A Brain Drops special edition
Since I’ve been traveling, I’ve finally learned to appreciate soccer. Or, as the rest of the world calls it – football. Knowing a bit about the sport is critical if you want to be social in countries outside of the U.S. I’ve actually started to enjoy it, so I had to wonder “why do Americans hate it so much?”
I’m going to skip over a couple of the basics, like the fact that we’re not that good at it. And I won’t even mention the ill-fated promotional tour to Arizona that cost us half our best players.
Let’s dig a bit deeper than that:
- You can’t use your hands. Why would you deliberately disallow the use of your primary appendage? Would you pay to watch Nascar drivers who’ve removed their tires? Of course not – the crashes wouldn’t look nearly as cool and splodey.
- The games have low scores. “It’s not the destination, it’s the journey” – U.S. sports fans don’t buy that line of shit. We need constant stimulation and fireworks. We thrive on the long touchdown pass in American football, the grand slam homerun of baseball or the “we score every 23 seconds” of basketball.
- The sponsor logos are right on the jerseys. Sorry, we refuse to be that blatantly open about the fact that our corporate overlords control every aspect of our lives. It makes it easier for us to cope when we want to pretend we have a “free market system.”
- There are just too many leagues. It’s impossible to keep them all straight – there needs to be a major merger of all the various leagues ASAP. The United States loves a good monopoly – whether it’s throwing hotels down on Boardwalk and Park Place or kicking down “incentives” to entice the telecom industry to have their annual “price increase festival” in your city next year.
- The yellow card penalty pretty much means there’s no immediate punishment. In a country with a history steeped in vigilante justice, we just don’t believe in delayed castigation.
- The clock doesn’t stop. This is a double whammy. No commercial time during a sporting event means no million dollar a minute ad rates. Then on top of that, you eliminate the breaks people use to grab a Coors Light and some Doritos, decimating the consumption of the sponsor’s products.
- Players have a tendency to take their shirts off. Americans may feign outrage when they see a topless woman, but it’s shirtless men that really make middle America uncomfortable.
- Many games don’t have a winner. The thought of not being able to win is anathema to most of us. There’s no adage that says “you win some, you lose some, but most of the time you’re the same” in the American vernacular. We really don’t believe in win-win, unless we win both times.
That’s my take on it. Am I missing something?
I think it also has a lot to do with the way it looks on TV. Soccer is shot mostly as a very wide angle and up high in the stands because the ball could go anywhere so the camera has to be this way.
This makes the players look small and they look like they are not moving very fast, when in reality, they are running very fast and action is happening, just further away. You dont get an intense sense of the action from such a wide angle. You also dont get close ups until after the play has happened.
In Merkin football, for example, the play starts with a wide shot then when he passes/hands off/runs it pushes in or cuts to a close up so we feel like we are in part of the action as it happens.
I think it just doesnt lend itself to our TV habits as Merkin sports do.
Good thoughts –
I think that ties into another point. The cameras COULD be more active and closer, but you’d need 20 cameramen to do it (like they have in the NFL). With all the leagues and games going on, there aren’t many that could cover that expense).
Then, you could add in on-screen whiteboards, etc. and frame the commentary to talk about tactics and things like that.
But you’d need viewers and money to support all that, so it’s a chicken or egg situation.
As a Canadian I grew up in a similar situation although we tend to play it as our summer sport (baseball isn’t as popular) but we don’t really watch it.
Now that Toronto has a professional team I’ve realized it’s because the most fun watching is at the stadium and if you’ve never experienced it you just don’t bother to watch on TV either.
But even after 20 years of playing I can still say its dead boring on TV.
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Well, BASEBALL is about as boring as I can imagine on TV. I’ve started enjoying football on TV quite a bit, though I’m watching games at the pubs in the cities I’m in, so I probably benefit from the interaction and people watching quite a bit!
I totally agree with the last point. A sport that allows ties is just wrong. Especially in the World Cup where the whole point is to determine who is the best. It is very un-American and totally against our desire to have a winner and a loser.
I think the other aspect that is troubling is all the histrionics and playing up of fouls that causes Americans to dismiss the sport. It is hard to relate to an athlete that takes a little tap on the shin and then falls to the ground rolling around for 30 seconds to draw the penalty. When we were in Australia during the World Cup we found that many aussies also think soccer is a bit of a nancy sport. After going to a rugby game it is easy to see why they think that though. Ruby players put American footballers to shame when it comes to toughness.
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Yeah, I do have to laugh when I see the players rolling on the ground in agony – then as soon as they realize the ref isn’t calling it, they hop up and keep playing.
love this post — I was soooo going to write a similar one during the World Cup, but never got around to it.
Now that I’ve watched a lot of football with Europeans that have helped explain everything (especially the basic strategy, beyond “kick it in the goal”), I have really come to enjoy it. I especially like the playing styles of the possession teams like Chelsea and Barcelona.
The vibe during the World Cup final was fantastic. I happened to be in Lille, France – essentially a mid-point between the Netherlands and Spain. So there were fans on both sides all watching together on giant screens in the town plaza. It was a fantastic night to gain an appreciation for the sport.
I’m an American…and I’ve traveled a bit…and now I love futbol!!
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Yeah, I started really watching it last year when I was in Asia for a couple months. Part of the appeal is that it’s played in so many different time zones and nations that there is a game on almost any time of the day or night!
I’d say this is an accurate analysis. I just recently gained an appreciation for the game during the world cup. It’s more nuanced than most American sports.
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Yeah, it’s much more enjoyable than I ever gave it credit for in the US. In part, I think, due to the energy of others while they watch it.
I can’t overly comment on your analysis, as it could be anything really. If the sports channels stopped showing basketball/baseball/american football and played Football/soccer then it would gain more interest.
Did you do it much in school? It was virtually compulsory in the UK and every kid played it.
It’s also cheap to play. No bat, no high hoops, just a couple of jumpers on the ground make up the goal post. Americans have never been poor so maybe a demand for more that end?
Another theory I have is the name. I have no idea why Americans call it football but I suspect it’s to identify their own game called football and keep the easier to pronounce name (football is spelt multiple ways in many languages but it’s nearly always pronounced the same). Australia also have ‘Aussie rules football’ which is their own version (similar to American football but on an oval pitch). So I guess patriotic comes into this with a need to be identified away from former motherland (Britain).
I don’t think it’s because Americans are rubbish at it. Most countries are outside south America and Europe (all the British teams are hardly outstanding either).
One of the things I disliked the most about American TV when I was there was the constant adverts. I’d much rather see one set every 45 minutes with the guys running around with adverts on their chest than have plain shirts with an advert interrupting play every 5 minutes.
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Hey Rob –
I think we played it a few times just to learn it, but it was never a focus for us as kids. It is in some parts of the US (hence the “soccer moms”) but not where I grew up – aka most of middle America.
And yeah, the ads during sporting events get ridiculous but I’d have to say that’s also how they can afford all the toys they use in the broadcast booth!
Nice article! Many of these points, I guess, are the reasons why the rest of the world loves football!
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Hehe I think you are pretty much spot on with your reasons. I never thought of it that way, but then again I’ve always liked soccer/football/futbol especially going to a game overseas where the attendance didn’t match that of a WMBA game.
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