Why is soccer perceived the way it is in America?

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

"I before E except after C."

 

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

All I ask is that when I say that I don't particularly care for soccer that somebody doesn't try to argue the point with me or tell me I just need to understand it better. I understand it just fine. I respect the skill involved and it is the first sport I introduced my 6-year-old to. I just prefer watching other sports.

I really enjoy volleyball. Much moreso than soccer. But I know very few other people feel the same way, especially in the Northeast. I have never once insisted that somebody who doesn't care about the sport doesn't understand it. It's just a matter of taste.

 

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

Ok, my misunderstanding. I know soccer does okay in Canada (obviously nowhere near the national sport of hockey).

Its just that my impression is that the American media (and also the average American sports fan) seems to have a fairly strong disdain towards soccer, or at least seem to react to soccer by bashing it. We see it every World Cup, every time the US national team wins a important game (like in the Confederations Cup last summer) or whenever the MLS tries to expand its reach into the mainstream (Beckham signing). Being a avid reader of Sport Illustrated and a watcher of ESPN shows like PTI, there is a definitive disdain towards soccer. In fact, even Nike (the official sponsor of the US national soccer team) spoofs the American media soccer-haters in its ads:

I'm not saying that Americans spend all their time hating soccer, just that the knee-jerk reaction to soccer is to ridicule/mock it. Soccer is uncool in America, no doubt about it. Being from Jamaica (where the sport is respected, not bashed), its a strange phenomenon. I'm a sociology student, so its a interesting thing to think about...why does this happen in American culture...and more importantly was it always this way and will it change?

Respect.

 

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

Or when it says "eh" as in "neighbor" or "weigh"

 

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

Plenty of people express their dislike of the NBA as some type of badge of honor as well.

As for why Americans don't like it or perceive it the way they do, read Klosterman's essay in Sex, Drugs & Cocoa Puffs.

 

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

You know what I'm talking about. Soccer fans in Europe (Manchester United) generally tend to be working class, and soccer is a working class spectator sprt around the world just like the NFL is in the US. He was saying that soccer fans in the US rub the average American the wrong way because they come off as elitist snobs who think they are intellectually superior because they understand soccer.

 

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

And that's fine. I've never known anyone having a problem with that, because you're not trying to draw attention to the fact that you don't care for the sport as much as you do others.

I will say I think the person who said that it has something to do with it not being a traditional American sport may be onto something. I know many people back in Britain who would never watch a game of "American Football" if you paid them to do it, and would be proud of it for the same reason.

 

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

What does that essay say?

 

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

The basic problem with that assertion is that they're not.

The average soccer fan in England, or any country in Europe, is as likely to make 100,000 pounds a year and work in the stock exchange as he is to be a working class man who works in a warehouse.

Gone are the days when the upper and middle class would not stoop to watch soccer, instead supporting the private school sports like rugby and cricket that they grew up playing. I should know, I went to schools like that, where soccer wasn't offered as an official sport. Shockingly, we all still played it.

Soccer dominates the culture, from the top to the bottom, there is no close second place.

 

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

I find it highly unlikely that the average Premier League fan makes more than 100K pounds a year (although I could be wrong). Generally speaking, soccer is a working class sport around the world, similarly how american football is a working class sport in the US and hockey is a working class sport in Canada. Most soccer fans in Europe, Africa, Asia and South America are not elitist who look down on those who are not soccer fans, they make up the majority and have no reason to feel above others. It seems that in the US, where soccer fans are not the majority but instead are the minority, they feel as if they have a special superior status above the baseball/football watching majority of Americans, as in they feel that those who don't appreciate soccer are somehow beneath them. Its an inverse situation in Europe, where the upper classes historically looked down on soccer and preffered more elitist sports.

 

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

I've always found it interesting that in the rest of the world soccer is a working class game and in the U.S. it's a rich person's game.
All over the world kids play the game in the streets with balls made of rags and here it's all about families playing thousands of dollars a year to put their kids on select travel teams.

 

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

Why is soccer not as popular in the United States as it is in other countries? I always thought that the answer was pretty simple.

We typically grow to love the sports we played as kids. The majority of people in this country, especially those over 30, did not grow up playing soccer. I'm in my 20s and a good percentage of the people in my age group that I'm friends with did not grow up playing soccer.

There are always exceptions, people who never played the game who became fans, parents becoming fans of the national/international teams because their sons and daughters play. But the majority of soccer fans probably played it at some level in the past, even at the basic youth league level, and therefore appreciate it.

Same reason applies to other sports: Why isn't hockey more popular? Equipment is expensive, not as many kids play it. Why isn't baseball or American football as big in other countries as it is here? Kids in other countries are growing up playing other sports.