Why are Americans so threatened by soccer/football?
 

I get that it has rules that seem complicated to the average American. But to call it boring, fake, stupid, etc seems so odd. Baseball, football and basketball have more rules. Have more breaks in the action. The skill levels are probably similar in that huge money is on the line.

So why the need to belittle this sport?

PS if you don't take the fan base into account then you are missing a big chunk of soccer.

I don't think anyone is threatened by it. Its the idea that americans are supposed to like it, largely based upon the "whole world" liking it. personally i think watching all sports is pretty boring but americans are treated as stupid because they're the only country that doesn't "get it". if they grew up on it, they would probably like it regardless but you can't just introduce a sport and expect people to take to it instantly.

Because it de-emasculate us just to watch, its a pussy & cowards sport. Reason, more fakery than any sport when it comes to injury.

Because the soccer playing world is coming to take their guns :)

I personally like watching the guy with the Mickey Mouse gloves on try and block the ball as it flys in.
Some are good and some just need bigger gloves.

Guess you don't watch basketball then?

And maybe you should check injury reports and see how many guys don't play due to stupid "injuries"

They are just butthurt for whatever reason.

They say that soccer is gay and lame and whatnot, but still feel the need to make a daily thread about it.

Hey Americans, soccer is the most popular sport on this planet we love it and we don't give a shit what you think about it :1orglaugh

The don't watch it, retard.

it's called trash talking. it's common in sports. don't be a pussy about it and get so butthurt you feel the need to lump 350 million people into your I don't understand trash talking thread.

This question being asked every day is the boring thing now, some people like it, some hate it, it doesn't change shit. I love Football, I like NFL, Basketball, Hockey too, each has their own unique qualities that make it entertaining and something to enjoy. More and more US people are coming round to Football, it is gaining in popularity no matter what anyone else says, maybe it's because of the younger generation, maybe it's because of the large numbers of Mexican people in the US, I don't know but it's good to see new audiences tune into a great sporting even like the World Cup, it is only every 4 years and deserves to be watched, in my opinion it is the greatest sporting event on Earth, the one true tournament that means you are the best in the World.

take exactly what you said and change the sport from soccer to baseball, or football or basketball and you will have your answer...

the ignorance is on BOTH sides because people don't even realize they have the same argument against each others sports of choice. which is juvenile.

he in fact did that very thing in the op. asked why all americans talk shit about soccer being boring,etc, then followed that right up with stating baseball, basketball, etc are boring, etc.

:1orglaugh:1orglaugh

So you see trash talking as us ripping on the sport? Yep, I missed that.

They're not threatened, they're on the way to 'get it'. USA is actually doing a pretty good world cup. Klinsmann was a fabulous player in his day and now is the coach, that probably has a lot to do with USA actually playing some pretty decent football.

the only sport that counts

http://i.imgur.com/ZMD9qrV.gif

I rarely see a thread attacking the big three american sports or even comments. Some but not the shear volume that soccer gets. I am an American and never played soccer other then around the neighborhood. I just don't feel a big need to trounce the sport. And watching it is so much more fun then the "American" sports. The fan experience is at another level.

That's because you are taking something very trivial and blowing it way out of proportion.

Most Americans aren't threatened by soccer. And those that talk shit about it don't think 2x about soccer.

It's nothing more than spectator competition. not unlike my sports buddies that raze me for rooting for a certain team or sport. and I return the raze.

see above. They appear to be threatened.

Trash-talking, covertly cultivated by PR agencies in the interests of US NBA/American football/baseball magnats. The more people watch football (sport not controlled by these magnats), the more resources they spend, directly or indirectly on it, and the less resources are left to spend on traditional sports, which is in their pockets.


"If it seems that no one controls the process, it means the process is controlled well." - true for any process.

thing is, it's a bit different than banter between opposing, knowledgeable fans. Announcing football is boring/dumb/blahblah is like when markham used to say nobody knew what they were doing. He was too much of a stupid cunt, so 'trashed' those who actually understood their particular skill, saying it was nowhere as good as producing content - the 1 and only thing he DID understand.

PM: I don't understand traffic, but it's too easy, anyone can do it, but no-one has any anyway, ps mailing will halt the internet.

GFY: Soccer is boring, the rules are stupid, they only score a few goals per match

Honestly, good banter and razes are what make the world go round, but we're doing what people on boards tried to do for years with markham - attempting to speak with genuine knowledge, to the uneducated :winkwink:

I would wager there are more threads with *handegg* in the title than *soccer sucks* in the title here at gfy. I look at it this way- how many times have I heard anyone say soccer sucks/boring/stupid away from gfy and that grand total is zero.

I didn't (couldn't) follow along with all the markham nonsense, I mean I really couldn't even read a full post of that guy's so I'm not getting the analogy.

Soccer is great, my niece is on a team.

they just have other sports they like much more

A=b, b=c so a=c is in your head. You think that soccer is boring and since I equated it to your sports, you assumed I was saying your sports were boring. Reread it with Soccer is not boring and you will see the difference.

The biggest problem is, games can end in a TIE. You either lose or win. It's the American way.

But I don't think soccer is boring. I've never watched a minute of it until yesterday's USA game. I didn't find what I watched boring. I was a little miffed that such a game could end in a tie though.

Nevertheless, I misunderstood your op, thanks for the clarification.

We are not threatened by soccer. We are just amused at how little it takes to amuse the rest of the world.

See, we Americans are not butt poor and have things to actually do and accomplish. We're very BUSY. Unlike most of the world apparently who relish the idea of someone kicking a ball around a giant field with little (and sometimes no) scoring. I'm sure this helps pass the time in places like Uruguay and Ghana. LOL

PS: You foriegners couldn't come up with something more clever than 'handegg'? There ya go rest of the world, being uninterestingly literal again.

And there you go. hahaha

This sums it up pretty well.

I would also add that it goes against some of the basic and most fundamental concepts of what Americans appreciate it sports.

A very good example are draws. It's nearly impossible for an American to understand that a draw, in some cases, would be almost as good as a win, or even acceptable. Personally, I don't like it either. A game should be played until there is a winner, but with the point system in football (soccer) ties/draws are a part of the game.

?????

Where and when have the NFL/MLB/NBA magnates attacked football/soccer?

Yup, that's exactly what I just mentioned in my earlier post. That is a HUGE turn-off for most Americans.

Another thing that most Americans are hesitant to accept is the ridiculous amount of corruption in football/soccer. Say what you want about the US government and its society, but its professional sports organizations are pretty clean. It simply cannot run on corruption, and if there were any, it would come to light. The leagues are not run by a mafia, like the FIFA is, and teams are never so blatantly favored by refs like in football/soccer.

The entire argument is stupid, not the sports being argued about. But the explanation for it is simple really. You soccer fans love to jump into football (NFL) threads every year and yap about 'handegg'. Every. Single. Year. And so of course once every FOUR years the NFL'ers have a little fun back at you, at your sport's expense.

Fair is fair, right? :D

The OP complains like no insults and razzing ever came from the soccer side of the line, when in fact it happens here every year. I know, because I'd wager I post more football threads than anyone.

Me? I love both soccer and football. And yes, I know it grates on some of your nerves having your sport refered to as 'soccer', but get over it. We already have a sport called football over here. It will never do to start calling soccer football in N America. Also, we over here don't feel the need to be so literal when it comes to sports names. If we were then 'tennis' would be called "raquet ball" and raquet ball would be "wall ball". Hey, there hasn't been a 'basket' involved in the sport of basketball since the dark ages, why not change that as well? Something more obvious like 'net ball', or how about 'squeaky shoes ball'?


Just a suggestion but how about this? You shut up about 'handegg' for the next 4 years and I'll wager the football side will go a lot easier on you at the next world cup.

Now, please continue with the petty bickering. It's amusing. :D

I don't know that Americans are "threatened" by it per se but I think because it's such a global game and not exclusionary to a degree like baseball, basketball and football are, it makes a lot of people feel like U.S. is not #1 and that there is a whole big world out there unified by a sport and a reminder to Americans that's its not just about the U.S.

yup, that's just as dumb too, that isn't banter, it's whining at a sport you don't understand. Basically, trying to banter, but failing :)

well played, wish I'd stopped well before I did lol. Basically he spoke 'fact' when it was actually 'Im too stupid to understand, but I'm convinced I am armed with knowledge'. People who actually have the knowledge are left incredulous as to the other person's lame attempts to speak on anything to do with the subject matter.

eg, a bunch of women trying to roast you about how 'boring' and 'pointless' whatever *your* favourite sport is, when because you understand the game, what they are saying makes no sense, and is the furthest thing from a roast you can get.

Like I say, I love banter/roasting/razing - both sides need to understand the subject for that to work though. To self-confess you know nothing about a subject (by you I mean whoever), then try and score humour points on that subject, baffles me. But then, I'm pretty serious about my humour :upsidedow :1orglaugh

No one in the US is "threatened" by Soccer, nor are the rules too complicated (Have you seen the rules in Football?). It's just that we aren't interested. Baseball is traditionally considered "America's favorite sport" and after that we have football and basketball. We also have hockey.

There just isn't much room left over for Soccer.

Meanwhile, we're ranked in the top 15 in the world and more people play the sport here than anywhere else in the world.

That we don't get it, don't like it and want nothing to do with it...just stereotypes.

Exactly, and I just heard on the radio that last nights U.S vs. Portugal game got better ratings than the world series.

I think that's exactly why they feel threatened.

I was being serious with the guns thing, it's the same forces. The majority of US soccer fans seem to be younger generation and Democrats.

The US ranking has always been artificially high. It's probably a combination of playing in a weak region, and FIFA wanting to grow the game in the States.

I'm American. I'm not intimidated by it.

the two sports I follow most closely aren't football/baseball/basketball so I'm in the minority.

Not threatened but just never got into the sport myself
It definitely has it's share of fanatics in the world as do any sport.

I think one of the differences is that in a lot of countries, soccer/football is THE sport...in the US, we have more sport choices and soccer/football generally isn't in them...but younger kids are playing soccer in bigger numbers than ever before while little league players are dwindling in numbers.

It's a cultural thing.

Plus, in a lot of US sports like baseball and football, you generally need more equipment to play it so it can be prohibitively expensive for those in poorer countries (just like basketball tends to be bigger in poorer neighborhoods as the equipment required to play is cheaper/more readily available).

In Europe, the countries are close enough together, so you can have country rivals. Here, it's about state rivals and the once in awhile rivalries with Canada and Mexico.

For me growing up... Soccer was something kids did. And when I say "kids" I mean 3rd graders. By 4th grade we were involved in "real" sports meaning Baseball, Football, and Basketball.

I'm not saying it's not a real sport, but instead when I grew up it was like playing kickball. We did it for fun, but we didn't have a league for it or anything.

We [Americans] are programmed NOT to like soccer from birth. Even as a young kid, if you played one of the major three American sports; Football (the one you can use your hands and hit people without them flopping), baseball, and basketball, you were in the cool group. To us, soccer players were the weak ones that couldn't make it in the other sports. And that's because we were programmed by the media NOT to like soccer. The reason? There's not a lot of ad revenue to be made in soccer. Could you imagine any station in America showing 90 minutes of continuous sports play without one single commercial break?!?!? What they did is "pushed" the other sports on us and that dealt soccer the American deathblow. The NFL, the most popular sport in the United States takes 3 1/2 hours to play a one hour game. That's 2 1/2 hours of money making ad revenue pouring in and why the NFL is worth Billions.

They tried to have MLS in the U.S. and it pretty much failed. They're still playing, but no one is paying attention. There is no ad revenue and you don't find too many professional soccer players with million dollar endorsement deals. An unproven NFL rookie, just drafted will sign a multimillion dollar endorsement deal. A professional soccer player will sign an endorsement deal for Ed's Pawnshop on the Corner of MLK and 22nd.

It's not that we're threatened by soccer, we're just greedy about money. And from a media standpoint, soccer is not a money making sport - if there's no time for ads, don't waste our time is what the networks say. The MLS is having problems filling up stadiums with just 1,500 seats - and ticket sales and concessions aren't going to make anyone want to invest. So there's your answer, that's why Americans don't like soccer. The media programmed us from the time we were able to watch Sesame Street, and continue to program us to this day.

i find it boring along with most sports besides football.

Not enjoying/understanding != threatened. I assure you, no one is threatened by cricket either.

I enjoy the sport.

interesting mate, would make sense

It certainly would make sense, if it were true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Major_L...y_and_revenues

This! :thumbsup

The real question is, why are you worried about it?
I don't get all butt hurt when people get on my about liking motor sports.
I just ignore them, and go on enjoying it.
I couldn't care less if they like it or not.

I don't like most sports
I do watch some Nascar and some drag racing, those are probably not very big where you are at.
I also like rodeo from time to time, and because I was introduced to horse reining, I rather enjoy that as well, you guys probably don't even know what that is?