Dianko said:
yog-sothot said:
mmmh... some people here seem to say
football = USA
soccer = Europe
but the truth is more like
football = USA
soccer = Europe, Africa, Asia, South and Central America, Antartic (yup)
Actually, I this was not an american website, I would not even use the word "soccer" as everywhere else in the world we call it "football" and we call your football "american football" (you follow ?)
Beside that, I think the arguments of low score and difficulty to put commercials are quite good. The cultural difference too : I think american people usually don't like it when they are not the ones who spread their own culture around the world so they don't easily accept what's coming from other countries (metric system, movies, food and, here we come, soccer) |
Hmmm, you're not entirely right on those points. For one thing, I know for sure that in Japan the sport is also called Soccer. As far as Americans not accepting others cultures, are you serious? It definitely matters where you come from, but in the big cities it's a fucking smorgasboard of different cultures. As far as being accepting of other cultures, America is probably one of the most accepting (natually, since we have the highest rate of immigrants coming in, now at over 10% of our population). Especially in the food aspect. Tortillas are now more popular than bagels, english muffins and pitas in the US. When it comes to food, it's hard to argue that Americans aren't open minded. Also, alot of your points are based on presumptions about Americans. For one thing, as it has been mentioned already, soccer/football has one of the highest levels of participation in terms of people playing it. It just hasn't expanded as a sport to watch for a number of reasons. For one, our best players either go to other sports or go play in Europe. We don't have an entrenched soccer/football culture with regional rivalries that have been going on for decades. It's hard to just come in and say "hey, you guys play the sport, now start watching the Galaxy play", and have people care. In contrast to this, you can see historical rivalries play a large part in turn out in alot of college sports in America. The MLS level of play isn't high enough compared to other professional sports in the US. Also, I hate to say this as an American, but American commentators are the absolute worst when it comes to this sport. Some other reasons that I think keep soccer from being big is an American desire to see a game to win or loss. Baseball, Football, Hockey, Basketball all play to a definitive conclusion. Soccer does as well, but it pisses me off when I watch a friendly and it ends in a tie (most recently, US vs. Mexico's 2 - 2 tie). The lack of advertising time is more of an issue with douchy corporations than with the desire of the average American. Trust me, we are fucking sick of all the advertisements that break the flow of shows and sports. But, we are getting better. If it wasn't for the dirty tactics and impressive acting ability of the Italian team (which they took all the way to the final match), we may have beaten them in the 2006 World Cup. Over the last decade, we have dominated Mexico, whereas before the best we could hope against them was that they would be kind enough to lube up before raping us. And with the high level of Latin American migration and what is most certainly going to be a high level of mixing that will arise from it, there is going to be a greater cultural attachment to the sport in the coming decades, which the MLS is in a good place to capitalize on now that a league has been set up. |
