U.S. soccer carves out a niche

[AreliusII]

· Nick Hornby, Fever Pitch (1992). Hornby is the English novelist, author of High Fidelity, About a Boy, and most recently, How to be Good. But first, he wrote this book, about his life as a fan of London's predominate soccer team, Arsenal. This memoir relives the highs and lows of fandom in ways that any sports fan can relate to. And any music fan. And anyone who's ever cared about anything that, in the grand scheme of things, is pretty damn unimportant, but still, easy and fun to obsess over (that last sentence will be my working definition of popular culture for the time being).
· Joe McGinniss, The Miracle of Castel di Sangro (1999). McGinniss is a well-known, successful American author of non-fiction prose. He became addicted to soccer during the 1994 World Cup. By 1996, he turns down an advance of one million dollars to cover the O.J. Simpson trial, preferring instead to go to a remote corner of Italy to follow a lower division Italian soccer team that gained promotion to the second-highest level of Italian soccer.
· Dave Ungrady, Unlucky (1999). The author, 40 years old, trains with a D-3 team, The Northern Virginia Royals, traveling to games by bus, working out, living with kids half his age. Why? Because it's a hard sport to get out of your system.
· Des McKeown, Don't Give Up the Day Job (2001). Des plays in the Scottish lower divisions and works for the Bank of Scotland. His deeds on the pitch are recorded (and criticized harshly) in the daily press. Still, he continues to play even though his fulltime job more than meets his needs. Wonder why?
· Andy Dougan, Dynamo: Defending the Honor of Kiev (2001). Dynamo Kiev was one of the most successful teams in Eastern Europe through the 1920s and 30s. When the Nazis invaded, they disbanded the team. Most of the players found work in a bakery and reformed as F.C. Start. Malnourished, unable to train properly, they kept playing. Eventually, teams of Nazis would play them. Dynamo Kiev would win. Nazi officers would tell the team to lose if they knew what's good for them. Dynamo Kiev would win. Eventually, during a match with a Luftwaffe team, German guards came into the locker room at half time and told the former Dynamo players to lose, or they would be executed. Dynamo Kiev refused to capitulate to the fascists and won the game. The players were executed. If you can read this story without being moved, you have no soul. To this day, the players are commemorated in plaques and statues around Dynamo Kiev's stadium. No one gives a rat's ass about the names of the Nazis they defeated. And this true story refutes my earlier definition of popular culture.

[AreliusII]

http://espn.go.com/page2/s/davies/020617.html

Unlike 1994, this game is so beautifully poised to take off in the States to a level it has never attained before. Do I expect it to unseat basketball, helmet football or baseball? No. Can it be as big as hockey? Yes, I think it can.
Here's why:
10 reasons soccer is poised to break through in the States like never before

Unlike the press room, U.S. fans of all stripes could be found in the crowd.
1. In a more outward-looking country, and what we all know is a much smaller world, the United States is starved of sports it can compete against the rest of the world in. The Ryder Cup comes along every two years, the Summer and Winter Olympics every four. How much fun is it truly to watch the Dream Team dunk on a bunch of 6-foot Aussies and Luc Longley?
2. The United States loves heroes and underdogs, hates foreigners who trash the USA -- it is really fun watching these underdogs, these heroes, beat those bastards. Especially the young ones like Donovan, DaMarcus Beasley and O'Brien. When has U.S. soccer ever had truly young stars to get behind?
3. Every new immigrant who comes to this country -- and we're still coming -- is almost certain to know, care about and watch their football more than any other sport. We breed.
4. Youth soccer is tremendously well-organized in the United States -- chances are, your kid plays and thinks it's pretty cool. If this game can now get into the inner cities, East Los Angeles, South Central L.A. and the Bronx -- watch out.
5. The good old NCAA is the best developmental infrastructure for football anywhere in the world. In fact, there's nothing like it anywhere. Look for the college game, which produced Reyna and Arena, to continue to produce great players and start to make headway on television.
6. And talking of television, ultimately the driver of all sports, the coverage on U.S. TV of the top club teams featuring the top players in the world is already superb. On any weekend, you can watch top games from the English Premier League and the Champions League (the elite European club competition), and almost every big international match these days seems to be available on DirecTV or digital cable. As digital and satellite television inevitably proliferates, soccer is becoming easier and easier to find.
Moreover, these rights are still cheap, a bargain for ESPN and Fox compared with the rights for basketball, baseball and football. Look for these companies to double down on soccer over the next year in light of this World Cup. The ratings for ESPN have been outstanding and lucrative. Very young, very upscale, very desirable.
7. Major League Soccer continues to improve in every respect: play, core fan base and TV coverage. Yes, the league might find international offers for Donovan, Beasley and Mathis hard to match after the World Cup, but if this league continues to nurture talent like these three, the rest of the football world will take notice and so will the fans at home. Moreover, this league is superbly run, salaries are in check, and give it a few years and owners will be lining up. If "Millionaire" works in syndication, I know I will be.
8. Are you noticing the companies advertising in soccer? Nike, adidas, Coca-Cola, Mastercard, Toshiba, McDonalds. These are companies that have considerable amounts vested in the success of the sport in the United States -- and none of them will be disappearing any time soon.
9. There is no doubt about it, outside of NASCAR and golf featuring Tiger Woods, ratings and attendance for the major U.S. sports is declining. Overpaid, pampered athletes, free agency, general thuggery, exorbitant ticket prices, less entertaining games ... U.S. sports fans are finding it more and more difficult to relate to the big stars. That does not apply to U.S. soccer -- we all know people like these guys.
10. A number of my friends in the States to whom I have introduced to the game over the last couple of years have remarked on how much quicker and better the game appears to be these days. It's true, football is improving. Many sports have not benefited from better technology, better training techniques, improved strength and faster pace -- tennis, for example -- but football is better for it. Teams retain a perceptible shape, it is not chaos as it once was, set pieces are exquisitely executed, the fitness levels are superb. Moreover, the best players in the world have consolidated in the best leagues -- England, Spain, Italy, Germany (France and Holland a rung below) -- which has massively improved those leagues and the Champions League and UEFA competitions between them. It has also furthered parity in the international game, giving players from smaller nations the chance to play alongside the best in the world -- the vast majority of players in this World Cup play for club teams in those leagues. And look for those few who don't to be playing there soon.
And if you think that football is just not American, then perhaps you could tell me what American is. Take a walk down the streets of downtown Manhatan or Chicago or L.A. and point out the Americans to me. These are not the Cleavers. The country has changed. It's time to get with the program, and that program is going to be World Cup football. I am convinced that this has already been the most successful World Cup the United States has ever seen. The next, in Germany, far friendlier for U.S. television, will be even bigger. Perhaps World Cup football will be the exception, a great event every four years that the United States gets into and then says goodbye to until next time. I'd take that. But part of me thinks Manchester United and the New York-New Jersey MetroStars are going to be selling a few more football shirts.

[Rover]

Too much to respond to in this novella, so I'll just say that although the writer takes some liberties I wouldn't take with language and defensiveness, I'd agree with the basic premise.

Markovits/Hellerman present a lot of data and do a fair job of analysis, but they're too focused on why soccer won't make it, always returning to cultural exceptionalism. In fact, the development of large scale spectator sports as we know them is a fairly recent phenomenon (past 100-120 years), and soccer was edged out early because Harvard chose the gridiron game. The powers that be in American sports then marginalized soccer to the point where it was a virtual unknown to the majority of the country.

The same interests want soccer to stay marginalized, but it's now out of their control.

Whenever I get the inevitable "but it's not American" comment when discussing soccer with the uninitiated, I ask them to do the following:

Name a sport invented by an American, in America.

They go through the usual list, and I refute each one. The correct answer is volleyball. (I admit it's somewhat of a trick question, but I can explain for anyone who wants to know. Football, baseball, hockey, and basketball all have non-American origins, just like soccer. Occasionally someone says Lacrosse, and I don't argue although it's real origins are in what is now Canada).

The point is this--we've all been sold on what is "American" and what is not, but when it comes to sports, just about everything comes from somewhere else (kind of like the country itself when you think about it). A sport becomes "American" when Americans embrace it--and that's what is happening with soccer now.

[clarette]

I just had this major epiphany -- the anti-soccer position is inherently sexist!

Little girls in this country can't grow up dreaming of playing baseball or American football, but they CAN grow up dreaming of playing soccer. Baseball and American football aren't even options at the high-school level for women.

However, as the mainstream sportswriters in this country continue to hold onto the viewpoint that soccer is not a valid sport and focus their attention on sports which cannot be played by women within national organizations, they invalidate the experiences of thousands (millions, maybe, I don't know) of women and girls who play or have played the sport competitively.

We continually receive the message that our sport(s) -- I think this could be applied to other sports as well, thinking back to the days when gymnastics was considered a "Commie sport" -- aren't "real" sports, that they are "un-American". We are continually told by the mainstream sports media in this country that, not only are we third-class athletes, we aren't "real" Americans.

Now I'm really irate. I need a newspaper column of my own!

[Jim Umber]

Originally Posted by clarette

I just had this major epiphany -- the anti-soccer position is inherently sexist!

Little girls in this country can't grow up dreaming of playing baseball or American football, but they CAN grow up dreaming of playing soccer. Baseball and American football aren't even options at the high-school level for women.

However, as the mainstream sportswriters in this country continue to hold onto the viewpoint that soccer is not a valid sport and focus their attention on sports which cannot be played by women within national organizations, they invalidate the experiences of thousands (millions, maybe, I don't know) of women and girls who play or have played the sport competitively.

We continually receive the message that our sport(s) -- I think this could be applied to other sports as well, thinking back to the days when gymnastics was considered a "Commie sport" -- aren't "real" sports, that they are "un-American". We are continually told by the mainstream sports media in this country that, not only are we third-class athletes, we aren't "real" Americans.

Now I'm really irate. I need a newspaper column of my own!

😠 You go get'em! Yeah! Your sport is the One True Sport. You are a worthy person, not just a 😲 Gurul! They are wrong to treat you so! 😠

[Deuce]

Originally Posted by clarette

I just had this major epiphany -- the anti-soccer position is inherently sexist!

Little girls in this country can't grow up dreaming of playing baseball or American football, but they CAN grow up dreaming of playing soccer. Baseball and American football aren't even options at the high-school level for women.

However, as the mainstream sportswriters in this country continue to hold onto the viewpoint that soccer is not a valid sport and focus their attention on sports which cannot be played by women within national organizations, they invalidate the experiences of thousands (millions, maybe, I don't know) of women and girls who play or have played the sport competitively.

We continually receive the message that our sport(s) -- I think this could be applied to other sports as well, thinking back to the days when gymnastics was considered a "Commie sport" -- aren't "real" sports, that they are "un-American". We are continually told by the mainstream sports media in this country that, not only are we third-class athletes, we aren't "real" Americans.

Now I'm really irate. I need a newspaper column of my own!

Somebody give that woman a newspaper column.
Here is a thought... an epiphany, if you will, Why not write and submit a column to Neil at Real Soccer News and see if he will publish you... that will give you an opportunity to voice your opinion and also to help get you into mainstream media if that is where you truly want to go!

Perfect!

PS. Rover... I have not seen your name on any columns for Real Soccer news... have you submitted any to Neil?

[montgjules]

Originally Posted by clarette

Now I'm really irate. I need a newspaper column of my own!

No. You just need a blog. Go to blogger.com :D