World Cup
I am curious to see if any of the readers of this blog are soccer fans??? I have to admit that I have had about zero interest in soccer for most of my life. It was the only little league type sport that I didn't play during my childhood. A few weeks ago I am watching some TV and I see this commercial for this guy named Ronaldo from Brazil. The guy is amazing and the crazy thing is that he was that good as a child. So it kinda peaked my interest a little bit. So yesterday I have the rare chance to come home for lunch and I watch a little of our USA team getting killed by the Czech's. They clearly know more about soccer then we do! :) So here is my question for the day. Why is soccer so big around the world and yet so little here in the US. I mean there is no comparison between the love of football, baseball, basketball with soccer in the US. Yet the rest of the world goes nuts for the game?? Are we missing something ??? Some say that it is the low scoring nature of the game but I am not sure I by that ??? I have watched several baseball games end with the score of 1 to 0 . So I am not sure? What are your thoughts?
The low scoring thing is just our excuse for not watching. I think it's a media driven bias that reflects our short attention spans as Americans. It has the same problem as hockey - not enough breaks in the action.
Commercial sponsors go crazy with these sports because no breaks in the action mean fewer commercial dollara for these programs. As a result, the networks are not highly inclined to carry these games - which get low ratings anyway. Even if they didn't get low ratings, the advertising wouldn't bring in as much as it would for those other sports.
From a spectator point of view it's hard to watch 45 minutes of straight action with no break. Case in point, the other day I was watching Australia v Japan. Japan was winning 1-0 in the 80th something minute of the game. I changed channels for a second to see some sportscenter highlights or something. When I changed back - not FIVE minutes later, I see Austrailia ahead 3-1. I was like "WHAT HAPPENED?!"
I sat there for over an hour with NO scoring. I flip channels for just a second and I MISSED the most exciting match of the world cup thus far.
So them's my reasoning. Whaddaya think?
Posted by
Demosthenes |
9:45 AM
I don't get it. The rest of the world gets it, but I fail this test. I have more respect for a soccer player than any other athlete. Soccer players are in extremely good shape and have coordination and endurance. I just can't watch this game. I last about fifteen minutes, maximum. I love the typical American sports, but my first love is hockey. People seem to relate soccer and hockey quite a bit. So then, why can I watch hours upon hours of hockey and not even a half hour of soccer? Some things that may be turning me off of soccer is: the crazy time keeping (In basketball, anything can happen in the last 20 seconds...you're clueless about the time in soccer.), the huge field (so much room, yet so little scoring), and the time of possession. It seems that the ball is trading "feet" every half second.
Posted by
Brooke |
8:08 AM