On Being a Soccer Fan in America

As you probably gathered from one of my previous posts, I am a soccer fan. I have been playing since I was 7 years old and have been interested in professional leagues for more than 20 years. I attended my first professional soccer game in the early 1980s. It was an NASL match between the Jacksonville Teamen and the Fort Lauderdale Strikers. The game went into overtime and the Teamen won in a shootout (NASL-style, 5 seconds to score from 35 yards out with only a keeper defending).

Quick aside--Is there anything more rediculous than moving a sports franchise and not renaming the team? A new name is especially needed when the team has a name that is based on something that is unique for a specific city or region. In the above example, the Teamen used to play in New England, where the name made sense. In Jacksonville, FL, the name sounds like a play on the fact that sweet tea is a popular, and delicious, drink. With the exception of teams like the Raiders, where the name is the team, a new name should accompany a team to its new city. Now back to my original rant.

I enjoy checking up on the results from the European leagues and especially the English Premier League. My favorite team is Arsenal. This is because I played on a team called Arsenal when I was 11. I also happen to be a fan of the more traditional American sports (Basketball and Football). Almost every soccer fan I know happens to be a fairly knowledgeable overall sports fan and also loves at least one of the "major" American sports.

The reason for this post is to clear up many inaccuracies that I still hear regarding soccer in the American sports media. While driving home, I can usually expect at least once a week to here the local sports talk yackers talk about how much soccer sucks or how it is "being crammed down our throats". This tactic, of course, elicits a soccer fan to try and come to the rescue and the hosts get to have fun at the poor guy's expense and then pat themselves on the back for showin him up.

A common harangue I hear against soccer is that no one cares unless the World Cup is on. This argument is silly. Interest in any event peaks when the biggest and most important games are played. Regular season college basketball and professional basketball ratings generally suck. But once you get to March Madness or the NBA Finals, the ratings increase and more casual fans take an interest. The same is true for soccer. People recognize that the most important tournament is the World Cup and those inclined to do so tune in to watch. When the US played in the 2002 World Cup in South Korea and Japan, their games were played in the middle of the night on weeknights no less. During a time of day when your average viewer is likely unemployed, alcoholic, insomniac or in college, ESPN drew ratings for those games that were better than weekend broadcasts for supposedly "better" sports.

Another common argument against soccer is that it is boring. A soccer match is very similar to hockey or in some respects, baseball. Like baseball, at any time, something could happen, so you have to pay attention so that you don't miss it. Soccer is not a good sport for TV primarily because the most important part of the game is what is happening away from the ball. Much like hockey, players are constantly trying to move to open space and hoping that the teammate with the ball can deliver it to them. When I watch a match, most of the time I am anticipating the next pass and hoping the string of events needed for success will play out. The anticipation is the most exciting part of a soccer game for most fans.

My other counter to the boring argument is that most sports, TV programs, or other performances for which you are not a fan are indeed boring. People who don't like golf consider watching the Masters to be a chore. Similarly, if you don't like reality TV, Survivor is probably not for you. Most of these "experts" who say that soccer is boring are not fans of the game and are not qualified to give an analysis of the sport. They are welcome to their opinions, but you know what they say about opinions....

Another argument I have heard recently is that while soccer is popular among kids, these participants fail to remain interested into adulthood. The main fallacy with this argument is that you are comparing participation with interest. Of course most people who play soccer through high school don't play after. They get jobs and have families and don't necessarily have time to commit to play a team sport. Lots of folks take up solitary exercise regimes to stay in shape. I guarantee you that the same is true for basketball, football and baseball. Furthermore, kids happen to enjoy and participate in lots of other activities that don't necessarily continue through adulthood. A large number of kids in America own a bike at some point before going to college. While in college, many find bicycles to be useful means of transportation in getting around campuses that often do not allow cars. After college, most people do not ride bikes. I have never heard anyone talk about how bicycles fail to hold interest into adulthood. And by the way, the Tour de France happens to be the only race that Americans even know or remotely care about throughout the year. Since it is the premier event for cycling, this is not a surprising outcome.

Finally, I believe that most sports fans enjoy sampling a taste of different sports from time to time. Most Olympic sports are not popular outside of the context of the Olympics. Every once in a while, I find it refreshing to learn something new about a different sport and read about people who probably won't make millions of dollars in their sport. I certainly enjoy the break of hearing Self-Important Star #2 from New York talk about how undervalued he is. I also think that sampling different sports keeps you interested in your "core" sports. For example, if football were played year-round, we wouldn't anticipate the start of the season as much. Soccer season is one of the ways I fill the void from basketball season to the start of football season.

So enjoy whatever sports you like to participate in, watch those you find compelling and do yourself a favor and ignore the sports talk hosts when they try to bait an argument. It just means that the supposedly "interesting" sports must really not be compelling at the moment if talking about how uninteresting other sports are seems like a viable topic for their show.