Welcome to the Big Leagues
I'm For: Kebabs, writing classes at work, Cubs come from behind victories, people posting comments on my blogs, seeing the mountains on my way to work every day
I'm Against: Potatoes at every meal, flies, steroids fucking everything up, rereading blogs and finding grammatical errors, seeing an accident nearly every day I drive on the road
Soccer is the greatest sport in the World. Go ahead try to argue but you will be defeated, I am stubborn, loud, and I do not listen to others well when it comes to arguments. Because many of you will not pay attention to the rest of this I am going to pull out my trump card right now. Soccer is the best game in the World because the majority says so. The World says its the best sport and you can't argue with the majority.
Popularity contests aside, Soccer is a rare combination of passion, athleticism, and spectator friendly environments that lift it to the top of the sports podium. Here are my top 5 arguments for soccer (in no particular order).
1. Spectator friendly: The game is simple to follow, not tons of intricate rules and fouls that take a high level of involvement to understand. There are no illegal defenses, infield fly rules, or other obscure concepts to explain. Most fouls occur arround the action where the fans are watching, unlike football where a great play can be called back because of a holding penalty at the line of scrimmage. The most difficult concept to explain is offsides, which I am going to clear it up for you right now and put away the mystery. No offensive player can be behind the last defender when the ball is played into an offensive position. This prevents players from cherry picking and forces teams to be more creative in developing their attacks. (I think that they should alter the offsides rule to make it obsolete inside the 18 to encourage scoring but that is for another day). Most importantly, the game is a set length of time, no timeouts, no extra commercials. The last 2 minutes of a basketball game can last a half hour same thing for football. With soccer the game is 90 minutes barring extra time the game is over in two hours, every time.
2. Athleticism: Soccer is one of the greatest games of finess in the world. It combines speed and agility with tremendous dexterity of your total body. Rather than depening on hands, players have endless creative options with their body to manipulate the movement of the ball. If you have seen world class soccer players mess around with a ball your jaw will drop to the floor. Furthermore these are the greatest atheletes that the world have to offer, in nearly every nation the premier sport is soccer and if you are top athlete of appropriate build your whole life is Soccer.
3. Storylines: Soccer has the greatest rivalries in the world. Yankees vs. Sox, Avs vs. Redwings, Broncos vs. Raiders, have abselotuely nothing on Madrid vs. Barca, Utd. vs. City, AC vs. Inter. Nearly every team in Europe has a major rival and for some teams their entire season relies on these "derbies" pronouced darby. The games go well beyond players, coaches, or personal battles. There are social and political factors that go back into wars and boarderlines being drawn. Imagine the most intense college rivalry, and imagine that one of the schools bombed the other one and incarcerated half of the alumni. Now you have an idea of the intensity of some of the rivalries.
4. The environment: The only sports environment that comes close to international soccer matches are college sports. The problem is in most college sports venues over half of the stands are occupied by wealthy alumni who don't get up and cheer unless mandated by a jumbotron. Soccer stadiums are lively from start to finish and have creative chants, songs, and atomosphere that puts our Bull Shit chants and "Hey" song to shame.
5. Team Dynamics: Soccer is a true team game, it is not dominated by a few skill players like a pitcher, QB, or hockey goalie. Everyone must contribute and have a complete skill set of defending, passing, shooting, and fitness to play the game at a high level. Roles are not strictly segmented and delegated, everyone has the opportunity to be a hero in a game weather you are right back or center forward.
All that being said Soccer is the most poorly marketed sport in America. I would not even go so far to call it the fifth major sport in America. It's battling with Poker, Lacrosse, Nascar, Golf, and God knows what else for that title. American soccer has one of the worst marketing execution plans that I have ever seen. I was willing to turn around American soccer when I applied for a marketing internship after college, I still haven't heard from our friends in MLS and so I feel a rant coming on.
I went to a Colorado Rapids game (MLS) on Wednesday. The ticket was a gift from a co-worker who happens to be a Colorado Rapids cheerleader. (more on that later) The game was poorly attended I would guesstimate 8,000 fans in a cavernous 70,000 seat stadium. The environment was dead, I would have been more comfortable studying for a final exam than watching a soccer game in Mile High that night.
The MLS has gone through painstaking efforts to make sure the league is a success from a business standpoint. The league started out extremely financially conservative, pointing to a failed NASL (see the movie Once in a Lifetime about the New York Cosmos for more details on that). They adopted a salary cap and a communist ownership system where the contracts were owned by the league rather than individual teams. This meant no owners could go out and spend exorbitant amout for player talent and the league would do whatever possible to make the teams as equal and bland as possible. With special "considerations" for key markets like NY, LA, and DC. Player salaries started out at a modest $30,000 to $250,000 max. Numbers that have probably doubled in the past ten years.
As a business, MLS owners have stayed afloat and are begining to make strides on and off the field to create a better product. Teams are steadily improving, with reserve teams and developmental programs to generate home grown talent. Teams are building soccer specific stadiums which are increasing revenues, and creating more fan friendly atmospheres than the football mega stadiums. There are better owners acquiring teams who are willing to make financial investements to create a profitable venture.
The chief problem remains there are not butts in the seats, and there are not enough people watching on tv. The main reason is the atmosphere of the MLS in stadium and on TV stinks. Let me start with TV. Can we get some decent fucking commentary? I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to hear about the offsides rule and a yellow card like it is my first time watching the game. How many people in this country have played in or had a family member play soccer? It is the most popular recreational sport in the country! People know the fucking rules, and the people who don't sure as fuck aren't watching the MLS. It's a simple fact, lets acknowledge it and move on. Casual sports fans that suddenly adopt soccer as a sport will be able to pick up on the intricacies of offsides and fouls, they understand football and baseball don't they? Do we hear hockey commentators explain icing, offsides, or the penalty box every time there is an infraction? NO! because that would be fucking rediculous. They talk about the strategy, the action, the storylines, because they know the game and the intracies. Let's start to do that with soccer, and while we are at it get somebody who is compelling to speak. Chris Berman, Lee Corso, I don't fucking care there is someone better than Shep Messing thats for sure.
Fix the commentary and give me high quality HD ESPN camera work and my tv experience is perfect. The only thing that is left to be improved is the in field environment, which in turn will enhance the tv experience for casual fans.
It comes down to two things, getting butts in the seats and getting them engaged in the action on the field. Watching the game itself is only 1/3rd of the reason to go to the stadium and watch a sporting event. The on field product isn't great, but it isn't bad either these players are good and they can easily be made better by a few people getting up and involving themselves in the game. Most Americans understand soccer and can appreciate effort hustle and creative buildup. The fact is they are afraid to do so in a crowd where their voice will stand out. What these people need is beer and education.
Let's adopt the best things that work in America and Europe and make this an event. First of all cheerleaders, no offense Kelsey but they simply don't work in Soccer. In fact in all sports they pretty much don't fit, but in Soccer where there are no timeouts or breaks in action, they are particularly worthless. Drop em'
American native cheers: The Hey Song, The Wave, Zombie Nation, We Will Rock You, one or two traditional songs with the lyrics adapted for your team and we have something going.
Beer and food specials: If you had $2 Beer and Brat on Wednesday Nights that has to be worth 5,000 people alone. 5,000 not sober and cheery spectators. Find a way and Adopt it.
Heckling: Hell yes, avoid the whole racist bit but get us a homefield advantage. I garuntee that more players would want to be rooted against than to hear crickets for two hours.
Privatize Teams: It's American its capitalistic, and it is about time. The league is almost financially stable, keep a salary cap but lets let these owners build some teams with talent. Create dynasties, create rivalries. That is good for the game, hell Mark Cuban and George Steinbrenner are as entertaining to watch as the teams they own. English team Chelsea is nicknamed Chelski for their Russian Mafia connections, thats interesting!
Mascots and Team Names: We are not European, why the hell do we have team names like Real Salt Lake? or FC Dallas. Our american attempt were pretty pathetic too the Clash? Fusion? Eggh, if we can't think of an animal or color can we at least avoid foreign knock offs or complex nouns! Lets buy back some of the classics from the A-League, the Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, NY Cosmos they are regional and they are decent.
It is not going to happen overnight, but I expect some sincere efforts to be made and to continue to be pushed. It is coming slowly, and we might not be able to beat Football or Basketball but I expect us to at least compete with Hockey in 10 years. By then I will be in the marketing department of one of MLS' successful franchises.
In ten years, I told you so.
I'm Against: Potatoes at every meal, flies, steroids fucking everything up, rereading blogs and finding grammatical errors, seeing an accident nearly every day I drive on the road
Soccer is the greatest sport in the World. Go ahead try to argue but you will be defeated, I am stubborn, loud, and I do not listen to others well when it comes to arguments. Because many of you will not pay attention to the rest of this I am going to pull out my trump card right now. Soccer is the best game in the World because the majority says so. The World says its the best sport and you can't argue with the majority.
Popularity contests aside, Soccer is a rare combination of passion, athleticism, and spectator friendly environments that lift it to the top of the sports podium. Here are my top 5 arguments for soccer (in no particular order).
1. Spectator friendly: The game is simple to follow, not tons of intricate rules and fouls that take a high level of involvement to understand. There are no illegal defenses, infield fly rules, or other obscure concepts to explain. Most fouls occur arround the action where the fans are watching, unlike football where a great play can be called back because of a holding penalty at the line of scrimmage. The most difficult concept to explain is offsides, which I am going to clear it up for you right now and put away the mystery. No offensive player can be behind the last defender when the ball is played into an offensive position. This prevents players from cherry picking and forces teams to be more creative in developing their attacks. (I think that they should alter the offsides rule to make it obsolete inside the 18 to encourage scoring but that is for another day). Most importantly, the game is a set length of time, no timeouts, no extra commercials. The last 2 minutes of a basketball game can last a half hour same thing for football. With soccer the game is 90 minutes barring extra time the game is over in two hours, every time.
2. Athleticism: Soccer is one of the greatest games of finess in the world. It combines speed and agility with tremendous dexterity of your total body. Rather than depening on hands, players have endless creative options with their body to manipulate the movement of the ball. If you have seen world class soccer players mess around with a ball your jaw will drop to the floor. Furthermore these are the greatest atheletes that the world have to offer, in nearly every nation the premier sport is soccer and if you are top athlete of appropriate build your whole life is Soccer.
3. Storylines: Soccer has the greatest rivalries in the world. Yankees vs. Sox, Avs vs. Redwings, Broncos vs. Raiders, have abselotuely nothing on Madrid vs. Barca, Utd. vs. City, AC vs. Inter. Nearly every team in Europe has a major rival and for some teams their entire season relies on these "derbies" pronouced darby. The games go well beyond players, coaches, or personal battles. There are social and political factors that go back into wars and boarderlines being drawn. Imagine the most intense college rivalry, and imagine that one of the schools bombed the other one and incarcerated half of the alumni. Now you have an idea of the intensity of some of the rivalries.
4. The environment: The only sports environment that comes close to international soccer matches are college sports. The problem is in most college sports venues over half of the stands are occupied by wealthy alumni who don't get up and cheer unless mandated by a jumbotron. Soccer stadiums are lively from start to finish and have creative chants, songs, and atomosphere that puts our Bull Shit chants and "Hey" song to shame.
5. Team Dynamics: Soccer is a true team game, it is not dominated by a few skill players like a pitcher, QB, or hockey goalie. Everyone must contribute and have a complete skill set of defending, passing, shooting, and fitness to play the game at a high level. Roles are not strictly segmented and delegated, everyone has the opportunity to be a hero in a game weather you are right back or center forward.
All that being said Soccer is the most poorly marketed sport in America. I would not even go so far to call it the fifth major sport in America. It's battling with Poker, Lacrosse, Nascar, Golf, and God knows what else for that title. American soccer has one of the worst marketing execution plans that I have ever seen. I was willing to turn around American soccer when I applied for a marketing internship after college, I still haven't heard from our friends in MLS and so I feel a rant coming on.
I went to a Colorado Rapids game (MLS) on Wednesday. The ticket was a gift from a co-worker who happens to be a Colorado Rapids cheerleader. (more on that later) The game was poorly attended I would guesstimate 8,000 fans in a cavernous 70,000 seat stadium. The environment was dead, I would have been more comfortable studying for a final exam than watching a soccer game in Mile High that night.
The MLS has gone through painstaking efforts to make sure the league is a success from a business standpoint. The league started out extremely financially conservative, pointing to a failed NASL (see the movie Once in a Lifetime about the New York Cosmos for more details on that). They adopted a salary cap and a communist ownership system where the contracts were owned by the league rather than individual teams. This meant no owners could go out and spend exorbitant amout for player talent and the league would do whatever possible to make the teams as equal and bland as possible. With special "considerations" for key markets like NY, LA, and DC. Player salaries started out at a modest $30,000 to $250,000 max. Numbers that have probably doubled in the past ten years.
As a business, MLS owners have stayed afloat and are begining to make strides on and off the field to create a better product. Teams are steadily improving, with reserve teams and developmental programs to generate home grown talent. Teams are building soccer specific stadiums which are increasing revenues, and creating more fan friendly atmospheres than the football mega stadiums. There are better owners acquiring teams who are willing to make financial investements to create a profitable venture.
The chief problem remains there are not butts in the seats, and there are not enough people watching on tv. The main reason is the atmosphere of the MLS in stadium and on TV stinks. Let me start with TV. Can we get some decent fucking commentary? I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to hear about the offsides rule and a yellow card like it is my first time watching the game. How many people in this country have played in or had a family member play soccer? It is the most popular recreational sport in the country! People know the fucking rules, and the people who don't sure as fuck aren't watching the MLS. It's a simple fact, lets acknowledge it and move on. Casual sports fans that suddenly adopt soccer as a sport will be able to pick up on the intricacies of offsides and fouls, they understand football and baseball don't they? Do we hear hockey commentators explain icing, offsides, or the penalty box every time there is an infraction? NO! because that would be fucking rediculous. They talk about the strategy, the action, the storylines, because they know the game and the intracies. Let's start to do that with soccer, and while we are at it get somebody who is compelling to speak. Chris Berman, Lee Corso, I don't fucking care there is someone better than Shep Messing thats for sure.
Fix the commentary and give me high quality HD ESPN camera work and my tv experience is perfect. The only thing that is left to be improved is the in field environment, which in turn will enhance the tv experience for casual fans.
It comes down to two things, getting butts in the seats and getting them engaged in the action on the field. Watching the game itself is only 1/3rd of the reason to go to the stadium and watch a sporting event. The on field product isn't great, but it isn't bad either these players are good and they can easily be made better by a few people getting up and involving themselves in the game. Most Americans understand soccer and can appreciate effort hustle and creative buildup. The fact is they are afraid to do so in a crowd where their voice will stand out. What these people need is beer and education.
Let's adopt the best things that work in America and Europe and make this an event. First of all cheerleaders, no offense Kelsey but they simply don't work in Soccer. In fact in all sports they pretty much don't fit, but in Soccer where there are no timeouts or breaks in action, they are particularly worthless. Drop em'
American native cheers: The Hey Song, The Wave, Zombie Nation, We Will Rock You, one or two traditional songs with the lyrics adapted for your team and we have something going.
Beer and food specials: If you had $2 Beer and Brat on Wednesday Nights that has to be worth 5,000 people alone. 5,000 not sober and cheery spectators. Find a way and Adopt it.
Heckling: Hell yes, avoid the whole racist bit but get us a homefield advantage. I garuntee that more players would want to be rooted against than to hear crickets for two hours.
Privatize Teams: It's American its capitalistic, and it is about time. The league is almost financially stable, keep a salary cap but lets let these owners build some teams with talent. Create dynasties, create rivalries. That is good for the game, hell Mark Cuban and George Steinbrenner are as entertaining to watch as the teams they own. English team Chelsea is nicknamed Chelski for their Russian Mafia connections, thats interesting!
Mascots and Team Names: We are not European, why the hell do we have team names like Real Salt Lake? or FC Dallas. Our american attempt were pretty pathetic too the Clash? Fusion? Eggh, if we can't think of an animal or color can we at least avoid foreign knock offs or complex nouns! Lets buy back some of the classics from the A-League, the Seattle Sounders, Portland Timbers, NY Cosmos they are regional and they are decent.
It is not going to happen overnight, but I expect some sincere efforts to be made and to continue to be pushed. It is coming slowly, and we might not be able to beat Football or Basketball but I expect us to at least compete with Hockey in 10 years. By then I will be in the marketing department of one of MLS' successful franchises.
In ten years, I told you so.
posted by IrishZag at 9:20 PM
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