How popular is soccer?? In an experiment inspired by the readers of Bill Simmons, I decided to consult the Google results. Type in David Beckham, and you will get fourteen and a half million results. That is not counting another 5 million results for the query "David Beckham pictures". Ronaldinho? 22.5 million results. Same for Pele, who is 68 years old. Kaka? 24.5 million. I haven't even heard of that guy. Zidane? 13 million. Type in "Manchester United" and you will find 31.8 million results (compared to only 27 million for the word "Mohammad"). Compare these numbers with some other world-famous athletes: Michael Phelps yields only 7.2 million results (along with 177,000 for "Michael Phelps bong"). Tiger Woods, Roger Federer, Alex Rodriguez, and LeBron James? 11 million, 6 million, 4.9 million, and 5.8 million results respectively. 68-year-old Pele holds up well to some world-famous retired athletes as well. Michael Jordan yields 10.9 million results. Mohammad Ali? 7.2 million. I typed in every world-famous athlete I could think of and no one else comes anywhere close. And if the New York Yankees were the Manchester United of American sports, wouldn't the phrase "New York Yankees" have more than 8.9 million results? Not that this is an exact measure of popularity, but I still find these results staggering, and they offer some kind of proof that, for whatever reason, soccer is by far and away the most popular sport in the world.
But why? Why is this sport so popular to watch? I played soccer for many years, and I will not deny that it is fun to play. The universality, affordability, relative safety, and simplicity of the sport would make it widespread as an activity, but these factors do not necessarily extend to fandom, or else all Americans would be obsessed with dodgeball, tag, and bowling, and we wouldn't like sports as complicated and dangerous as football, expensive as ice hockey, or unique as baseball (the only other sport I know of where the defense is holding the ball is cricket). For the life of me I cannot figure out what makes soccer so universally appealing to watch. So, I have come to this conclusion. I, as an American, am just not wired to like soccer (or, everyone else is programmed to like soccer). It just doesn't compute in our heads. Americans love their sports, no one can deny that. But, I think that any venture involving selling the sport of soccer in America will inevitably fail because we are who we are, and this is why:
1. We like to see high scores. You cannot empirically deny the sayings pitching/defense wins championships. It does, and the examples are endless. Just this past year, the Phillies won the world series with the 6th best pitching staff in baseball. Who had the best defenses in basketball and football last year? The world champion Celtics, and the Super Bowl winning Pittsburgh Steelers. Steeler fans and National League diehards will tell you that they would rather watch their defense wreak havoc and their pitchers dominate than watch their teams flat outscore the opposition. But that doesn't mean we don't like to see a few touchdowns, home runs, or three-pointers every game. We do. Our favorite players are quarterbacks and home run hitters. We want to see the video-game stats in basketball. Sure, having a stifling defense is fun, and you will probably win plenty of games, but the chance to see Kobe Bryant score 80 points on a given night puts butts in the seats in Los Angeles. Even hockey's popularity is growing again, thanks in large part to rule changes designed to increase scoring. The point is that no American would have the patience for a game in which 3 goals scored is above average. It just wouldn't happen.
2. Tough = Sexy. It's not a coincidence that the most polarizing athletes in America are the good looking finesse players. Find me a sports fan outside of New York who likes Jeter, or outside of New England that likes Tom Brady. Take players like Cal Ripken Jr or Joe Montana or Michael Jordan, someone who epitomizes toughness, competitiveness, and a willingness to sacrifice their bodies for the W, and they are, at the very least, universally respected. We have romanticized the dirty uniform and the eye black so that universal popularity relates directly to perceived toughness. In soccer, it pays to be a Nancy. Take a dive in the box and earn your team a penalty kick, and boom, you got yourself a 1-0 win. Watching soccer players flop around and whine for fouls repulses me as an American sports fan. Here, a perceived foul starts some kind of discourse and they re-watch the replays and discuss and argue and fight. Meanwhile, the player is either still on the ground writhing around, or crying at the referee. None of that would ever stand in American sports, where they leagues fine and the media lambasts players and coaches for their slightly disparaging post-game comments, over the top drama and celebrations, and any strange on-field antics.
3. Stats. Americans love stats. Our embracing of baseball as the "national pastime" is certainly in part due to its ability to be quantified with an accessible and understandable box score. There are no stats in soccer!! There is nothing to analyze! How would you expect to compete in an ESPN-centric culture, if there is nothing to talk about? I believe that this is one of hockey's problems. I saw a stat during a soccer game saying that a certain player had a certain number of goals, and a certain number of "touches" in that game. Touches? That's the best they could do? Could you imagine if someone tried to count that for basketball?? Or hockey?? It would be absurd.
4. I think that there is something about the international aspect of soccer that turns Americans off to it. Football, Basketball, and Baseball were all invented and perfected in the United States, and America's best are better than that of any other nation. And, while hockey wasn't invented in the United States, the NHL is still the best hockey league in the world, and organizations like the Bruins, Rangers, and Canadiens have been around for almost a century. We don't like that the MLS is a crappy league, and we don't like that our national team gets beat soundly. We also don't like the fact that it would be a culture imparted onto us; it's the same reason we don't like rugby or cricket or the French.
So, this turned into a bit of a rant, but it serves its purpose: I am officially announcing my retirement from being a soccer fan. I don't think they will miss me, and I probably won't miss them. I don't know whether the world is weird because they like soccer or we are weird because we won't accept it, but it's just another part of this strange culture I have experienced. I would love to hear people's thoughts on this, because I sure can't figure it out.
No comments:
Post a Comment