Comments for The US refuses to embrace football at http://www.wsc.co.uk , comment 0 to 5 out of 5 comments http://www.wsc.co.uk Sun, 14 Mar 2010 23:44:58 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3238/38/#pc_434 as an educated, american-born football fan (i'll pass saying soccer since this is a uk board), most of this article is sadly correct. but there are many theories in football circles here as to why football is, in a sense, hated in the u.s. one could be our country's long-standing arrogance towards the rest of the world since WWI. and this image of always being and striving to be the best. and we're not the best at football, in fact the playing field is so even some americans just refuse to accept it (again, MAYBE). the sports we love the most are the sports that we are typically one of the best at internationally, like basketball/baseball/hockey. and american football is just our rugby. it's our aussie rules football. it's just our thing. so deal with it (because i love american football just as much as football). another thought is the nature of the 4 sports previously mentioned are very violent and productive, when it comes to scoring. it's the hits in football and the fights in hockey. the power of home-run hitters in baseball and the 100-point games in basketball. THIS IS NOT TO SAY FOOTBALL IS NOT VIOLENT. with all the injuries i've had playing for 20 years, i can attest that football is not for the weak. but that is countered with what amounts to a smear campaign where footballers are referred to as wimps. with all of this saturated in our minds while growing up, some just can't appreciate a 0-0 game and all the beauty in it (but we love a good 1-0 baseball game, which will be hailed as a "Pitchers' Duel" and analyzed extensively. go figure.) and until recently, without a professional league to look towards, kids stopped playing football by their teens for the "Big 4," chasing their dreams of becoming a pro athlete. so until the MLS formed and gained the good footing it has now, there just wasn't that extra incentive, the dream, to keep playing and caring about football. but in time this will pass as the mls expands to the markets where the kids are playing and will continue to grow the sport. there is a lot of excitement in this country about the possibility of getting the 2022 world cup, so who knows where we'll be as a footballing country in 13 years. if you look back to the start of mls, we've come a long ways since then, and that was only 14 years ago. but the tide is slowing changing. tv rights for the premier league and champions league are rising quick, and so are viewers. there's a new generation of americans that want to be more like europeans in our views and travels and become closer with our neighbors in the world. look at the success and instant love affair in Seattle with the new MLS team. huge crowds (well, 28,000, which in the US might as well be a full house at old trafford). front page, above-the-fold news in the papers. the nightly TV news talk about them all the time, even when the show is not in the sports segment. and the two closest major cities, Portland, Ore., and Vancouver in Canada, are getting teams which start at 2011, and they already have the demand to sell out their stadiums (both in the low 20,000's). so the tide is changing. don't give up on us yet. soccer may not be king in america but it is here to stay and can only grow larger. - erpskaderp Tue, 21 Apr 2009 03:38:20 +0100 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3238/38/#pc_385 "I think part of the reason is a huge portion of US soccer fans are are young, non-white and, very often, female." This is absolutely HILARIOUS!! You don't know much about the US "soccer" public at all, do you? (I'm a New Yorker, btw). The OVERWHELMING public for the sport in the US is WHITE, affluent, suburban. The OVERWHELMING number of fans following the sport are affluent WHITE girls and young women from the burbs. The notion that non-white girls in the US follow the sport in large numbers is truly, truly hilarious. You don't know anything about the class dynamics of football/soccer in this country at all. - harper Mon, 06 Apr 2009 18:56:37 +0100 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3238/38/#pc_374 *yawn* I'm still surprised this is bigger deal on WSC than on bigsoccer. There the reaction was to shrug and lament the poor fool. Because his species is almost extinct. Satirical or not. - radmonkey Wed, 01 Apr 2009 23:03:30 +0100 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3238/38/#pc_372 I agree with the previous comment. I think there is a generational divide here. Younger Americans are much more welcome of soccer/football. Many of them have actually played it, even if they've moved on to other sports and they put it in the same thoughtspace as baseball, basketball and American football. I think as younger generations replace the older commentators on the media side, you'll see the coverage begin to change as well. Having said that, I still see the sport sharing time with all of the other major sports in the US and I don't see it overtaking american football or basketball anytime soon. (Baseball, another sport which is becoming predominantly Hispanic, is another story however ...) - fer Wed, 01 Apr 2009 21:08:16 +0100 http://www.wsc.co.uk/content/view/3238/38/#pc_371 I think part of the reason is a huge portion of US soccer fans are are young, non-white and, very often, female. These people, especially hispanics, don't seem to "count" as Americans in the eyes of so many U.S. sportswriters, especially the columnists and sports radio personalities who usually produce this sort of crap. They are almost all older white men. And there don't seem to be too many new voices coming into the field these days. There are some, to be sure, but with the way the newspaper business is going, I can't imagine sportswriting is a very attractive career option for young people any more. - Reed of the Valley People Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:58:13 +0100