Many electrons, and some ink, have been spilled over the past few weeks to explain why Americans don't watch/like soccer--too few goals, hands v. feet, diving, etc. To me, quite frankly, most of the hyptheses seem like ex post rationalizations rather than explanations, both on their own internal validity as well as the presence of counterexamples. Baseball and football certainly are bizarre in their own ways, baseball is low-scoring and has a long tradition of cheating and gamesmanship (even pre-steroids). Football may be one of the most peculiar and unique sports in the world, with the constant play interruptions for huddles and the like. So, as I said, I think most explanations are actually just rationalizations that aren't generalizable.
I'm certain this is not terribly original, but my hypothesis is quite simple--Americans don't like soccer because Americans don't like soccer. The sports embraced by a given society/country/culture are largely conventional and traditional. For the same reason that Germans don't like baseball (and the Japanese do), and the Brazilians don't like football. Sports, as a spectator event, are essentially social network goods and preferences for one sport over another are almost purely conventional. The joy of sports is watching it together as a community and discussing and arguing about it together. As such, almost any sport will do to serve that function. People routinely gather together to watch sporting events, both live and in person. We generally don't gather together to watch other things on television, except the rare tv series finale or election night news coverage (another community event, of course).
I don't think that the rising and falling fortunes of various sports has much to do with the intrinsic value of one sport over another, except at the extremes. All sports are inherently a completely arbitrary test of skill. You just create a set of arbitrary tasks and then the athletes perform them to the best of their ability. Why is NASCAR so much more popular than Indy racing? Why is Indy racing more popular in some subsections of the country? I can't see how the intrinsic differences between the two sports makes a difference. Why Australian Rules Football, curling (as in the Winter Olympics), or Irish hurling?
As an aside, this is precisely the point that the Supreme Court failed to grasp in the Casey Martin case a few years ago--why do you have walk when you play professional golf? Because it is part of the sport. Why? Just because it is. Why a 10 foot hoop in basketball rather than 11 or 12 feet? Why 60 fee 6 inches to the pitcher's mound? Why 18 holes in golf? Why 500 miles for the Indy 500? Just because, that's the arbitrarily chosen task that comprises the sport and to ask "why" misses the entire point.
The way to think of sports, I think, is like fashion (I'm sure this isn't original to me). The rising and falling interest in sports over time is just a matter of changing tastes, rather than one sport or another being better or worse than another. Having just read Jeremy Schapp's "Cinderella Man" I was stunned to learn how popular boxing was in the 1930s compared to all other sports. Babe Ruth's scandalously large contracts during that era were a small fraction of the amount that Jack Dempsey would pull down for one fight. Today, boxing is a borderline fringe sport. Ditto for horse racing. The Olympics may or may not be in a permanent death spiral--I suspect that it is too early to tell. Hockey has gone from one of the country's "four major sports" to essentially the same level as Major League Soccer, and I think the NHL strike just expedited a trend that was already underway. It is now standard to refer to the "three major sports" in the U.S. Casual sports fans used to be expected and able to watch and politely talk about the Stanley Cup playoffs; today that is no longer the case.
So, the World Cup is becoming more popular because, well, it is becoming more popular. For whatever reason, one can speculate. But I'm guessing it has little to do with the intrinsic merits of soccer and more to do with the fact that it is becoming part of the lexicon of the casual sports fan, perhaps because it is fun to be wrapped up in an event of such global proportions. But, for instance, I don't expect much crossover from the World Cup's popularity to MLS. In the sense I am thinking of it, MLS is essentially a different sport from the World Cup because it is wrapped in a different social network, not because it is somehow a different sport.
I had an interesting conversation with someone the other day who had been watching the World Cup with some degree of enthusiasm and interest. I asked him to name three guys on the DC United roster other than Freddy Adu. He named zero. He has watched the World Cup but has no plans to ever attend a DC United game or to watch DC United on tv (even though DC United is 9-1-5 this year and playing some great soccer). So while I'd like to believe that others will come to share my enthusiasm I am not optimistic--except in the Spanish-speaking community, from whom I consistently receive thumbs-up whenever I wear my DC United jersey.
One final thought--at root, sports must still be a game of skill, no matter how arbitrarily chosen the task. David P. suggests that chance in the form of referee's calls is part of the appeal of the game. I don't think so. I think most fans deplore the impact of officiating in this World Cup and its impact on games. I was living in Italy in 2002 during the World Cup and my sense was that they didn't appreciate the role of questionable refereeing in determining outcomes, even before losing a game riddled with questionable calls. I think that soccer fans tolerate it because they always have and there does not seem to be sentiment at the highest reaches of the sport to try to change it.
In the end, it should be skill, not chance that decides games, and this seems to be a universal sentiment. One problem with the World Cup is that the talent levels are so compressed these days that almost every game comes down to a single goal and thus one referee's call (a penalty kick or quetionable red card) can thus prove decisive in a game.
If one wanted to think about how to reform the system there seems to be two possible approaches. One approach would be to try to increase accuracy, such as by adding a second referee on the field--it is not plausible that one referee can competently cover the entire field today when the players are so fast and strong. US basketball moved from two to three referees a decade or so ago and--somewhat counterintuitively--empriical evidence finds that the number of fouls called in games actually fell. The reason is because that more referees dramatically increased the probability of detection, so players became less likely to try to get away with something.
A second approach would be to try reduce the impact of referee's decisions on games, and especially red cards, such as by allowing suspensions within the game calibrated more closely to the severity of the offense (e.g., something like a "penalty box" with 5 or 10 minute suspensions, rather than red cards). It is also worth at least considering, I think, whether to allow the use of instant replay for situations such as the end of the Italy-Australia game yesterday (althought I suspect instant replay would be a bridge too far for soccer).
A final, final thought--I do give the soccer bureaucracy a great deal of credit for one innovation adopted about 10 years or so ago, which is to change the scoring system to award 3 points for a win and only 1 for a tie (it previously was only 2 points for a win). This was a response to a perceived willingness of teams to prefer the risk-averse strategy of playing for ties and to encourage going for the win, and indirectly, to play attacking, offensive-minded soccer. Along with the addition of the three-point basket in basketball, I think this was an ingenious way of improving the game by changing the incentives of teams, rather than to change the rules in such a manner as to try to directly change the game. The emphasis on giving more yellow cards during this world cup, regrettably, seems to have been a much less elegant innovation.
1) I don't like how much impact the officials have on the game (something you mention in the post). I can't think of another sport where the officials make such an obvious difference so regularly.
2) I don't have a "home team" in soccer. In the other major sports, there are teams I've grown up cheering for. Other than the U.S. national team, there aren't any soccer teams easy to pull for in most of the United States.
I enjoy watching soccer. It's just more difficult to follow closely than other sports.
Actually, what's really surprising isn't that the sport isn't big in America, it's that it's also yet to catch on, at least at the national-team level, in the two largest and most rapidly-developing nations on earth. India and the People's Republic of China have been conspicuously absent from the World Cup for many years. (Or at least the men's event; China has become one of the major powers in women's soccer. So, maybe 2010 is the year China finally cracks the men's World Cup field?)
I also like the idea of a public clock, just to bring a little more transparency into the game. Semi secret stoppage time gives too much discretion to the referree.
Re the World Cup and the MLS, I think WC will contribute to awareness and interest in the American soccer league (though it would have been better for MLS if the US national team had performed better). But my second biggest letdown this World Cup (after the US team performance), was watching the weakly played DC United - Kansas City Wizards game on Saturday night after watching the beautiful Argentina-Mexico game earlier in the day. Granted DC-KC were playing on a sloppy wet field that sometimes gets pressed into service for baseball, but the contrast in game quality shows how far MLS has to go.
There is more to this story than just "changing fashions," and to suggest that there are no identifiable rationales for why things are the way they are is intellectual laziness.
NASCAR rose to prominence on the back of specific actions taken by the France family to push NASCAR on an unsuspecting America. They leveraged their fans' brand loyalty to win broader corporate relationships, they expanded aggressively to non-core market tracks, and they promoted their perennial names while bringing in fresh young drivers as they created new fans. NASCAR has constantly made minor tweaks to its rules in order to keep the "game" exciting to the audience. While this was occurring, Indy racing effectively imploded, primarily due to greedy track owners and a huge influx of no-name drivers.
NHL rose to popularity for specific reasons and it has declined in popularity for several more. Should the league just throw its hands up in the air and do nothing, for there would be nothing they could do, or should they seek to identify the reasons why and what they can do to counteract them?
If soccer league officials take your pessimistic view, then they will never have the courage to make an effort to really reach out and create a fan base that will last.
While this is certainly true, I'm not sure how much weight a Supreme Court should give it, even if they "fully grasped" its significance.
While tradition is important, how should a court balance that importance against excluding those who can't partake in the tradition?
A local prominent club in my town used to exclude Jews. They also had their annual, traditional shrimp dinner. Now, they don't exclude Jews, and even have some Jewish members. They still have their annual, traditional shrimp dinner, which they don't change to a more Jew-friendly dish because it is "tradition". They are free to do that, of course. But it seems like had they included Jews back when the tradition got started, maybe they'd have a different tradition now, and "tradition" has just become a way to grandfather in part of that older exclusion.
If, in the olden days of golf, there was an active sentiment and desire to include all types of people -- including people like Casey Martin -- it is likely that the tradition would have developed differently.
As it is, I'm glad that "tradition" is important to lots of people, but I'm also glad that the Supreme Court doesn't give it controlling weight in its decisions.
Yeah, that's the part that's always eluded me. I can understand--and enjoy--the pleasures inherent in playing sports. Never have figured out why ahyone would want to watch them or talk about them.
Going to a bar full of supporters of a team for a game is quite an experience, one I recommend to everyone.
Well a couple of guys most have had eyes in the back of their head because they where facing the crowd the entire time. Plus I don't know how a lot of fans where able to see through the flags waving in front of them.
The game I went to was against the Revolution June 3rd. After I ate supper that night I even went to the 18th Amendment.
When a player grabs his shin or other body part in pain or otherwise complains about some offense, his possible injury should be checked out off the field by a competent medical person, whether or not an offender is penalized. During that time, a substitute may play in his place.
Although India has not been to the world cup, China qualified (and performend horribly) in 2002 (mostly b/c two Asian powers--Korea and Japan--qualified automatically as hosts).
BBC Article
India's poor showing in virtually every sport besides Cricket is puzzling to many (there was an ESPN Magazine article a few years back titled "None in a Billion" about this phenomenon). Despite this, football remains incredibly popular in the country, arguably outpacing cricket for fans.
From the BBC article linked above:
"In 1997 more than 130,000 people packed the Salt Lake stadium to see the game between East Bengal and Mohan Bagan, whose rivalry matches that of Celtic and Rangers in Glasgow."
I recall reports from the 2002 World Cup where thousands of angry fans went to a power plant to protest the constant outages that were depriving them of watching the beautiful game (although I can't find the article at the moment).
I think what you are saying is generally consistent with my observation--the difference in success between NASCAR and Indy racing is explainable not so much by the intrinsic differences between the sports, but rather the marketing issues you identify, which has tended to move NASCAR to the center of American sporting society and Indy racing toward the periphery. At least pre-Danica...
You don't watch much baseball, do you?
Well, there's the NBA. And, less egregiously, the NFL - this year's playoffs saw a number of bizarre and game-changing flags. (However, I think it was ingenious of the NFL to actually incorporate referee error into the game by allowing coaches to challenge certain calls.)
The diving in soccer is absurd, but it's not without comedy value. Especially when you're in a bar full of people shouting "Get up! That didn't hurt!" at the screen.
Those living even 50 miles south of me did not have the option I had. Very few, if any, cable systems carried OLN at a basic cable level (I define that as a cable channel I can receive without needing a cable box). Unless the NHL somehow cures their recto-cranial inversion, the NHL will soon be back to 12 teams clustered in the Northeast, upper Midwest, and Canada. Of course, that's not necessarily a bad thing.
The author of this post is correct to say that sports are essentially arbitrary tests of skill, but he did not mention the role of ethnic, religious or national identification in fomenting interest in a sport. In this sense, sport might even be thought to be war by proxy. This is patently evident in Constantinople's Nika riots of 532 AD, where politics were behind the rise of the 'blue' and 'green' chariot racing squads. Given that the lines of support are often drawn on political, ethnic, religious, national or regional grounds, what better sport in which to assert your superiority over others than one in which you are truly quite good? Of course, not all fans watch sports for conscious ethnonationalist reasons, but there may at least be some ulterior transference of values onto teams that earn them our loyalty. This prejudice of mine has roots that perhaps some of you can identify with.
From my experience as a Canuck NFL fan, lacking a local team, my friends and I always chose teams to support based on some feature that we saw in them, usually classy play or some perceived sense of the team being 'honorable'. Now, although I have enjoyed watching a couple world cup games this year, I cannot support any one side because the rules of soccer encourage behavior that I consider dishonorable (at least willfully deceptive). Whether or not fiat of the referees is tolerated, loved or despised, the fact remains that all teams gain tactical advantage by feigning injury and acting like malingering, truant children who 'sell' their condition to win a break (free kick, cards for opponents). This is similar to how hockey experienced a decade in which rules tendered tactical advantage to those who simply took skilled opponents out of the game. Look at the litany of victims of NJ Devils defensemen Scott Stevens and the untimely demise of Pat LaFontaine's career. The rules also favored the 'neutral zone' trap, in which the game descended into a predictable series of ho-hum plays, and the cadence of the game was destroyed. How could you respect winners in hockey, as they either bought all the best players in the league, beat the heck out of their opponents, or played the most monotonous 'cookbook' hockey - preying on the mistakes of others, rather than generating scoring chances? The NHL has since remedied the 'Stevens Smash Method' by calling more penalties, and it has restored the cadence of the game by eliminating the prohibition on two-line passes as well as the incentives to ice the puck (among other superb rule changes).
Thus, if my prejudices turn out to have rational merit and some basis in fact, the three most salient reasons for why soccer is picayune in North America are these:
1) It has a long way to go to supplant baseball, football, basketball and hockey (in Canada) in youth culture.
2) MLS and the US Soccer Team blow the monkey's uncle.
3) The rules of soccer advance values that North Americans do not like. That's why soccer players are rarely our heroes, but big, tough, 'sportsmanlike' QBs are (even if they are taking 15 medications to be that huge).
Note: I freely concede that terms like 'sportsmanlike' and 'honorable' are continuous variables, which again vary with one's background. Nevertheless, I think prevailing value differences can and do exist even in pluralist societies, so this point should not invalidate my argument. That is, if this expose of prejudice can be considered an argument.
And I dislike cricket - why ? Because its not constant. It stops and starts like baseball. I have not gotten into watching pro-football (soccer) teams play on TV (Manchester, Barcelona, etc). But the World Cup is a unique spectacle because you see teamwork and nations playing each other. And with religous fervour. The idea is to promote the game in each continent. And therefore you can only have winners in each. Who finally play each other. Its nice to see underdogs playing a surprise attack. The reason (I think) that Americans dont like playing football is the mindset they have. If you're entire society frowns upon soccer as being gay/for women, then how do you expect change. I think it would be great to see the US win. But many americans are too busy finding fault with the game. And trying to improvise it. The world has accepted it and play by the rules. Like the Olympics (that americans excel in), just compete in fair play. Dont fake and set an eg. for others. Everyone will admire you for it.
Football (soccer) fans dislike faking too. Not all player do that. And when you're injured but see the crowd in waiting, you forget your pain. Unless its really beyond a point. Kick yourself in the shin/ankle and it will STUN you momentarily till you can "jump up again".
Americans do a lot of things differently although the alternative is better - here are egs. Metric/Imperial, Celcius/Fahreheit, 220V/110V, GSM/CDMA, Formula One/NASCAR. There are a lot of things the americans are incredibly good at. But they are not the best at everything, contrary to what some may like to believe. That's why you have Rolexes, Ferraris, Hondas, BMW's, Belgian choc, French wines (fantastic Californian wines - that's playing by the same rule). You have to realize that the sport trascends different cultures and continents for a reason - Africans, South Americans, Asians, Europeans. And now Americans. Show your team and country (and your children) some respect (they deserve) by seeing the sport for what it is. And try not to be condescending just because society has conditioned you to think so. Its the advertisers that benefit when american sport is constantly interrupted. In soccer, we dont want interruption because the last 30 secs of a game that is 0-0 can change. The reasoning of the cards is to prevent physical advantage and foul play. If a 6 ft 5" guy from Germany held a dimunitive Asian of 5ft 5 at bay or shoved him around, there would be no hope (and no interest). That is why nobody (except the americans) love American football. Otherwise, Rugby would have been World Cup rugby. And if you watch Strong Man (MetRx), the US is always there. But europeans dominate too. So when the world watches soccer, they dont want to see brutes scoring in game with large score numbers. They want edge-of-the-seat play till someone breaks through. Why does a score matter. What if the score was 15-15. That's the same as 0-0.When it becomes 1-0 on either side, the pressure to counter is much higher - psychologically too.
There is huge money internationally in professional soccer athletes. When the americans finally give in to reason and excel (and I really would like them too), I believe they might create role-models for their youth - who will definitely enjoy it the way its meant to be if the scorn of (american) society towards the sport goes away.