drkohler said:
I think you have a serious lack of knowledge here. Spain is currently the leading football nation in Europe. Its top league has 20 teams, and more than half of those teams would be more than happy to have an 18k attendance figure per match. Most Spanish teams are essentially broke and only survive on (kind of institutionalised) trickery. The US is a particular case for football (the real football, not handegg). I discussed that way back around 1978 with a group of US teachers (who all actually knew "how soccer works" then) and it boils down to one thing only we all agreed: Soccer was not brutal/violent enough for the average American. Football: muscle packed steroid homunculi crashing into each other = good, bloody, lotsa cash. Soccer: lean and quick people running after a ball = boring, no blood, no cash. That has changed over the years, particularly due to two facts. Firstly, the rise of women's soccer (which is a commercial money loser anywhere in the world) where the US actually is the leading nation. Secondly, soccer introduced into the US school system, which allowed everyone to participate, not only the ones with the most steroids on hand. US soccer suffered a lot because despite being highly popular for younger people, at the end of the day there was no future for a professional career. US soccer had to survive a lengthy period going from "boring, no blood, no cash" to "hmm.. interesting after all". |
That is a silly arguement.
Baseball is the "American Past time" and it's less violent the soccer.
Basketball also is more popular a(Then both baseball and soccer) and argueably less violent.
And Soccer has been in schools and of interest to kids pretty much forever. Most kids play in soccer leagues as a kid, it's just something most americans grow out of and move into baseball and basketball when they get older.
If anything... Football is popular because in highschool it's seen as a social activity and one of status.
Cast a movie set at a Highschool and if you fill in "Most popular kid in school" most people are going to cast him as Quarterback of the Highschool football team.
That and Fantasy Football.
American's don't like soccer... because we don't like soccer.
We had our own sports, and we had money.
Which actually is one of Soccer's biggest advantages as a sport. You don't need money to play it, just a ball and some trash cans really.
Hell, Canada also isn't exactly the biggest soccer market out there. Is it because the canadians are too violent?
The USA isn't as alone in this as you'd think.
Canada, Austrlia, New Zealand and Ireland all have sports more popular then Soccer. Coincidentally in pretty much all cases including their own codified rules of football.
Which isn't THAT surprising considering that "football" didn't actually have set rules for the longest time, "Assosiation Football" or Soccer as it was originally called by the brits, only became the dominant form that took claim to the name of football soley only after football has spread everywhere, be it American Football, Canadian Football, Galic Football, Rugby Football or New Zealand style Rugby Footballl.
