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pokoko on 24 July 2018
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mZuzek said:
pokoko said:

This idea that people who don't enjoy watching Football are somehow incapable of understanding the nuances of a sport is ridiculous.  All sports have nuances and the sports fan who understands the nuances of something like Baseball or Basketball can certainly understand the nuances of Football.  That's a very weak excuse.

Also, I'm puzzled by the "Football doesn't have breaks" thing.  That's simply not true.  There are stoppage breaks quite often--and, no, actual stoppage time is usually twice as much as the really confusing "official" stoppage time.  More than that, it's one of the games where it's pretty much safe to go into the kitchen and make a sandwich without anything much happening.  Most World Cup scores came from set pieces.

But you really shouldn't be judging the quality of the game based on a competition made up of 32 quickly put together teams with no cohesion or strategy. Seriously, while the World Cup might be exciting and it's obviously the biggest event, it's nowhere near as good as the top club competitions.

That's probably true but in the US, the World Cup is always presented as "the best players on the biggest stage" and is usually going to be the biggest source of exposure for a potential new fan.  Good or bad, it's going to be the deciding factor much of the time.  It's the product that other products will be judged against.  As for the European leagues, most people aren't going to even know where to start.  It's not like there is an obvious and definitive place for the best talent like the NFL or NBA.  The Premier League is probably the only one US sports fans might know of by name, plus the occasional teams that are in the news a lot, like Real Madrid. 

Speaking of the news, I also think Football has a bit of an identity problem in the US, as many of the footballers that get talked about a lot seem to be floppers or jerks.  Part of that is the media latching on to negative press but it also has to do with a lack of unified marketing.