Well, I agree with you on your point mrstickball, but referrring to the money only proves that there's way more money in American football than in American soccer, which we all know already.

Actually, I'd beg to say that it shows that coaches are vastly more important in football than soccer.

Last time I checked, David Beckham's contract for the LA Galaxy was/is $250 million USD for a 5 year deal. The best American football player (such as Moss, Manning, or others) might make $12.5m USD a year....Much less than Beckham.

But despite the Galaxy throwing that much money at Beckham, a normal MSL Soccer coach is well below a professional Positions coach in the NFL - again, because football is more strategical, and coaching, more important - because proper strategy by a smart coach, and a focus on teamwork well outweighs a players special talents....And the pay scale of pro coaching adjusts properly.

Michael Vick's contract averages to $16.7m/y. As for Beckham:

"David Beckham signed a 5-year deal with MLS soccer team Los Angeles Galaxy that was worth a reported $250 million, but that figure included commercial endorsements; only $10 million a year of that figure is salary from the club, while the rest will come via existing endorsements and profit sharing with the club."

(source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_sports_contracts )

[edit: Or it could be as low as $5.5m/y ( http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/17305349/ ) -- I can't find final confirmation on that number but there were many news sites reporting it and it was more recent than the $10m/y report.]

I don't know much about this, so please enlighten me: don't the big football players get big endorsements and so on above and beyond the actual salary as well? How would Beckham stack up then?

And, although I don't know other soccer player salaries, I think Beckham is a major exception to the rule, since he's being hyped up as the savior of the sport. Do you know what a more normal contract for an American soccer player is?

Again, I agree that football coaches are more important. But are you honestly denying that the football industry has more money to throw around, or are you just denying the connection between huge amounts of industry money and bigger paychecks for those in the industry?

"because proper strategy by a smart coach, and a focus on teamwork well outweighs a players special talents"
It seems to me that the implication of this would be that talented players are more valuable in soccer compared to football, which in turn implies that, all else being equal, a soccer player would get paid more than a football player, even aside from the simple fact that the savings from smaller and fewer coach salaries is obviously going somewhere. But, as I've argued above, I don't think that that's the case.

There is one exception final-fan, quarterback is the most important position in all of sports. You could have future hall of famers at every position but if the quarterback isn't any good the team isn't very good. That doesn't work the other way around though, it doesn't matter how good your quarterback is if the people around him aren't good. Other than that it is all about team work in football.

^ i know a position thats more important.

how about the wicketkeeper in cricket? if he lets the ball go, it will run down for 4 byes, then the whole team fails ( england vs new zealand)

I believe Soccer doesn't work for most reasons brought up and one I haven't found yet. It's too large a sport to care about. The end result of Football that anyone cares about is the Super Bowl. 32 teams go for it for a few months and there you go. It's small enough to know most teams in and out. Same thing with Basketball and Baseball. Now Soccer is too worldwide. The biggest Soccer event is the World Cup, and for you to have true knowledge, you would have to pay attention to how many teams? I don't even know but something's telling me it's way over one hundred that go for a position in the World Cup.

Because Americans can't grasp the concept that football means playing with your feet.

Footbally>Rugby>American 'Foot'ball.

American Football is just a pussy version of Rugby.

How is american football faster than soccer? American football is slow consumer driven crap that barely moves. So what if soccers slow moving? It is probably the fatsest sport around, watch a match with Gabriel Agbonlahor and you will see that some players are effectively olympic sprinters when they play.

oh thats simple aside from basketball

football = hot wings and chips
baseball = hot dogs and peanuts
hockey = popcorn and frosties

Why do you think they don't like lacrosse, or rugby, or cricket, or squash or winter sports(idk hot coco brings some of them).

There's a young football player from US that has a lot of potential, he's just been signed to play on the spanish league for Villarreal FC, his name is Altidore I believe