Will This Be the Year I Like Soccer?

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His loss. He's just in the wrong continent.

 

Actually, it's not really his loss, because the thrust of the recent comments was that you guys love soccer because of the rich history and because your dads all liked it. Seeing as Aldeth's sports also have a rich history and his dad liked them, he's just as well off as you are. Everybody wins today.

 

How can you have a league system that has no relegations and promotions? To me that is totally incomprehensible. I love my local club and a few years ago they were in the play off final to reach league 1, playing in a stadium packed with 75,000 fans when the average turnout for a home game was less than 1,000. Last year they crashed out of the football league into the conference. I was absolutely devastated and this shows well the emotional rollercoaster that supporting a football team here really is. If anything I am now even a more passionate supporter of my club and would give my right arm to see them back in the league where they belong (possibly). I can't see how a system where there is no penalty for finishing last in the league can create the kind of bond between supporter and club that has been discussed in this thread. NFL is weekly entertainment, football league is a lifetime journey.

 

Well said my man. Mansfield supporter?

 

Yes, but god I wish I wasn't!

 

Well... I'm a Spireite, so unfortunately if we ever meet I'll be forced to shatter your kneecaps. Sorry in advance. Nothing personal!

We got Breckin back this year :-)

 

You dirty, dirty swine!

 

Sooo, the main reason you like soccer is because you support teams that are so hopeless that they are always getting relegated? Interesting.

So, you're saying that people who support Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal, and Liverpool (and other teams that never get relegated) are not on the same lifetime journey as you, and are no better than American sports supporters?

 

Exactly. You would think that most people that show up at a soccer game would be soccer fans, and thus more knowledgable about soccer than the average American who has not the slightest interest to spend his hard earned money to go see a "kid's game".

The NFL has played some games over in England these past few years, and while I doubt your average person in London knows that Philip Rivers is the quarterback of the San Diego Chargers (I use this example because he was actually in the game there last year), I bet a fair number of people who paid to see the game were aware of this.

Your average American knows squat about English football, and the average Brit knows nothing of American football.

The simple answer is collusion. The game's ownship groups that own the major league teams also own the minor league subsidiaries, and it would cost them tons of money to be switching teams around every year.

As a result of this, instead of moving teams around, American sports have instituted things like drafts, salary caps, and player tiers to level the playing field and make the major league clubs more competitive with one another.

That said, I don't see how becoming emotionally devastated that your favorite team got relegated to a lower league and now is playing at a lower level of competition somehow makes your sport "better". You're the type of person who would like the NIT college basketball tournament in the US.

(Note: The NIT is a national college basketball tournament who's entrants are selected AFTER the national championship contenders are placed in their tournament - so the NIT is a second tier tournament with none of the best teams involved. So I guess we do have a "second chance" league at least in college sports, and most Americans don't watch that tournament, because we like to see the best teams competing.)

Oh and Americans do form life-long attachments to their favorite teams.

Given some of the vitriol spewing from this thread, I'd apparently have to move to England to even have a chance!

 

You sure have a way of putting words into peoples mouth's! All I'm saying is that to support a team in England is to go through a lot of highs and lows unlike the NFL. It's like a relationship that gets stronger through the tough times, going through adversity with a group of similar minded supporters and players breeds a sense of belonging. I'm not saying that no other sports in the world have this, I am merely commenting that this form of league structre might account for the much wider popularity of football in England and indeed the rest of Europe compared to the US. Indeed the fact that the league structure is so different than from the traditional European one, combined with the fact that the Europe is where the sports popularity is at its greatest might suggest this is one of the fundamental reasons why. I am not saying one is 'better', I am saying that the nature of the sports organisation has some impact on its popularity and the nature of the sport and its supporters. And yes you point out that the fans of the top 4 clubs might be considered as not 'real' supporters, well the fact they are 15 minutes late for the second half having a meal might be suggestive, and no I am not saying ALL fans are like this.

This is exactly the difference I am getting at. European football does not follow this line and is hugely popular. This unique system and the undwhelming popularity of soccer in the US are not unrelated. The best teams are wanted so they can provide the entertainment that most people want. It hardly gives the aura of a competition. Should the premier league kick out hull and stoke and get in newcastle and leeds because thats what people will pay to see?

postscript: I am NOT saying European fans are 'better' or 'worse' than anyone. What I am saying is that the whole footballing structure and as a result the whole football scene is entirely different. One has developed along its path as essentially a competition, despite how commercialised English and European football is. The other lends itself to more of an entertainment centred institution. Ofcourse there are exceptions amongst individual fans, but taken at a mean the experience of European fans differs massively from American ones.

The word 'better' keeps cropping up. Again, I'm not saying either is better, just very different. These differences might explain why Aldeth can't get into soccer.

 

Who has said that?

And maybe Americans don't like football because of the polar opposite to your 1st point, they don't like not being very good at things, you stand no chance of winning the world cup or anything other than your domestic league(s).

Take baseball for instance, a sport you can all enjoy, winning the (WORLD) series and becoming champions of the world all without having to challenge a foreign team (yes yes Canadian) is an American master stroke.

To be fair however you did try and introduce England to baseball and it almost worked before the second world war broke out, and then we still beat your Olympic team in 36 and with a club side no less lol.

At any rate Aldeth i really advise you to stop trying to like football(soccer), it is a sport largely hamstrung by money these days with a massive gap between the best and the rest, carry on watching whatever sports you enjoy. If you watch any football watch your own domestic league, at least you have david beckham to watch then lol, (be sure to boo him )

 

I still think it is a simple historical happenstance that soccer is popular in England and not in USA. But once that popularity has been established, it becomes extremely difficult to change, unless a particular sport is really disorganised in how it keeps its fans happy.

In my personal experience, it does seem like people that I know are becoming interested in a wider range of sports. When I was kid, there was only Rugby Union and Cricket. Nothing else mattered. Nothing else was on TV. Nothing else was in the newspapers. Now, I see more people following Rugby League, Basketball, Swimming, Triathlons, and Cycling than I ever noticed before. Maybe this because it is now easier to follow more sports on TV and the Internet.

There is even a professional soccer team in NZ that plays in the Australian league, so even soccer is becoming slightly more popular here (although nothing like the brief peak of popularity it enjoyed in 1982 when NZ made it to the World Cup for the first and only time).

 

Don't bother guys, Harbs gets an opinion and it's never wrong! Play tennis against a brick wall, you've a better chance of getting somewhere! Bless him

 

England already has Baseball. It's called Rounders.

 

Thanks Barmy for acknowledging that I was right to bring some balance to this discussion!

 

Nah, you don't have to move there, but maybe a visit would help; I never watched soccer until the 2006 World Cup, when I was in Italy and Spain. I watched most of the games, and the excitement and talent (which most US teams don't have, which is why it's hard to get into it over here... if we had teams like Barca, ManU, and Inter, more people would like the game) got me interested. Starting playing Fifa and learned some of the players names (which is the first step to developing emotional attachment to a foreign team), and now I watch all the televised games I can (excluding MLS, because... they suck.) I am a Barcelona fan (for club matches), and a US/Spain fan for International teams.

It just takes exposure, really. Thankfully ESPN and ESPN2 are broadcasting a lot more games this year.

False. Teams in the NFL have plenty of highs and lows. No, they do not switch leagues if they play terribly, but the dominant teams switch every couple years (as in, a team can win their division for 4 years straight, and then (because of the Draft and Salary cap, mainly) they will fall behind while another team takes it for 3, 4 years.). There are no teams like Manchester United, Real Madrid, and Barcelona who buy teams and remain the champions for decades (Note: every decade there is probably one team that has a long run, though, but the next decade they will be sh*t. Dolphins and Broncos are two prime examples.)

 

But you can say the exact same thing about American football. Heck in the US, football is so popular that people who get season tickets to their favorite team's games usually give those season tickets to their next of kin in their will. That's pretty damn fanatical.

And all NFL teams go through highs and lows. In the last decade, look at how many different teams made the Super Bowl in football: Steelers, Patriots, Colts, Raiders, Titans, Ravens, Cardinals, Giants, Bears, Seahawks, Eagles, Panthers, Buccanneers, and Rams. That's 14 of the 32 professional teams reaching the championship game, and that's just since 2000. How can there not be highs and lows in football when there is so much changeover among the top teams? If anything I'd say you see more instances in soccer of one team staying dominant for a really long time. There are just highs or just lows - not highs and lows.

If you arguement is just about European football, then I may agree. European football is sure a hell of a lot more popular in England than it is over here. But I think you can turn that arguement around and say the lack of that league structure is what makes American football more popular over here.

This seems to be presenting a false choice. Sports are not popular in one place mainly because of competetion, and popular in another place mainly because of entertainment. It would be more correct to say that sports are popular everywhere because the competition both on the field and between the fans PROVIDES the entertainment value. Sports are entertaining BECAUSE they are so competitive. That's why we watch.

 

Yes but when you 'devalue' the competition for entertainments sake i.e only having certain teams in the top tier and never changing them regardless of perfromance, is where you get problems.

 

Which, as per my example in my last post, is not the case in the NFL.