Will This Be the Year I Like Soccer?

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1 - British teams may be locked geographically, but the players have come from all over the place. With so many foreign players coming in, you have teams where hardly anybody is local that came up through the system. So you're not really rooting for a bunch of 'local lads'.

2 - USA has no strife in its history? Are you talking about a different USA from the one I'm think about? The one with the civil war and the slavery?

And really, how far back does your history of strife need to go to be relevant today? England may have had a bit of biffo with the Vikings 1,000 years ago but does that really translate into a hatred of Norway today?

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But it doesn't account for soccer's relative unpopularity at all, because these things are features of England, rather than of soccer the sport. NFL and basketball are popular despite not having these features. American soccer would not become more popular by introducing relegation.

 

I had a really long post, but my computer may have just been fried from the heat... Yikes. Other computer now...

It is actually pretty rubbish. As it is a program that does not generate much revenue at all, most major universities do not have a soccer program. Those that do, often only have a girls team, so as to fulfill the requirements under Title IX (?) which requires an equal number of athletic programs for men and women. For example, my university has a women's team, but only has a 'club' team on the men's side. Basically a team made up of players from the university, but not exactly affiliated.

As for the choosing the team to root for, there are a myriad of reasons. For instance, I root for the Utah Jazz, because my father does. He grew up and lived in LA and was a Laker fan. Then the two teams competed in an '86 or '87 playoff series. The heavily favored Lakers won, but he liked the grit and determination shown by the Jazz team, including young players John Stockton and Karl Malone. He then grew to chear on that team, especially throughout those two players great careers (about 20 years each). When I came to start following sports, his support of the team caused me to support the Utah Jazz as well. His Laker fandom also faded over the years as that was more of a geographical thing, so that didn't rub off on me (he still supports them very casually though).

For college sports there are three main classifications of fan interest, though there are many, many more reasons that people support teams/schools. First there is the geographical factor. Second is the group who roots for the more famous/traditioned teams (e.g. Duke, Kentucky in basketball/Texas, Notre Dame in football). Thirdly, a huge percentage of fans root for the teams that represent the school they, or their relatives went to. Then there are many more reasons that, such as supporting an individual player or 'cinderella' team. College basketball (especially the NCAA tournament) is usually where these examples are most commonly found, but every sport has some of their own. A prime example of both of these reasons can be found in #10 seed Davidson's (2000 person school) Stephen Curry averaging about 32 points per game, leading a run to the final four. Other examples of a player's performance inspiring fandom come from Danny Manning in 1998, and for an underdog team, George Mason in 2006 (?).

Plus there are many who will support their hometown players, wherever they go. This also goes for NFL teams. A fan may support a player in college and then become a fan of an NFL team, just because they liked that particular player so much.

 

That is true. I was born a Red Sox fan, but a local player (well, from New Hampshire), Rocco Baldelli, signed with the Rays, and I started to follow them, and now I love them. It's tough being a two-team guy, especially when they are in the same division.

 

You see, I think we're looking at it completely differently. I don't see a league where everyone has a limit as to how much they are allowed to spend, are competing by selecting talent from the same pool of collegiate players, and are operating under the same contract guidelines as something that is inherently entertaining or exciting. It just seems imminently fair.

Then I look at a team like ManU, who basically have limitless financial resources. They have such a built-in advantage over so many of the other premiership teams that it seems completely unfair to me. They can sign the best players, pay them to most money, and accumulate a talent base that far exceeds 75% of the teams in the league. If they did it by wisely selecting their players that would be one thing, but ManU does it because they have more money than the other teams. The lesser teams, no matter how good they scout, will acquire and then retain the best players through their prime years.

To the American spectator, the entire concept of sport and competition is that everyone started on a level playing field, and everyone has an equal chance of having talented players. It's like if there was a pee wee football league where there were 20 teams filled with 10-year old kids. However, they also allowed a few teams in the league to use high school players. Then they said to the 10-year olds - "It's OK, we're all playing by the same rules. The high school players have just been playing football longer, so they earned their superior position. It will still be fun even though you have no chance of beating players who are so much better and more experienced than you are." - that's how the premiership looks like to me. A bunch of high school players beating up on 10-year olds. And no matter how much you love them or how much you root for them, the 10-year olds are never going to win.

And this is where we disconnect. How is this considered "competition in the purest sense of the word"? That's what I don't get. It's fine that there are some teams that are better than others, but the system is designed so that once you get on top you get all the best talent from around the world. How is a system where a few teams get lots of talent, and other teams only get a little bit of talent competition in any sense of the word?

Similar to what I said above, a system in which it is difficult for a team to maintain long-term success (which is also by definition a system which allows a poor team to improve) is not - in and of itself - entertaining to fans. To Americans, the idea that all teams have an equal chance to succeed is at the very core of competition. If some teams have inherent advantages that other teams will never be able to overcome, then it isn't a competition.

I hope that makes my position more clear. It's not about winning every year. It's not like you stop liking your team if it goes through long stretches of bad times. It's knowing that even in the darkest of times the sun will rise tomorrow, and some day your team will become competitive again. I root for the Steelers who have won two Super Bowls in the last four years. However, the last time they won the Super Bowl before 2005 was the 1979 season. I've been a Steelers fan all my life, and didn't cease being a Steelers fan because they went through a 26-year span without winning a championship. I continued being a fan because each one of those 26 years they lost on the field - fair and square. The other team(s) were just better - but there wasn't a system in place that made the other teams better.

 

In response to your above post Aldeth, I don't see any point in quoting it all, I think we have hit on some of the fundamental differences between soccer in our two countries. The financial dominance of the English 'big four' as they are known is a whole topic in itself, but what I think is more important is our differing notions of competition. It is true that some teams have a big advantage, but this is not a formal one, it is essentially a clubs stature and ability to attract the best players and them having the money to pay for the best players that gives them this advantage. There are no rules to state that top players cant go to other teams, and we can see in the case of Manchester City that with financial backing you can sign world class players. Ofcourse money doesnt guarantee success and you can have all the best players you want and still not win anything see Barcelona for the last few seasons, this again is another topic entirely.

I think it would be fair to say that in England the competition is not simply a yearly league, but one of long term development. If you overstretch yourself you will have success in the short term but then crash miserably (Leeds) and there is alot of emphasis on developing youth players. Very rarely can a team buy itself to the premiership without the foundations of good youth development. To use your example, Manchester Uniteds dominance now is arguably built on the best crop of young players ever developed - Beckham, Scholes, Giggs, Neville, Butt etc.

 

Apparently so.

I see what you mean. However, it seems logical that players will follow the money. It's just human nature. While there is no rule that states which team a given player can go to, it seems logical that the team with the most money to spend will get the best players.

That's why the salary cap in the NFL is so important. Equally important is that not only is there a ceiling, but there is also a floor. For example, last year the cap was about $120 million that each team could spend on it's roster of 53 players. League rules also state that you have to spend at least 80% of the cap figure (approximately $96 million). This is because the main source of revenue for the NFL teams is the TV contract, and the league divides the money up equally between all the teams. It doesn't want some greedy owner putting the money in his pocket by signing lousy players. The idea is that by saying the floor is 80% of the maximum, it forces all teams to acquire some decent players.

That's why we think it's fair competition, because all teams are spending about the same amount of money for their talent. Obviously, no single team can acquire all the best players.

Like European football, acquiring and developing young talent is essential in the NFL, and is really the only way to maintain a good team. Each year, all NFL teams are allowed to draft 7 college players. They alternate picks with the order established as the reverse order of the previous years finish. So the team that won the fewest games picks first, and the team that won the Super Bowl picks last. After each team picks a player, they go back to the top of the list and do it 6 more times.

When a team drafts a player it essentially owns that player for the next 4 years. So a team that drafts well can maintain it's position. However, once those 4 years are up, that player is free to sign with whatever team he wants. (And the team he wants is usually the team that will pay him the most money.) So unless a team continually drafts well, it simply will not be able to afford to keep all of the best players together, and that's why there's turnover among the best teams.

 

The US doesn't have nearly the same level of past strife as other countries and that which it did have is hardly connected to the sports teams that are formed. A league of Blacks v WASPS v Native Americans would get a lot of Americans interested in soccer I would say. Not that I'm saying it would be a good thing or it would be for the right reasons but it would certainly grab interest. Actually Rangers v Celtic would be a very close equivalent to this. They don't sell 60,000 tickets to each home game because of the wonderful football in Scotland.

I think that's a very important part of the US mentality. The expression 'It's the taking part that matters' doesn't mean much. In other countries we love to see the underdog cause an upset, in the US it's all about the winner (sorry if that sounds like a bad thing, I know it results in a can do attitude to life generally). Soccer is a sport that can regularly cause upsets due to its low scoring nature and I think that's a massive part of its charm. You mightn't be able to outplay a better team but stick your entire team around your goal and get them to throw their bodies in the way of the ball and you mightn't concede for the entire match. Nick a flukey goal from somewhere and you've got yourself a famous victory. Actually Ireland beating Italy at the USA 94 world cup was pretty much exactly that.

Also, many fans will base their 'success' in relative terms, not on winning. Beating your local rivals may mean all to a smaller team who don't stand a chance of finishing above them in the league overall. Surviving relegation is a huge achievement for some clubs.

 

This is what I was getting at. Infact I know fans who would rather do the double over their rivals than say get to a play off position, or qualify for Europe.

 

Why isn't cricket more popular then? I reckon it's miles easier to get an upset result in cricket than in soccer.

In soccer if you nick a lucky goal due to 1 minute's lapse in concentration by the good team, the other team still has another 89 minutes to hammer another 10 goals against you. In cricket, if their star batsman gets out first ball, that's it for him.

Still, the low scoring, easier upset nature of soccer is still true in USA, so is not that much use as an explanation for the reasons why it is popular in England but not in USA.

I think if the English people here went to live in USA they would start like US sports and if the US people went to England, they'd start liking soccer. I think people just like whatever sports happen to already be in their countries, and don't really know why.

 

I think part of it is the hard salary cap, but I think it's equally important that there is the floor. Look at baseball - there's no hard cap, but if you go over a certain salary threshold, you have to pay an equal dollar amount into a revenue sharing pool. This money is distributed among the teams that make the least money, and the theory behind this is that it will allow some of the small market teams to have the money to compete with the teams with more money.

The only problem is that this doesn't really happen. Some of the teams that receive the money from revenue sharing don't spend anything from their own coffers, and in some extreme cases don't even spend all the revenue sharing money. A good example was last year's Florida Marlans. They received over $30 million from the league revenue sharing program, and fielded a team with a combined payroll of $21 million.

Having a hard cap certainly helps, but unless there is also a floor, there is nothing to prevent cheap owners from feilding non-competitive teams. A soft cap can accomplish similar results as a hard cap, if it is properly implemented. In baseball, you could easily pass a rule that says for every dollar you take from revenue sharing you have to spend a dollar of your own money. So a team getting over $30 million in revenue sharing money would field a $60+ million team. That's still a low amount compared to the Red Sox or Yankees, but with a payroll that size you likely have a couple of stars, whereas with a payroll of $21 million, you don't.

 

Whereas most people I know prefer this continous running to some 'stop start' sports. Ref's often get pulled up for breaking the game up too much i.e constant freekicks for very minor fouls. I'm sure this has also got something to do with why football is more popular in Europe.

 

That's actually a good point - US football makes most of it's money through the TV contracts, which are paid for by advertisements shown during the games. How does football telecasts in Britain make any money if they don't show commercials? Or perhaps a better question would be what motivation would a TV station have for broadcasting a game if they would make no money?

 

You have to pay to subscribe to the channel that is showing the match. The vast majority of TV money comes from Sky TV, as they own the rights to most of the games (especially now that Setanta has gone bang). To subscribe to Sky TV and get the Sky Sports channels typically costs around £35 per month and I know very fiew people who don't have it. I'm not sure what that is in dollars, but that's where they make money. There are still adverts at half time too, obviously. I personally would get extremely pissed off watching a sports fixture and having my viewing constantly interrupted by adverts. The only other TV broadcaster to show football games is the BBC, but these are very rare (usually only the big fixtures such as England matches, or the FA Cup Final) - the BBC is funded by TV licence fees each household must pay.

I HATE adverts.

 

£35 is a bit over $50, which seems to be a reasonable price if you watch the matches. The NFL sells it's games to the networks, and in a typical weekend TV stations will broadcast 4-5 of the 16 games played. (Typically one early Sunday afternoon, one late Sunday afternoon, one Sunday night, and one Monday night.) If you want access to ALL 16 games and not be limited to just the games the networks decide to air, you can sign up with DirecTV and get the Sunday Ticket, and then get all the games. The Sunday Ticket is $200 per year, and since football season is four months long, it's $50 per month.

The play stops in the NFL after one team scores, when quarters end, and when offense/defense switch sides. The commericals coincide with these events - they never interrupt play on the field with an advertisement.

 

But there are lots of breaks in play, when compared to sports outside the US. Agreed?

 

Theres no way to kill the tension like an advert. Can you believe ITV actually showed adverts DURING formula 1. Literally as the race was happening. There is an advert after a team scores? Thats pretty weird, cant imagine that.

 

You still have TV licenses? I remember when I was a youth there was show called "The Young Ones" which had a crazy episode about them trying to avoid having to pay the license. It took me weeks to find someone who could explain to me what the heck a tv license was?

 

So you're not watching the Ashes series then?

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Fantastic! Vyvyan had to eat the TV so the TV licence man wouldn't find out they had an unlicensed TV. You've made my day, Snook!

NEIL: Oh, no. He's asked me if we've got a telly! I think
I'm gonna have to lie! Bad Karma!

MIKE: Alright, the time for diplomacy is over. Vyv?
[unplugs TV] Chuck the telly out the window!

RICK: Get rid of it! Quickly! Quickly!

[Vyvyan picks up TV and throws it at the window. The TV
bounces off the window]

MIKE: That I did not expect!

VYVYAN: What if we sneak it out past him into the street?

RICK: Yes! Yes! Yes! Mike, you go out and point to the sky,
right, and say, 'Look at that interesting thing up there!'
[to Vyvyan] You disguise the TV as an old woman and sneak it
past him!

MIKE: Rick, suicide may be a great hobby, but I wouldn't do
it for a living!

NEIL: Lads, I've told we don't have a telly and I think that's
thrown him a bit, but it won't hold him forever!

RICK: Good thinking, Neil! Keep it up! [starts writing in
notebook]

MIKE: This is a very tricky spot, but Mike, the cool person,
will squeeze it! Rick, stop crying!

RICK: [rubs eye] I'm not crying, I just got something in my
eye, that's all! [continues writing]

MIKE: Vyv? Eat the telly!

VYVYAN: That's a completely brilliant idea, Mike. I've been
wanting to do this for a long time! [grabs the TV and starts
devouring it]

RICK: [writing] It was the other three, not me. I had no idea
what was going on, it really was the other three!

[cut to front door. Neil is talking to a man]

NEIL: Alright, Don't rush me, that's not an easy question to
answer. 'Have I got a telly?' There could be, like, a number
of different replies. I need some time to think one up, you know?

MAN: We know you got one, we detected it!

 

Actually, American football is faily unique in the number of stoppages. Hockey, basketball, and baseball all have far fewer (or at least shorter) stoppages. Although soccer probably has the fewest.