Why is soccer perceived the way it is in America?

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

So Americans don't like basketball, huh? Plenty of "men who flop on the court at the merest hint of contact" in that sport, too, if you watch closely enough.

Anyone who wants to call soccer players sissies is just being dumb. Show me another sport where the participants are on the move constantly for up to 45-50 minutes at a clip.

Football? Run for 15-20 seconds, stop, walk back to the huddle, catch breath. Wash, rinse, repeat.

Baseball? 90 percent standing around.

Basketball? Close.

Part of it could be that we Americans have a hard time embracing something we can't claim as our own ... like football, basketball, baseball or hockey.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

Sorry, GB, but that just isn't true, at least not for all soccer fans. Some of you treat it like some kind of crime if a sports fan dares to just be disinterested.

All these other theories are truly comical. I don't care who invented a sport when I watch it. I don't care if we can "claim it as our own." Can't I just enjoy some games and not others? It's really a very simple thing.

I don't hate soccer. I watch it here and there. It's just well down the list when it comes to sports I would choose to watch.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

Please, lets not turn this into a "my sport is better than your sport thread". No sport is inferior to another, they're all arbitrary games people play.

I'm simply trying to understand why the American sports culture perceives soccer in such a different (and unfortunately negative) manner. Its a interesting question, at least to those interested in sociology.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

OOP, it's the Jim Rome's of the world that give those who constantly bash and cheapshot soccer a bad name, wearing their disdain for the sport as a badge of honor. If you don't see that being the case, and people who love the sport reacting back in kind, then I don't know what to tell you.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

I have never, ever, not once, heard a soccer fan rage about the rubes who don't appreciate the game.

I have, however, read countless posts and columns from people who claim that all soccer fans do this.

I am a lifelong soccer fan that does not give a single shit whether you like the sport. I'm befuddled why so many writers seem to think it makes them look clever to mock the game, but to each his own.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

Thanks for the response, its actually quite interesting. Do American soccer fans look down on non-soccer fans? The way you describe them, they sound awfully snobbish/elitist. I can't imagine someone saying that people don't have the intellectual capacity to appreciate soccer, since soccer is perphaps the most basic, easy-to-understand sport there is, its as easy to understand as basketball or volleyball or boxing. Its not like a unshaven drunken slob who cheers on Manchester United has some great intellectual capacity.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

Please don't lump the rest of us who are just relatively disinterested in with Jim Rome. Personally, what I see is soccer fans thinking their sport is under attack more than it really is.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

I was quoting Boom's take on soccer in the USA. Last time I checked Boom was an American.

Soccer in Canada does just fine both in terms of media coverage and attendance.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

Basketball is third behind football and hockey.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

You stereotype much? Ever looked at the stands of an average Premier League football game?

The big change that had happened at clubs like Manchester United is they have priced many fans out of going to games, to the point where the average football-goer is far more likely to be middle-class, with two of his kids, than those you would paint as an average fan.

As I've already stated, the fact that you don't like soccer is not an issue. That you stereotype without having the faintest idea what you're talking about, and wear that ignorance and disdain as a badge of honor is what is highly annoying.

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

But when the only ones who actually pipe up about it are the people attacking and wearing their disdain as a badge of honor, how do you expect people to react to it?

 

Re: Why is soccer percieved the way it is in America?

Is the spelling of perceived in the thread title bugging anyone else?