Wynalda tell hime Rome to suck his ****!

Pretty embarrassing, indeed.

 

I think it says more about soccer than it does about televised poker.

 

The high school baseball (and softball) season starts in late May. The state tournament ends in late July/early August.

 

If soccer were invented in the US some 150 years ago and baseball were the worldwide game, soccer would be as baseball is today in the US and vice-versa.

 

Dooly, I'm sorry but you are way off base on the 60-80K stadia. Where are they existing?
Let's see some recent numbers:
Everton v. Arsenal - Attendance 37,162
Tottenham v. Reading - Attendance 36,067
Reading v. Portsmouth - Attendance 24,087
Blackburn v. West Ham - Attendance 18,591

So, let's look at Blackburn. They play in the EPL. By that very definition they have a more passionate fanbase in a country, England, that loves soccer. Yet, their average attendance is 21,093.

Now, this number doesn't say that soccer isn't popular in England. What it says is that getting 20K per game, even in the biggest market in the world, is an acceptable number. At some point the league will grow beyond this, but that takes time and patience.

Does it really? More people in America watch American Idol than they do the news. A lot of people are interested in a lot of inane things. It doesn't mean the product is poor. It just means, with the proper hook, people will watch anything.

 

I understand your point, but I'll say the difference is that even in youth football, you're going to get hit and sometimes by kids that are bigger than you.
Klosterman's take (and I think he's right) is that soccer is the safe option for that group of kids who don't care about sports in general, want to get the parents off their back until high school rolls around and don't want to be humiliated while playing. There are kids that certainly enjoy soccer, are skilled and are competitive, but there are kids that would rather be doing something else.
For those kids, it's the safe option because missing a shot is not like striking out three times per game (believe me I know), airballing free throws or fumbling the ball. In soccer, missing shots is expected because success happens - about what? - one, two or three times out of 40-90 minutes of play. So successful plays (in the minds of most Americans, I would think that means goals) take up a couple of minutes. Then the other 38-88 minutes is taken up by missed opportunities and running around.
I'm sure there are other explanations, but how else do you explain that there are millions of youth soccer players but few fans of the MLS? Those numbers of youth players isn't translating into soccer fans for some reason.
I'm not a soccer hater, by the way. I'm just pointing out a possible explanation.

 

I think something that goes overlooked is the number of professional clubs and the structure of soccer around the world. England is about the same size as Florida, and yet it has four fully professional divisions, and other divisions below that. For every Manchester United there is a Swindon Town in the second division that gets 7,000 a game.

Premier League teams are averaging 34,000 a game, but that goes from Manchester United, who average 75,828 whenever they're at home to Wigan Athletic, who get 17,598 at home because of their location and funds. There are only two teams in the Premier League with stadiums of over 60,000 capacity, Man Utd. and Arsenal, with Liverpool going to join them. Newcastle United might be another that goes for it with its capacity being over 50,00 right now. But the number of clubs and the number of people in the country mean that 60,000 seat stadiums are, for the most part, impractical.

By the way, the youth soccer players I know and cover are more fans of the Premier League or La Liga than MLS, but that doesn't mean they won't watch it.

 

Believe me, there are kids playing every sport who are doing it to please their parents, or to get their parents off their back, baseball most of all, if the demographic numbers and the empty fields are any indication. The notion that soccer is the place for the sports-impaired is a) stupid, and b) belied almost every weekend. Kids seem to be having more fun, and I've seen a lot more kids kicking a ball around a field on their own than I've seen hitting a baseball these days.

 

That's something else MLS has to overcome. No one can dispute that the MLB, NBA, NFL and NHL offer the world's best at their respective sports (you could argue about the NBA), but the MLS is different.

If you really love soccer, you know that a better brand of soccer is being played overseas. You're basically rooting for a second-tier league (along with every other league that's not English, Spanish, Italian or German). Although, it's still a solid level of soccer. I enjoy watching it. But still....

MLS snobbery is a big, big problem.

 

AGAIN, you need to be reminded.

Yours is a minority viewpoint.

Unless you can look at things from the viewpoint of the majority, your outlook has limited validity.

And baseball's still hangin' on pretty darn well through the MAJORITY of the country that still has patches of grass.

Of course, you're probably not too big on patches of grass, either.

 

True but, my whole point is this. The way the NBA is perceived on this site is that it's on the decline. It's actually the complete opposite.

 

Then find proof that the NBA isn't, and stop generalizing from your very narrow group of friends, Chuck.