Football Thread 21/22

[mjk45]

psychicscubadiver said:

HomokHarcos said:

I got that from different articles I read.

http://time.com/money/4037391/soccer-bills-college-family-budget/

http://usatodayhss.com/2017/paying-to-play-how-much-do-club-sports-cost

https://www.theguardian.com/football/blog/2016/jun/01/us-soccer-diversity-problem-world-football

Reading through those it looks like they are talking about club sports, the 'elite' level of youth sports. Those are really expensive and not very common. Youth leagues like what I belonged to are common and cheap with very little travel or expenses, though obviously not at the same level of play. I can't speak about it being white, because where I grew up was something like 95% white, but it was mostly rural so not just suburban kids play it. But it was almost always kids. In high school the American football and basketball teams hold the spotlight and soccer is an afterthought.

I think the biggest problem for professional soccer in the US is competition. American football, baseball, and basketball are massive here. Even smaller sports like hockey are bigger than soccer. There is a finite talent pool and so many other, more lucrative, sports are taking the prime athletes away. Just look at the women's team. They have no real competition, aside from basketball, for female athletes, and they are consistently strong at the world cup.

It's the same here in Australia fhe competition for the talent pool is loaded in favour of AFL  rugby league , Rugby etc ,and the general public only become socceroos every four years usually starting with the qualifiers and peaking at the cup itself ,Australian soccer was the provenance of post WW2 European Immigration and for around half a century these ethnic groups ran the clubs with names such as Juventus , Olympus etc, it helped grow then maintain soccer but got to a point that it was no longer a positive but had become a big factor in the sports marginalisation despite healthy junior participation, the federation had to step in and change clubs names and colors to open up the game  and at the same time lessen ethnic tension, unfortunately like the US it still has to fight for it share in this case with the added drawback of a much smaller talent pool still on the bright side only eleven can take the field at one time .