Football or in USA 'soccer'

[kidmeister]

why do americans not like football?The worlds most popular sport?Seems they've been trying for decades to get the sport off the ground overthere but it never seems to catch on.Wondering if any of the americans on here would be able to sum up what is wrong with the sport??

 

[Ditcho]

This sounds like asking why didn't the Russians prefer to drink Gin and drink vodka.

 

[marksmith7]

I've studied this quite a bit. The results I have come up with have to do with a few things.
1. Most US sports make the majority of their money through TV contracts. Soccer is not often televised. When it is televised the dates and times are generally unknown to the audience. Football (NFL) is on every Sunday most Americans cant tell you what date soccer matches are. Because Soccer fails to net a huge amount of money through TV contracts the sport cant really be built up to the way it should be in the states.

 

[marksmith7]

2. Fantasy Sports in the US are huge. People like the competition football (NFL) allows them to have with their friends and family. Think of shows like The League on FX. The ability to trash talk with a well built fantasy team to your friends makes even uninteresting games worth watching. Soccer doesn't have nearly the statistics to build quality fantasy leagues.

 

[marksmith7]

3. The scoring system in soccer is extremely anti-climatic. That is one thing that makes the sport boring. Watching a 90+ minute game that ends in a draw a lot of the time leaves the fans with something to be desired. All US games should go into PK's at the end to determine a winner. Football (NFL) has a tie once every few seasons and when they do fans on both sides after the game usually say "That Sucked"

 

[marksmith7]

4. Nobody likes to watch a player dive. Seeing someone go down cheaply in the box and getting a PK for it ruins an entire game. Soccer officials need to start suspending players who exaggerate falls, especially in the box.

 

[marksmith7]

Lastly keep in mind that when the World cup happens later this year Americans will be rooting for the USA. Think about why; 1 The games will be televised and properly advertised so everyone will know when they are on. 2. Most of the games will not end in ties. 3. There will to an absolute certainty be massive complaints from US fans that someone dove.

 

[marksmith7]

So every time an American gives me a hard time about liking the NFL way more than soccer, I simply respond by asking him when are the soccer games on? They 99% of the time will look at me dumbfounded, at which point I ask when football (NFL) is on when they promptly answer Sundays.

 

[steveiam]

Americans don't understand a game where you can have a draw..

 

[marksmith7]

Americans don't understand a game where you can have a draw..

It's not that we don't understand, its just that we think it sucks

 

[steveiam]

It's not that we don't understand, its just that we think it sucks

True...

 

[RichL]

according to a 2009 US census (says Wikipedia) football is the third most played team sport in the US (after basketball then baseball). so maybe you like playing it but not watching it ?

 

[OzExorcist]

FWIW it's not just Americans - we're very much the same here in Australia.

Speaking for myself, the main reason I don't like soccer is because it's interminably boring. Long, long periods of tedium punctuated by someone scoring the occasional goal.

There's likely a few other issues too: for example, in a lot of ways the game has an image problem. Many people who don't know the game associate it with hooliganism and riots at matches, more so than pretty much any other sport.

Time differences make it hard for international TV audiences to watch European matches live too, which will hurt its popularity in places like the USA.

And then yes, there's the diving. Personally I find it to be the best thing about the game, but that's just because it injects a bit of amusement into the experience. It makes a joke of the game if you're trying to take it seriously, and I can't think of any other sport where diving is embraced so widely.