I like soccer....I loved it when my daughters played. It's a game of ebb and flow and not much scoring, of course. But the scoring deficit isn't the real reason it doesn't get much love in the US, as some have reasoned. Heck, Americans seem to love 1-0 hockey games.
200 million Mexicans love soccer, as do all those Spanish, the Italians and the Nigerians, etc. They love it because it is part of their sporting culture.
Baseball? They couldn't careless! If we argue if Babe Ruth was really the greatest player ever and whether Willie Mays' catch of that Vic Wertz drive was the greatest play ever all those Mexicans/Spanish/Italians/Nigerians snooze. In fact, they probably drool and snooze. Heck, they've never even heard of Willie Mays! It isn't part of their sporting (and greater) culture.
But they will squeal like vuvuzelas when they argue if Pele or Maradona was the better and whether the "Hand of God" was the greatest play ever.
Most Americans think Maradona sang "Like a Virgin."
Soccer isn't part of our mileu.
There isn't anything un-American about soccer. It just has no history, no roots, no great story, no Bill Russell/Babe Ruth/The Great Gretzky/Immaculate Reception/The Drive/Schilling's Bloody Sock/Babe calls his shot.
Soccer doesn't have a story in the US. Or not a significant one. It just doesn't have that lingering image.
Well, except for Brandi Chastain in her sports bra.
moe
Sorry to take your blog farther afield, Doc, but you touched on a topic that intrigues me: the constant tendancy to psychoanalyze Americans on the basis of not being sufficiently excited about soccer.
Oh, maybe it's "Americans insist on instant gratification" or "Americans hate any of that-there furrrin stuff" or "Americans are too fat/lazy/dumb/fill-in-the-blank to bother to get it" (not accusing you of anything, Doc).
Maybe it's just me, but it seems a lot more simple -- and it's revealiing that people look past the simple answer in order to develop their big socio-psychological-political answers.
I think its purely about history and tradition and nothing more. The game itself is hardly relevant at all, I think.
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Consider lacrosse. I went to a school that plays Division I lacrosse (not because of that) -- and, fact is, it is a great game. It has elements of soccer, hockey and basketball and is played outdoors on beautiful spring days. On the "instant gratification" scale, it is somewhere in the big gap between basketball and soccer.
And, here's the thing: in certain places (mostly Maryland, parts of Virginia and New York) it is huge. Certain colleges and prep schools in those areas have very intense rivalries. Their best athletes play lacrosse. Quite possibly because their parents and grandparents did too. But a prep school in Virginia with a great lacrosse tradition is almost certainly within 15 miles of a public high school where hardly anyone cares.
Point being: the same teams could play the same game -- great athletes playing a great sport -- and in Baltimore or Long Island you'd have fans who love it, and in Boise or Akron (or even other parts of Baltimore) not a soul would care. Is it the game's fault? Is it the fans' fault?
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Consider two of the most-attended events in the sports year: the Kentucky Derby and Indy 500. Those sports are relegated to the "niche" networks -- ESPN doesn't care much except for those big weekends. But those events are still a "big deal." Not because people are dying to find out who the next hot jockey will be -- but because they are ingrained in the tradition of American sports. Is Formula One "better" racing than Indy or NASCAR, because the rest of the world follows it? I don't know, but there is no tradition of Formula One in America, and no one cares.
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Consider college football. Suppose a game between Utah and South Florida had better athletes, more NFL prospects, more exciting offenses, etc. than a game between Michigan State and Penn State. Which one will draw 100,000 people to the stadium? Which one gets a bigger TV audience?
Go to a major college game -- I don't know about everywhere, but at the school where my son goes and my parents went, it's true -- and I bet half the season ticket holders first bought their tickets around 1980 or before. They go to see 40-point wins over Troy State in the rain. It's just what you do.
Or witness TCU: they had a great tradition, and it died. Not because people in Texas stopped caring about football (trust me on that one), but because sometimes the traditions fall apart. Now, they are a great team, but only now after undefeated seasons, etc. are they expanding their stadium over 50,000. Here they are No. 2 in the nation and their stadium seats 44,000. The Red Sox, Yankees, Cubs and Phillies get about 40,000 in their stadium 81 times a year.
It's not just the quality of the game -- it's the tradition associated with it.
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And "instant gratification"? Um, baseball? Or even football? George Will had the great quote about football being "a few seconds of violence punctuated by committee meetings."
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Soccer is not huge in America -- not because there's anything wrong with the sport AND not because there's anything wrong with Americans. It simply does not have a traditional place. It doesn't have a "Kentucky Derby" signature event. It doesn't have rivalries that you hear your grandpa talking about "the big upset back in '64."
It doesn't mean it can't happen or won't happen, but it is folly to think that Americans will -- or ought to -- "flip a switch" and suddenly appreciate the game "just becuase everyone else in the world does."
Maybe someone could start a lacrosse team at, say, Arkansas (just picking randomly), and maybe recruit great athletes who would play exciting games. But would they build a 60,000-seat stadium for lacrosse just because it maybe "deserves" to be loved more? I don't think so.
Comments
When soccor fans would clash to bloody ends, I read something that I thought was poignant. The passage was something along the lines of "Americans like Football because the violence is on the field, and everyone else likes soccor because it allows them to be violent in the stands".
Maybe it is wrong, but it really struck me as truth at the time.
Lonnie
Other than arrogance and pride I can think of no reason why someone should think others to be stupid, or lazy, or whatever simply because they have no interest in a particular sport favored by the thinker. The thought says more about the originator than it does the subject.
During the World Cup, one commentator mentioned the reason he thought Soccer was not so popular in the USA.
His feeling was that Americans had not been exposed to enough "high quality" soccer. I think this simple assessment is right on the spot.
That, and we all hate the diving.
Whether the next generation of kids would grow up preferring soccer.
Fo' Sho', about the diving. England hates diving too. All they'd have to do, is start handing out yellows and reds over it. I wonder why they don't.
At times there is a real inferiority complex that Europe works against... to talk themselves into the idea that soccer is more sophisticated than, say, the West Coast offense against a 4-3 over stunt, is more ego defense than anything...
That said, I do believe that America's instant-gratification fabric, which is certainly a character flaw of our country's, can be the very thing that prevents an American from taking the time to enjoy the finer points of soccer...
A bloke from Liverpool has nothing against saving his quid for a motorcycle next year, and has nothing against watching his team absorb an 0-0 half so that he can counterattack once in the second half...
Dr. D has great admiration for the patience and work ethic needed to WATCH soccer ;- )
I'm italian and I grew up watching soccer.
My dad usually took me to the games of Serie A and I still play with friends when I can even if I'm more than 40 years old.
I really love baseball and basketball and rugby and I watch and enjoy lot of games, but I will never feel the same emotions I feel when I'm rooting for Italy or for my home-team in a soccer game.
I guess the memories I have about soccer and I don't have about the other sports I watch and appreciate makes the biggest difference in my feelings:I know who Magic Johnson and Larry Bird are, I even saw them play on TV and I started loving basket because of them.
But my dad never took me to an NBA game, I never cried because Italy lost a Basketball World Cup game and I never played til late with my friends when I was young.
I enjoy a good baseball/basket/rugby game over a boring soccer game, but emotionally I'm so much more involved in a soccer game of my favourite teams.
Superior post, Spec. I totally agree with your assesment of why soccer isn't big yet in the US, and I totally agree with your sentiements about memories anon. I was born and grew up during the 28 years of futility for the Oregon State Beavers football team, yet my dad still took me to games, and i somehow still had hope every year. And even though I am a grown man now I still get a little choked up when I see replays of Ken Simonton winning the civil war in double overtime in 1998, no for a winning season, no just to get to 5 wins for the first time in 27 years!!! An why all the emotions over a sad ack college football team who up to that point in my whole life had never had more than 5 wins? Memories, tradition, Location and family.
Anyways after that little trip down memory lane. I started this comment to say that the US doesn't have those traditions, memories, etc. YET. But they are indeed forming. Specifically right here in the great northwest. IF you don't believe me just hit up the next Portlan Timbers vs. Seattle Sounders game, especially now that they mean something (this is the first year in the MLS for the Timbers) those fans are INTENSE!