Why isn't Soccer popular in America?

[Roald]

Its because US tv companies haven;t figured out yet how to put crazy amounts of advertising in a game thats goes on for 45 minutes straight. If they figure that out it will get more airtime and after that its only a matter of time!

Oh and there probably isn't enough brutality in it, hence the reason MMA and UFC are so big in the US

In general I don;t like a lot of US sports either. Can't watch baseball (booooring), NFL or Nascar. I do like basketball though.

Now I think about it, the biggest reason is that most americans didn't grow up with it like we did in Europe and basically the rest of the world

 

[GibbsGrad2002]

I think that as Americans we cant grasp soccer as well as we grab the NFL, NBA, MLB, and NHL but maybe if we win a world cup it will start to get popular

 

[Hot Mega]

Its because US tv companies haven;t figured out yet how to put crazy amounts of advertising in a game thats goes on for 45 minutes straight. If they figure that out it will get more airtime and after that its only a matter of time!

Why couldn't they just turn the players into running billboards like the rest of the world does?:1orglaugh

Do you know how long it took me to figure out Ericsson didn't have a soccer team??:o

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

Americans don't understand the game? What's to get? Can't touch the ball with your hands, people falling down and having seizures when someone gets too close to them, and if an offensive player beats a defenseman it doesn't count and the play gets called back. What's so hard about that?

 

[L3ggy]

You can touch the ball with your hands at times, Throw In.

 

[Hot Mega]

people falling down and having seizures when someone gets too close to them

That is pretty funny though. I remember the first time I saw a guy pull that...the guy look for all the world he was dying of excruciating pain as writhed on the field in agony. I was sure an ambulance was going to race on the field or a coroner was going to show up and pronounce him dead. Next thing I know the guy gets up and starts trotting around like nothing happened. :1orglaugh

 

[meesterperfect]

whats not to grasp?
whats not to understand?
2 teams on a rectangular field.
object: put the ball in the other teams goal area.

it can get exciting, especially in the championships but for the most part its a simplistic, monotonous game.
a lot of people can't get into it.

Also many are like me and can't stand watching professional supposedly tough athletes getting touched and falling to ground and squirming with pain 50 times a game.
its gay.

 

[Big Poppa Pump]

You got a point about the diving in soccer MP, but then I saw Ron Artest do the same thing after receiving contact from *gasp* Rajon Rondo!

 

[Hot Mega]

You got a point about the diving in soccer MP, but then I saw Ron Artest do the same thing after receiving contact from *gasp* Rajon Rondo!

Yea but at least when a player goes down in pain in any American sport they are really injured, hurt or in pain. (Unless it's Dwayne Wade:1orglaugh )

 

[Big Poppa Pump]

Yea but at least when a player goes down in pain in any American sport they are really injured, hurt or in pain. (Unless it's Dwayne Wade:1orglaugh )

Lol, the diving in soccer does put me off.

 

[Moodybluesfan]

Just something for the rest of the world to keep in mind: if we wanted to be great at soccer as a country, we could. If our best athletes didn't pursue other sports and focused on soccer, we would be extremely competitive. Imagine if Kobe, Lebron, A-Rod, Chad Ochocinco, and others had played the sport competitively as a child and pursued it as they got older. Other countries are superior to American teams simply because their best athletes play football.

But the fact remains that soccer is always going to be the fifth most popular sport in this country. As a result, we aren't going to improve as a country in the foreseeable future. It's a vicious cycle. The only way to improve our team is to increase interest in the sport. The only way to do that is to perform better. But we aren't going to improve until people get interested. And they aren't going to get interested in a mediocre team that can't produce better players due to lack of visibility.

I began playing soccer in 1966 in Atlanta as a result of the old NASL Atlanta Chiefs starting up and my sudden awareness of a little event called the World Cup...got hooked on it immediately and played all the way up to about 1999 when I simply got too old to chase 20 yr olds around the field for a couple hours.

I've seen the game grow from us playing on really crappy fields when I started to where it is in the US today...the game has more youth participation than any other sport in the US up until around age 13 when both boys and girls leave the programs in droves and only the most talented remain.

Part of the problem is the average American attention span...we are conditioned in our sports other than soccer to attack and score lots of points in whatever it is we play and to win or lose...not to accept ties and scoreless draws. Call it instant gratification or whatever but most Americans find those types of games to be boring as they have no use for the subtleties of the game. A set piece that results in a spectacular goal off a diving header will elicit a cheer from your average Joe...if the game ends up 1-1 however Americans have a hard time accepting a non-resolution like that. We also have too many other sports that we originated that take our attention away from soccer...can't ignore the comments I've heard all over the US while on club traveling teams about the perception that we as Americans should play our own sports and not do what the rest of the world enjoys.

This will slowly change as America becomes even more of a homogenous population than it is now, but I for one do not think the game will ever be the most popular sport here in the States.

 

[Hot Mega]

I began playing soccer in 1966 in Atlanta as a result of the old NASL Atlanta Chiefs starting up and my sudden awareness of a little event called the World Cup...got hooked on it immediately and played all the way up to about 1999 when I simply got too old to chase 20 yr olds around the field for a couple hours.

I've seen the game grow from us playing on really crappy fields when I started to where it is in the US today...the game has more youth participation than any other sport in the US up until around age 13 when both boys and girls leave the programs in droves and only the most talented remain.

Part of the problem is the average American attention span...we are conditioned in our sports other than soccer to attack and score lots of points in whatever it is we play and to win or lose...not to accept ties and scoreless draws. Call it instant gratification or whatever but most Americans find those types of games to be boring as they have no use for the subtleties of the game. A set piece that results in a spectacular goal off a diving header will elicit a cheer from your average Joe...if the game ends up 1-1 however Americans have a hard time accepting a non-resolution like that. We also have too many other sports that we originated that take our attention away from soccer...can't ignore the comments I've heard all over the US while on club traveling teams about the perception that we as Americans should play our own sports and not do what the rest of the world enjoys.

This will slowly change as America becomes even more of a homogenous population than it is now, but I for one do not think the game will ever be the most popular sport here in the States.

Good post.:hatsoff:

 

[Peter Gazinya]

It's not just America. Apparently, soccer isn't so popular in this South African household.

http://msn.foxsports.com/foxsoccer/worldcup/story/south-africa-man-killed-by-family-for-watching-world-cup

Can't say I blame the family though, I would have done the same thing.:fight:

 

[BlueBalls]

The rampant homosexualism?

 

[ashten]

I think diving in soccer is a problem just like I hate it when basketball players flop. That's why I like guys like Brian McBride who won't fall down when they're touched.

 

[Straight Shooter]

I think diving in soccer is a problem just like I hate it when basketball players flop. That's why I like guys like Brian McBride who won't fall down when they're touched.

Yeah I agree but isnt there some kind of flopping in every sport.

 

[Hot Mega]

Yeah I agree but isnt there some kind of flopping in every sport.

Yea but getting the refs attention with a brief overreaction to contact by an opposing player is one thing. Acting like you're in cardiac arrest for a full minute on the ground then popping up as fresh as when you started the game is another IMO.:1orglaugh

But honestly, soccer is a great sport. I tend to follow the US in the World Cup and if there is a particularly good quality match I will take a look at that too simply because I respect the skill and effort of all athletes in all sports.

 

[Straight Shooter]

Yea but getting the refs attention with a brief overreaction to contact by an opposing player is one thing. Acting like you're in cardiac arrest for a full minute on the ground then popping up as fresh as when you started the game is another IMO.:1orglaugh

But honestly, soccer is a great sport. I tend to follow the US in the World Cup and if there is a particularly good quality match I will take a look at that too simply because I respect the skill and effort of all athletes in all sports.

Yeah true

 

[Vlad The Impaler]

How many of these threads are there? Anyway the Lurker posted a YouTube video on one of the others showing the Italian team practicing their brain aneurism act. I don't know if it was real but it was definitely funny...and sad if true.

 

[Bearded_Menace]

Americans don't understand the game? What's to get? Can't touch the ball with your hands, people falling down and having seizures when someone gets too close to them, and if an offensive player beats a defenseman it doesn't count and the play gets called back. What's so hard about that?

You mean this?



Excuse us Americans for demanding a little more grit and heart from our athletes than shown in this shameless display of utter ass-hatery embedded above.