Grrrr - Blowing off steam......

The World Series is baseball. If we're talking baseball, then I have my own gripe. I'm a Red Sox fan, and we haven't won the World Series since 1918.And whether we're talking baseball or basketball, we get to name our annual championships whatever we want because foreign superstars come here to be average to above average players, while our aging former players who can no longer make it here go overseas to play. Soccer is gradually gaining in popularity here, but in fits and starts. The American pro soccer league is called MLS (Major League Soccer), and at the beginning of last season it had to reduce the number of teams from 12 to 10. But participation of school age children increases every year.I can think of a few reasons why soccer isn't more popular here as a spectator sport at the pro level.

• There is usually little scoring, and it takes a considerable degree of sophistication to appreciate other action.
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• The offside rule is really hard for Americans who've never played soccer to get. I watch about one soccer game a week during the MLS season, and in all the years I've watched soccer, including during World Cup years, I've yet to see the offside rule explained. A friend had to explain it to me some years ago, and even after the explanation it took a while to put it together. It's where the man is when the ball is struck, not when he receives it, which makes sense when you think about it, but that's the point - you have to think about it, watch it, see it, process it, and after a while you get it. And actually, I still don't get it. For instance, a man is not offside if he's not involved in the play? Give me a break!
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  Plus, at least here in the states, the sideline refs get the offside call wrong too many times. And just how far offsides does a man have to be before he's called offsides? Apparently he has to have "separation." Just how much distance is separation?
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  Cricket is another foreign sport where the rules aren't explained. There's some cricket games on satellite, so a while back my wife and I decided we'd figure out cricket by watching a few games. Nothing was explained at any point during any of the 3 or 4 contests we watched, especially not the terminology. Watching it, it looked like the Mad Hatter playing the Red Queen. We gave up. Soccer isn't quite so bad, but for a sport as simple as "kick the ball in the goal" it sure has a lot of mystifying aspects.
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• Too many games are decided or at least significantly affected by the refs opinion of what constitutes a foul inside the box.
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  And just what *is* a foul anyway? Soccer fouls seem as opinion-laden as basketball fouls, which can be pretty bad. Worst of all is what happens if you come in from behind on a dangerous challenge and knock down or even injure an opponent. It's no foul if you touched the ball before making contact with the player, but it's likely a yellow card or possibly a red if you didn't. This makes sense?
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• The acting some players engage in after being fouled is of professional wrestling quality. If there's no professional wrestling outside the states (which would be a good thing), then I'll clarify by saying that too many players try to play up the foul by rolling on the ground in faux pain before miraculously rising after they see whether they've been able to elicit a card.
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• No time outs. The stoppage time is ridiculous. You never know when a game is going to end. My own team lost a game two years ago when there was a minute of stoppage time. My team was driving toward the goal to break a tie after time should have run out - they were surprised when time wasn't called before their shot, which was caught by the other team's goalee. But with time suposedly gone, the goalee threw his ball to one of his players who drove down the field, passed the ball to a couple buddies while my team's players, suddenly realizing that even though stoppage time should have been over at least 30 seconds ago that the game hadn't been called, rushed back, but too late, the other team scored, a loss. My team deserves to be criticized for not playing on, but for fans of either team it was just bizarre.
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  Soccer needs time outs, for teams to strategize and substitute, and for refs to deal with injuries, fouls, goals, etc. And they need a clock with a hard end time on the scoreboard.
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• Cards. How quaint. Get a different system. Maybe a penalty box like hockey. And a number of fouls you can commit before you "foul out", like in basketball, which means your team doesn't play shorthanded.
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  To Americans, that a player can theoretically get redcarded in the first minute and cause his team to have to play shorthanded for 89 minutes is ridiculous. Just as ridiculous is a player having to sit out the following game after a redcard or two yellows, or after an accumulation of yellow cards over time.
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• Just three substitutions? And not being allowed to reenter a game after being substituted for is similar to baseball, but it's gotta go. It should be like basketball and allow substitutions at time outs.
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• National teams. Star players suddenly go missing in mid-season to play for the national team.
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• Added by edit. I forgot the most ridiculous item. When a player through no fault of his own can't continue but has to go to the sideline for a few minutes, his team has to play shorthanded until he recovers. This happens time and again, often after a foul that doesn't even produce a yellow card.

All these things add up to an extremely confusing picture for people who didn't grow up playing the sport. I don't see soccer rising above secondary sport status in the states until these things are fixed. I'm sure you'll all be able to explain why the soccer rules are fine and need no changes, but the question was why it isn't more popular here in the states, and that's why.--PercyThis message has been edited by Percy, 06-28-2004 09:44 AM

A couple of other observations:This is probably related to the low scoring, but soccer is incredibly B O R I N G!!!!! Any game that can be played for 90 minutes and end up with no score is terribly dull. Then, it gets settled with free kicks. Why don't they just play a free kicks game to begin with?Soccer has had professional leagues come and go in the U.S. several times. I doubt that any will ever make it here in the States. It just isnn't exciting enough for us.Parents force their kids to play it and I suppose the kids enjoy it for a while when they are young, but the huge majority of them lose interest in soccer when they hit their teen years. By then they discover other sports that are more fun like basketball and football.I think the main reason soccer has the populariy it has worldwide is that it doesn't really take any investment in equipment to play it. I suppose in some places people can even make themselves a homemade ball. I guess you could say almost the same thing about basketball and maybe that is why it is gaining popularity so quickly in the internatoinal stage. But, it takes a conisderable investment to outfit a team to play football.And I would also add that just because something has a lot of worldwide popularity, that doesn't imply some kind of quality to it. Christianity is pretty popular too, for just one example. And a lot of people will probably go see thee Moore movie. That doesn't make it good.Show me where some soccer games start being decided by scores of 32-27 and maybe I will start watching.Verzem

It will be hard to sell soccer (real football) to Americans. It's almost like trying to explain the difference between Auto Racing and Nascar.Americans in general are not into sports. They like entertainment and anything that requires an attention span greater than the time between beers is unlikely to catch on.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Thank you - except they don't even go to free kicks unless it is elimination play (playoffs). You can have a 0-0 game. That, in my opinion, is the singlemost important reason why soccer can't touch basketball or even beach volleyball.Few Americans want to spend half of their day watching a ninety minute draw. Even baseball, which can be notoriously slow, doesn't end in a 0-0 tie.I don't know how you Euros do it. Maybe that's why there is all the hooliganism - you get sooo damn bored and frustrated watching a bunch of bad, panty-waisted actors flailing about on the field instead of scoring that you feel compelled to pummel someone.This message has been edited by custard, 06-28-2004 06:29 PM

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Few Americans want to spend half of their day watching a ninety minute draw. Even baseball, which can be notoriously slow, doesn't end in a 0-0 tie.

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Some commentators have suggested American audiences have difficulty with delayed gratification. Nil nil draws can be some of the most exciting games; the fact that it was a draw is a testament to the skill of each side, not to their inability.

Intersting, Percy. The funny thing is that if you reverse your comments you pretty much get the reasons why we don't think much of American games.

Only if you mean the UK by "we". Here in Germany people stay up until 3 in the morning to catch NBA games. There are American football and baseball leagues around the country. European basketball championships are watched widely.Also to simply apply Percy's list to all of America would not be fair. There are millions of South Americans who hail from soccer playing nations (anyone ever hear of Brazil or Mexico?) who are US citizens. Millions of US citizens or resident aliens are originally from Europe...the market is there but they don't seem to watch it enough either to be worth coorporate sponsers time...that is stranger than a mere sports culture vs sports culture contrast.

Yes, I meant the UK. However, I was also under the impression that american games were not that popular across the continent too (by not that popular I mean order of magnitude less popular than the countries major sports) - anyone else from Europe care to comment about their countries.In the UK football is by far the biggest sport, while Rugby and Cricket both still have larger followings than basketball, baseball, American football and Ice Hockey. I'm basing this, incidently, on the amount of TV coverage they seem to get, rather than any audience statistics.(Again, I'm discussing team sports not individual events) Of course. But when comparing nations, generalisations are really all we can muster.

My point about "fairness" should have reflected that what I find strange is that a huge number of immigrants from soccer fanatic countries live or immigrate to the US constantly...yet they do not bring with them a market for soccer. The spanish speaking people that enter the US have caused a major cultural shift in terms of the most frequently learned second language among Americans, an increase in the political and popular culture presence of spanish speakers (to take an example). Yet, soccer is a minor sport in the US...that is the odd thing.

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My point about "fairness" should have reflected that what I find strange is that a huge number of immigrants from soccer fanatic countries live or immigrate to the US constantly...yet they do not bring with them a market for soccer.

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Oh I dunno, the US delivered a perfectly competitive team almost out of the blue when they hosted the world cup a little while back. Also, we don't know to what extent these people are buying in cable or satellite sports channels; it might be just as easy for a Brazilian expat to tune into a Brazilian channel. London has 2 American football teams I believe, and yet they receive virtually no coverage; London is also swarming with Americans...This message has been edited by contracycle, 06-29-2004 07:48 AM

Percy,Regarding the rules of cricket. They are quite simple really, as this easy summary of cricket (as explained to foreign visitors) shows: Hope that clears it up!

I must be interpreting this wrong. It sounds like you're complaining that American games are high scoring, the rules make sense, there's no ambiguity about when a contest is over, star players are present for all games, and referees don't have an inordinate influence on the outcome. About the rules making sense, I except the tuck rule in football, the 3rd-strike-not-caught rule in baseball, fighting in NHL hockey, and any basketball action involving Shaquille O'Neill.--Percy

From a country that still thinks Polo is a sport, I'm not surprised. But don't worry, sports erudition is just around the corner. Basketball is not one of the fastest growing sports in the world for no reason.PS- I just saw this joke in the LA Times: This message has been edited by custard, 06-29-2004 04:04 PM

custard, Not that I've ever played or watched it, but what other category would it fall under other than "sport"?Mark

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There are 10 kinds of people in this world; those that understand binary, & those that don't

Comedy?