Why is soccer perceived the way it is in America?

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

This being a journalists board, I will amplify something a few posters have said about being put off by the most ardent soccer fans who think less of those that don't love the beautiful game. That core of fans also demands, in the most annoying terms possible, equal coverage of the MLS team -- and I'm talking equal to the NFL, NBA, MLB or NHL team in the area. You can show them TV and attendance ratings all you want, and they howl that since their league has the word "Major" in it, they deserve the same media coverage. When they are denied, the charges of boorishness, and maybe even racism, invariably come out. The media, and the casual fan, are being asked to support something that is about as close to elite international soccer as the South Atlantic League is to Major League Baseball.

As for why it isn't embraced by as many Americans as you'd like, I'm always surprised that tradition doesn't suffice as an answer. How many Brits stay up nights to watch the World Series? Not nearly as high a percentage as the Americans who adjust their schedules to watch the Champions League final.

Also, the best soccer players internationally are their nations' best athletes without question. In America, the best soccer players are what's left after football, baseball, basketball, hockey, tennis and maybe track and swimming have taken their pick. Plus those "best" soccer players are actually the best players from the subset of families that can afford to have a good player, because the youth system is cost-prohibitive to anyone below the upper middle class.

 

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

I have seen soccer become more popular in my lifetime. When I was a kid, it was rarely on TV; now there are entire networls dedicated to the game. Enough people seem to know the game well enough that TV announcers don't feel the need to explain the basics. When I was a kid, the high school coach was usually a PE teacher who never played the game. Now it's often an ex-college player.
It will never be what it is in most countries, but it has made progress.

 

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

I was introduced to soccer by a sociology professor who coached the club team at my college, and it was his assertion that the often-elitist attitudes of the American soccer establishment were/are totally at odds with the reality of the game in most of the world. His belief was that soccer is a sport of the streets in many of the poorer areas of large cities around the world, that poor and middle-class kids play soccer in Rio, Madrid, Manchester and other places the way kids in the American 'hoods play pickup basketball. Always made sense to me.

 

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

I don't think that really holds up. Soccer does not have a problem drawing players at the youth level. The problem is keeping them as fans when they grow up.

I think LongTimeListener's suggestion that it is tradition is a little closer to the truth. It's not so much the sport we grow up playing as the one we grow up watching.

 

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

When you say superiority complex, do mean defending the sport they love when someone characterizes it as:

or

Because I think that while most fans of most sports will have a live and let live attitude towards fans of other sports, when you start using that type of language to describe someone elses sport, you're spoiling for a fight.

You'd probably not be surprised to think that in Britain, and other places where rugby is popular, "American Football" is jokingly considered a sissy sport because of all the padding and helmets the players wear, and there are those of us that defend it to our fellow countrypeople in a similar way the we defend soccer to those who would disparage it.

 

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

1. Does the average Premier League fan make more than 100k a year? No. But the majority of fans in the stands on Saturdays are the ones who are making much more than middle class wage. The Premier League has priced out fans just as the NFL has done here in the US. Whereas a tavern owner or steel worker might get season tickets in the past, he's plunking down money for one or two games this time around.

2. It's a working class sport elsewhere in the world because that's what those countries have. The higher classes in South America, Asia, and Africa are pretty small.

3. Hockey is not a working class sport anywhere. It's not being played in the inner cities. It's played in the suburbs with parents who have the funds for equipment. If you want a working class sport in the US, look at basketball.

 

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

I would have to disagree. I'm 43, and I grew up in the mid-70s. There was a youth soccer boom at that time, and for whatever reason it just didn't take. Pele came to the U.S. to play in the NASL, and there was an uptick in interest for awhile, but again, it wasn't sustained.

 

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

Rugby players can wear pads now, too. They're not as thick or heavy as football pads, but pads are allowed and as I understand it, most top-level players wear them.

 

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

How many kids play multiple sports at the youth level? Almost every single one, except for the nutjob parents who want to breed the next Agassi or Woods. Many play multiple sports all the way through high school. I know I played soccer, basketball, and baseball as a youngster, and played both basketball and soccer through eighth grade.

I wasn't referring to getting kids to play the game. That's being done, and we're seeing the fruits of it with some of the 20-year olds coming through the US developmental process right now (Jozy Altidore, for one). I was referring to the fans themselves, the people who wake up early to watch Premier League games or check out Champions League games on ESPN.

 

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

That's why I put the cap at about 30. As you said, the first boom didn't take. The excitement over Pele and the NASL, coupled with youth soccer, didn't take. It took better with the second youth soccer boom in the late 80s and early 90s.

 

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

And now what? You have the English Premier League and Spanish La Liga on ESPN/2 on a weekly basis, and every single game of the World Cup and European Champioships available on basic cable.

Two, and about to three, dedicated soccer channels on cable that allow you to watch games from around the world.

Sixteen, and soon to be 18, clubs in MLS, many of which either have their own stadiums, or are in the process of building them.

And a College and Youth structure that is producing, from what I've seen up close, better and better talent every year.

Soccer has never, ever been stronger in this country than right now.

 

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

For some reason, people also tend to equate soccer with political correctness.