 7 - Reading 4
Arsenal 5 - Derby 0

But the true thing is : soccer does not match our North American mentality and habits.

As someone already wrote, scoring is not the only thing. In soccer, we can be amazed at plays that happen in the middle of the field and are no treats to the other team. No need to score a goal to appreciate the skills of the players... and the game.
In hockey, what do NHL coaches say about scoring goals : shoot blindly the puck towards the net, you never know, it could hit a skate, a knee, a stick, a broken tooth on the ice and get in the goal. If a hockey player on a shift display marvelous skill with the puck but does not score, the spectators will say it is useless. A jerk blindly shoots the puck that hits whatever and enters, this guy is a great player.

That's what I mean by our North American mentality. Here, the end result is the only thing that matters and the only end result that matters is winning, being the best, scoring the goal however it is done.

That shows in reasons like : Too many ties we need a winner. That was a problem in hockey so now there is an almost meaningless shoot out so the commissionner can say that he solved the problem of too many ties. But he did not solve the problem of teams playing for the tie and the hope too win 1 more point in shoot out (to put it clearly, it did not solve the boring last part of the game when teams continue to play for the tie as they were doing before).

A few answers:
No contacts in soccer ??? First, that does not keep people from watching basketball. Why does it keep people from watching soccer. Second, that's all wrong. These guys are hitting each other all the time. No body checks as in hockey or hits as in football, but an elbow in the face when they jump to hit the ball with their head is a usual thing, and all kinds of other hits

No team work, they all are individualists compare to the unity of a football team??? Do players have to stand shoulder to shoulder to show teamwork? As in hockey, soccer players can show both team spirit and individual skill and imagination. BTW, I always found strange hearing that type of stuff from North Americans, because it is kind of Soviet type of statement (our working class faceless heroes building our nation together, shoulder to shoulder).

This post is already too long (I always write too much. BUT....)
Americans love to say that the Super Bowl is the biggest sport event on earth. That's so ridiculous. Football is an important professional game in one country only, USA!!!! Soccer is sport no.1 in about every country of the world, but the USA and Canada. Super Bowl is nothing compared to the Soccer world cup.

In Canada, the land of hockey, the no. 1 sport among people of 18 years and less is not hockey anymore, now it is soccer. That could explain why some people always say bad things about soccer, because the day there will be a decent league here, some traditional professional sports may face serious problems.
 
There are two things that I think contribute to this:
1. Lack of scoring.
It's a problem for both soccer and hockey, although hockey has remedied this somewhat.
2. The physicality of the sport.
This is what most of my friends usually cite as their reason for not liking soccer. In their view, soccer isn't a very physical sport in terms of person to person contact. While I realize there is a great deal of contact, I think a lot of people look at the physicality in sports like hockey and basketball, and they don't see the same level of contact on a consistant basis. For me personally, I can't follow most of the judgement calls, so that makes it difficult, but I would still go to a game if I could. :2 cents:
 
I think I have answered this many times so I don't even know if I can remember all the things I dislike about it but...

The flaws with soccer are in no particular order:

1. Lack of scoring, It's not like I don't enjoy a low scoring defensive battle in sports, but with soccer it's usually so low that luck plays too much a part of each game where a lucky bounce of the ball could decide the entire game. In American football some lucky occurrence happens and you’re only down one score with a chance to come back. In basketball if you totally blow it on a play it only cost you 4 points at the most. In hockey there is still a good chance to come back, the same with baseball.

How can you say you like hockey and baseball more than football because they score more. Both these often have very low scoring games in that case. Often too.

2. Lack of physical contact, I don't like a sport where you’re penalized for barely breathing on an opponent. I thought basketball was bad but because of the lack of physical contact allowed soccer has developed the best floppers in the world. If it got any worse it would be like having a bunch of ballerinas out there with a ball...oh wait in that they have to tough and lift each other at least.

Really need to see the British version of football. Even thought FIFA have tried to make it into a no tackling sport. British football still is fast and physical compared to any other football in the world. Yes you still get divers and cheats. But they don't always get the foul to them here. As they just get ignored half the time.

3. They go backwards almost as much as they go forward. I don't want to see something where they pass forward, then back, then back some more, then forward, then back, then the other team gets possession somehow and it all starts over again. I don't mind smart strategic movement in sports, but when it gets to be a glorified game of keep away for long stretches then it goes to far.

Same as most other sports in the world especially basketball.

4. Ties, sports should do everything reasonable to eliminate ties that they can. I want to see a definite winner. Who wants to go out and watch something where you know you might be witness to the mighty 0-0 or 1-1 tie. Sure other sports have ties but they are more rare. In American football were lucky to get a couple ties in an entire decade of hundreds and hundreds of games. You can't tie at all in baseball and in it's over 130+ years of history I can only really think of 2 games where it happened, both infamous and one was an exhibition. Even hockey has taken ***** to cut down on ties.

Now this is a uneducated answer. As it depends what type of competition your playing. Because in cup football you can't have a draw. League football works on a point system of 3 points for the win, 1 point for the draw. So most go for the win, but there is times when they play for the draw due to only needing the one point. But more often than not you'll find that doesn't work.

5. Because of the way the game is structured there is just too many times where teams will screw around for most of the game because it might benefit them, like scoring early and doing nothing but going on defense the rest of the game hoping it will hold up. I can't imagine teams in other sports getting away with that kind of mindset and having it work. There are times where teams will town it down in other sports but those are late in the game when they are way ahead and have dominated to that point. I can't imagine in American football going ahead by a touchdown or in basketball going up by ten points in the first quarter and just saying, "Well were going to basically not try to do anything but keep the other team from scoring the rest of the game".

You've seen Italian football then.

Yes this has happened and then again it becomes interesting to see if they can break the other team down. But as you'll find because a team is defending a lead it doesn't mean they've stopped attacking. As they will try to steal another goal on the counter ******.

6. The way the offsides rule is structured in soccer is dumb, as opposed to the way it works in hockey. Just another opportunity to have plays were people screw around, and maybe if they changed it scoring would go up.

The goalkeeper and one defensive player must be between or level with you when the ball is kicked. Unless for some strange reason the goalkeeper is up field and then you still must be level or behind a defender. Unless your in your own half when the ball is kicked by your player and you can't be offside. That is unless they are behind the ball when it's played and they still can't be offside.

This was brought in to stop what is known as "the **** liner". Someone would would just stand with the goalkeeper the whole game just waiting for someone to pass the ball to him. Imagine if you got half a team doing that.

7. The way the game is timed doesn’t make sense. The clock keeps going when it shouldn't, and even worse when extra time is added you don't even know when it's going to end. It would be like if we covered up the clocks here and didn't tell anybody even the teams how much time they had left just for fun.

You really shouldn't go there when such as American Football is a hour long. But the game last between 3 to 4 hours, WTF. Same goes for baseball and also basketball and hockey both have overtime. Football is 90 minutes long, 45 minutes in each half, with injury time that is shown just before the end of the game is up. This is usually between one and four minutes. Cup football could have extra time that is half a hour long. 15 minutes each way. Whoops football has a better time structure than American football :o

8. To be honest soccer players run a lot and need a lot of endurance, and maybe need to aim good...and that's about it. They don't fit my ideal of what an athlete should be like. To me an ideal athlete needs to be an physical specimen. (outside of any mental aspects to the game) They need to have a great combination of strength, explosive strength, endurance, speed, explosive speed, pain tolerance, agility, dexterity, hand eye coordination, and resistance to injury. In other sports, sure there will be people that are out of shape and do well from time to time, or have some other shortcoming but they usually give up an advantage to people that are better conditioned all things being equal. Even a lot of people built for speed will still have a nice build, like NFL wide receivers. I **** to say this but in soccer too many people look like they have a physique of a 10-year-old girl. There are professional bowlers that look like they could break David Beckham. Maybe for marathon runners I could see it, but even a lot of long distance runners look better.

LOL!

You've just described everything a footballer has in the highlighted bit.

Now if you want to pick at sports in this way...

Basketball - all running and nothing else. No skill, no contact, etc.
American Football - supposed to be a physical game of pace, power and speed. Have loads of padding so like girls. Really need to look at rugby to see what a physical contact game is that has no padding. Speed, can't be that fast with all that stopping and starting and padding.
Do I need to continue?

I just don't think people over here are accustomed to skinny people running around in circles for an hour and a half hoping to see them score a couple of times maybe.


You really need to know a sport before you comment on it D-rock.

As you've just proven the only real football you've ever seen is MLS. Which is a very low level football. As you really don't seem to understand it.

When Americans do there usual pull down of football. My sole answer goes along these lines...

Why is it the most popular sport in the world?
Watched by millions of people from all countries in the world?
That has a World Cup that is actually competed for by more than one or two countries.


I'll leave you with this question to see how much you know about football....

Who invented football and who took it round the world? (We are looking for two countries here)
 

McRocket

Banned
I'll tell you what my friends in broadcasting in the US say about soccer remaining lukewarm and why:

there are no breaks

no breaks mean no commercials

no commercials means that no network is going to seriously air it or invest in it

no network time means limited (very limited) audience to build

True. But NASCAR often has to go to breaks while the action is still going on. And their TV audiences do not seem to suffer.


In my opinion, the reason soccer is not popular here like baseball and football is the armchair quarterback. It's also why basketball and hockey will probably never be nearly as popular as football/baseball.

You watch a baseball/football game, and it's all about strategy. For baseball - Should the batter be replaced with a pinch hitter? How tired is the pitcher? Should they bring in another pitcher to pitch to this batter? Oh, they just changed batters; so which pitcher should they use? Should they use a left hander or a right? What are the percentages with each potential pitcher against this new hitter? How should the batter be pitched? Should it be a fastball or a curve? Etc...
And football - Should they pass or run? If they run, should it be a draw or a sweep or an off tackle? Should the TE stay in tight to block? Or should he lineup outside to decoy the play? Should they use an I formation or a single back? Should they try play action? Or since the passing game has been poor, will the defense bite?
Should the defense blitz? How many men? What cover for the secondary? Do they expect pass or run? Etc....

And the above can all happen on almost every single play. And there is ALWAYS time between every single play to decide what to do. Football and baseball are not flowing, continuous sports like soccer is. They are a series of dozens and dozens of mini games, per game.

These two sports are perfect armchair quarterback sports. Every fan can second guess every play and think what they would do were they the coach/manager. The crowd can (and does) urge the coach's do do certain things in certain situations. Every fan can feel part of the game - even in their living room.
That is why I think that they are primarily more popular here then soccer is.

And the reason football is more popular then baseball? More speed and hitting.

I played organized soccer for 6 years. One year on a town rep team (though I wasen't THAT good. They were just rather desperate - we lost one game 20-0!).
I enjoyed playing it very much.

And even though I never played in an organized football or baseball league; I find soccer boring to watch and the latter two very interesting - especially football.
 
Obviously there's a lot of major polarity issues here. People are hating across the other end of the table because most of them have never played the other sport. Look at that one guy who says basketball is all about running. Stupid. I think we need to hear from someone who has played both sports significantly and by that I mean they have played it for a long time and competitively.

Basically, I think the most common and acceptable answer is the lack of scoring. :)
 
Obviously there's a lot of major polarity issues here. People are hating across the other end of the table because most of them have never played the other sport. Look at that one guy who says basketball is all about running. Stupid. I think we need to hear from someone who has played both sports significantly and by that I mean they have played it for a long time and competitively.

Basically, I think the most common and acceptable answer is the lack of scoring. :)

I did at school play both football and basketball, plus guess what?
We even played baseball for two years.

Out of the three football is by far the most demanding both mentally and physically. Don't even bring up American Football. As it's not even close to rugby which I played for 9 years.
 
i'm a semi-pro soccer player in the U.S. and i could've played varsity PG but i could never stay on the team or out of trouble. :( I stated why i feel soccer isn't popular here but i want to elaborate:

Coaching has alot to do with why the play in the MLS and FMF (mexican league) is behind compared to soccer in europe. Here, they tell us to dink the ball around and maintain possession more than they worry about moving us up the field. As a center midfielder, i feel so pissed-off many times that the runs and advances i make get nullified because the defender doesn't want to take the chance of losing possession by making a pass the coaches may/maynot criticize.
 

om3ga

It's good to be the king...
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