Americans have just never caught soccer fever or ‘World Cup” mania. This has lead some advocates to believe that this failure is due to some shortcoming in the American psyche rather than soccer’s lower sex appeal. Many cried over the failure of women’s professional soccer, but it’s demise wasn’t totally unexpected. Even today, there is a certain amount of drum beating to try to develop support for reintroducing U.S. professional women’s soccer, but unless they compete in the nude, it’s not likely to fare much better.
Soccer has a tough road to hoe in a country that invented or popularized many of the great sports in the world. My impression is that baseball addressed the shortcomings of cricket and American football and rugby evolved from socccer by reshaping the sport to better engage the spectators and participants.
Soccer marketeers are working hard to capture American’s imaginations. Articles about the world’s greatest athletes are soccer players or the fittest athletes are soccer players just don’t ring true to fans who watch Reggie Bush and Justin Gatlin. It doesn’t seem likely unless the criteria include running around for 90 minutes or so and not do anything interesting. The world’s best athletes are in sports that captivate the fans and pay their players like gods.
What do average Americans know about the last World Cup? They know some French guy head butted some Italian guy. It seems rather ironic that two countries that can’t win any wars would be competing for any kind of World Championship.
Soccer is not the ‘safe’ sport for kids that it is marketed. Statistics reveal that head injuries are one of the most common forms of injuries and they occur in about the same frequency in soccer as in American Football. In case you were dozing off… the quote was “In soccer, concussions make up 2-3% of all injuries. This is the same rate as for American football!” All that contact, and soccer still can’t keep me awake.
It is also not hard to understand why in many less economically developed parts of the world, locals have embraced a contest that requires only a ball. Ask any Division I AD about which sports cost the most and the least.
So, what is it that American’s really enjoy in their sports:
1) Our contests must be exciting and engaging. Americans are death on spending 90 minutes or more just to witness a 0-0 tie. In the World Cup, Angola was able to move up on a 0-0 tie, how strange is that?
2) Even in a team sport, an individual must believe they can make a difference. A superior individual effort can win the day or save the game! There are plenty of examples of great individual efforts in American Sports from Babe Ruth pointing to the spot where he was to hit his next homer, to Wilt Chamberland’s 100 point game to any number of quarterbacks marshalling their team for the final victory drive. Americans believe in the team concept, but they also realize that great iindividual effort often makes the difference between victory and defeat.
3) In America, men are expected to act like men even when facing a serious injury. In soccer, watching men crying on the ground is an encouraged activity. There are far too many pictures of soccer players in affeminate poses.
4) The unruly soccer fan in europe is almost a cliche’. One joke went like this,” the average German World Cup Fan drank 16 pints of beer a day… it took that much to make it interesting.” British Soccer songs seem to bare this out with many of the songs lasting about 2 lines, but repeated over and over all game long. You have to be drunk to think this was fun.
You’re not very good!
You’re not very good!
You’re not very,
you’re not very,
you’re not very good!
This must have lost something in the translation from the original ENGLISH!
5) How do you tell a good soccer player from a bad one? The best soccer player in Britain hadn’t scored in ages, so it can’t be based on performance? I’ve noticed that teams that sport matching socks and scrunchies tend to win, but that is just the boy’s teams.
When the economies of the countires of the world improve, so will the variety, complexity and expense of the sports they play. Baseball, Basketball and American football are making their mark in the world and this is not likely to stop.
Roger Freberg
Hi, Roger.
Love the pictures! This post seems a bit tame for you regarding the “S” word, though….