It’s that time again, once every four years, when nations from around the globe gather…
… to ponder why Americans don’t like soccer.* None of the typical explanations are compelling. Thus I rant, first in a series, in part because it will tweak eric, tongue firmly in cheek, and you may talk about games that you’re watching in comments if you like, or you may rant back:
The explanation: “Soccer would be popular in the U.S., but it can’t be televised profitably because there are no natural breaks for advertisements.”
The attraction: It cleverly posits that the simple sport is being kept down by evil American capitalism and the pursuit of the Almighty Dollar.
The problem: Oh please. First, the plausibility of this explanation seems to rely on the twin assumptions that a) the only viable advertising scheme is the one used in the NFL, which relies on lots of breaks in the action (yet we somehow manage to televise hockey and basketball) and b) none of the societies in which soccer is popular have television advertisements or any interest in making money from the sport, presumably because, as is traditional in World Cup-related short ads, the overwhelming impression of soccer in the rest of the world is that everyone plays in bare feet with balls made of old turnips, except for Beckham, at least once he married Posh Spice.
Yet, as a younger woman, I had to ask a friend why, though he supported Chelsea, his kit said “Fly Emirates” across the front.
Second, the plausibility of this explanation requires belief in the proposition “Americans can’t figure out how to make money from something.” Think about this. Let it simmer. We are the land of the Free and the Home of Billy the Big-Mouthed Bass. Someone is making millions on the goddamn Lolcats. I’m sure we could figure out how to make money from televising soccer were there the interest in doing so.
More later…
*Yes, I’m calling the game “soccer.” I’m American. That’s what it’s called here. I know that in other countries they use terms that translate to “football”, but I don’t see why that should affect me much, as I’m not normally in the habit of modifying American English to be direct translations of phrases in foreign languages. Moreover, I don’t care what the English call it; if it’s dark and my car won’t start in the parking lot, I’m looking under the hood with a flashlight. We’re supposed to be separated by a common language.**
** “Because there’s a fucking “h” in it.”
The Edge of the American West 
49 comments
June 16, 2010 at 8:10 am
silbey
Yes, I’m calling the game “soccer.” I’m American. That’s what it’s called here. I know that in other countries they use terms that translate to “football”, but I don’t see why that should affect me much, as I’m not normally in the habit of modifying American English to be direct translations of phrases in foreign languages. Moreover, I don’t care what the English call it; if it’s dark and my car won’t start in the parking lot, I’m looking under the hood with a flashlight. We’re supposed to be separated by a common language.**
Touche.
June 16, 2010 at 8:42 am
Sir Charles
Not to be pedantic — oh hell, it’s totally to be pedantic — but the Chelsea fan would have “Samsung” on his shirt. London rivals Arsenal sport the “Fly Emirates” logo.
Yes, I have confirmed that I am not a true American by writing the above.
Amusingly enough, when my wife was purchasing a jersey for my son of his favorite English team, she actually bypassed the genuine article because it did not occur to her that the official shirt would be one where the team logo is a tiny crest, completely dwarfed by the corporate sponsor’s logo, in this case, an on-line gambling site.
Those Euro-socialists.
June 16, 2010 at 8:54 am
dana
Not back in 2001, they didn’t.
June 16, 2010 at 9:06 am
Jake
The way for Americans to monetize soccer is really pretty simple: The U.S. team has to win. If there’s anything that’s consistent about the American Sporting Character ™, it’s that we love sports that allow us to wipe the floor with the teams from all of those funny, hard-to-pronounce countries. We have a real problem staying interested in sports in which we lose to Grand Fenwick.
Once that hurdle is crossed, I think the conventions that have served the rest of the world so well in separating fans from their money will go over well here. Hell, we’ll improve on ’em. It’s my understanding that there are rules as to how often English clubs can change their kit*. This is intended to prevent the clubs from gouging the fans who will feel obligated to have the latest and greatest. I suspect we’ll not feel so constrained.
*Why yes, I do have the last 8 Leicester City kits hanging in my closet. Why do you ask? And no, I don’t know how we wound up with Topps Tiles as our shirt sponsor. *sigh*
June 16, 2010 at 9:32 am
Spike
I think soccer has not become popular in this country is because its friggin’ boring. Shrink the field, dump the off-sides rule, and make it so the players score goals from time to time, instead of just running up and down the pitch.
June 16, 2010 at 9:46 am
Sir Charles
Dana,
You are so right. My apologies. To be pedantic and wrong is really unforgivable.
Spike,
It’s only boring if you think scoring is the only interesting thing that happens in a game.
I believe that the games unparalleled popularity in the world suggests that the rules changes you propose are quite unnecessary.
June 16, 2010 at 10:10 am
dave
Next up, why Americans are too scared to play Rugby League/Aussie Rules/Kabaddi…
June 16, 2010 at 10:16 am
ben
It is, or was, also “soccer” in British English, as a trip to the OED will confirm.
And if you look up “football” in the OED, you get this note under def’n 2b: “The term soccer is used in North America to distinguish what is in Britain called (Association) football or soccer from American football.” (emphasis in original, my bolding). See? So if someone hassles you about “soccer”, kick ’em in the shins, that’s my advice.
June 16, 2010 at 10:17 am
ben
er, “from” shouldn’t be italicized and was not italicized in the original. My mistake.
June 16, 2010 at 10:20 am
silbey
I think soccer has not become popular in this country is because its friggin’ boring.
And football isn’t? 11 minutes of action in three hours of watching?
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406.html
And baseball isn’t? 12 minutes of action in a three hour game?
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/inside_game/magazine/life_of_reilly/news/2000/10/10/life_of_reilly/
June 16, 2010 at 10:28 am
Josh
I link to this everytime the soccer vs. football thing comes up, but that’s because it’s useful: documentation that the deprecation of “soccer” in British English is a very recent thing.
June 16, 2010 at 10:39 am
jvhillegas
Thanks for bringing this up, dana — I’ve been thinking about this topic for a few weeks now. Here’s my view on the soccer question.
In my post I don’t attempt to speak for all Americans, like so many others want to do; instead, I articulate my own reasons for not caring about soccer. In a nutshell: 1) I have no personal history with the game; 2) I have only a limited amount of time to spend watching gladiator sports, and I choose to spend this time watching NFL football late in the season; 3) it doesn’t matter whether or not Americans care about soccer; 4) in spite of #3, pet theories about why Americans don’t care about soccer abound!
June 16, 2010 at 10:51 am
dana
ben, I knew that! It’s a great bit of trivia. Still, it’s not the reason I call it “soccer.” (Well, not directly. You know what I mean.)
June 16, 2010 at 12:51 pm
bbstudent
Sir Charles- Goals ARE the only interesting things that can happen in soccer. Okay a good block can be fun and multiple shots on the goal is exciting, but that’s pretty much it. Most of soccer is moving the ball, which is incredibly dull.
June 16, 2010 at 1:21 pm
tf smith
Um, any sport that fills thousands of parks and playgrounds with kids, parents, and orange slices across this favored land every freaking weekend can only be defined as “popular” – as see:
http://soccer.org/home.aspx
Ask anyone who has coached, cheered, team parented, etc…
Now, as to why futbol as a profession has not become a Fortune 500 industry, that is another question…
Remember, Everyone Plays®!…
June 16, 2010 at 1:31 pm
jim
Back in the ’60s, when I supported the Saints (and there were still terraces at The Dell), the main consolations of football fandom were (1) drinking and (2) standing huddled with me mates on the terraces yelling obscenities at members of the opposing team and occasionally singing (“We all live in a red-and white-submarine” was popular at the time). What happened on the field, unless someone actually scored a goal, was not terribly important.
These consolations are adequately supplied in the US by baseball, basketball and (American) football fandoms. There is no gap to be filled.
People also used to gamble on football games (I’m sure they still do). Again, in the US, baseball, basketball and (American) football adequately serve.
June 16, 2010 at 1:40 pm
kid bitzer
“soccer” is another instance of the “oxford er” isn’t it?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_%22-er%22
so it was originally “association football”, and then the “-soc-” was extracted, and lengthened.
which is to say: yes, “soccer” is at least in origin a uk word.
June 16, 2010 at 1:41 pm
jim
“soccer” is opposed to “rugger”. Context is all.
June 16, 2010 at 2:39 pm
Shanny
Its because the World Cup actually involves playing other countries around the world – unlike the World Series
June 16, 2010 at 3:07 pm
Vance
Thanks, kb, that was illuminating — one knew “champers” from novels and “preggers” from gossip rags, but I hadn’t made the analogy.
This thread reminds me a bit of the Bloomsday thread over on Crooked Timber. “Soccer is boring” is about as true, anyway, as “Ulysses isn’t much fun”.
June 16, 2010 at 3:23 pm
bitchphd
Soccer isn’t popular in America because it’s all faggy and foreign and shit. Also because American sports fans are dumbasses, mostly.
June 16, 2010 at 4:11 pm
bbstudent
Trying to justify liking or disliking a sport is such a silly exercise that it amazes me to what level people are willing to go. Liking soccer, baseball, football, etc. over a different sport isn’t going always going to be rational and it certainly won’t be objective. Arguing over aesthetics is much easier than trying to explain why a kicking a ball around is better than whacking it with a giant stick.
June 16, 2010 at 4:45 pm
md 20/400
Actually, I rather like football.
Also, thank you for the Zidane shout out and that remembrance of times gone by.
June 16, 2010 at 5:33 pm
politicalfootball
Shrink the field, dump the off-sides rule,
Plus, let players use their hands to bounce the ball, install a wood floor, and put the goal up in the air on a pole. I bet Americans would watch it then.
June 16, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Charlieford
I can’t speak for all Americans but, frankly, I don’t want to look at peoples’ feet all afternoon. That’s why soccer’s not popular with me.
June 16, 2010 at 6:14 pm
kevin
Also, thank you for the Zidane shout out and that remembrance of times gone by.
Zidane! Mais pourquoi? POURQUOI?!?!
June 16, 2010 at 6:18 pm
jim
Vance, “boring” is the wrong adjective: rather say “undemanding”.
Successful spectator sports need to not place too many demands on their spectators. That American football players spend a great deal of time walking to the huddle, huddling and then taking up their formation is an advantage. It allows the spectator’s attention to wander. One can sit with beer and chips in front of the television, talking with one’s friends, and still catch what’s going on. The apparently random passing between soccer players has the same effect. One can watch a football game (of any variety) for hours without tiring.
June 16, 2010 at 6:27 pm
kevin
The “soccer is boring” argument never made sense to me.
Many of the people who say that are huge fans of NASCAR, which is essentially 1200 or so left turns, some competitive Jiffy Lube contests, and the occasional wreck.
Or golf, a game where old men in crap outfits walk through a park — action so thrilling that the announcers sound like they’ve been dosed with thorazine.
Even the “big four” major sports can be dull. For all the complaining about how soccer is low-scoring, baseball fans practically stroke out with joy over a “perfect game” … where “perfect” is defined as not just preventing a score, but even an on-base hit. NFL fans get excited about a defensive struggle, and hockey usually isn’t all that high-scoring either.
Basketball is the real exception, with the pro game being the worst offender in the dumbing it down to appeal to the ADHD crowd. Four corners defense? Well, fine, add a shot clock of 24 seconds to keep action moving at a ridiculous pace. Too many players fouling out? Take the already laughably high five foul limit and make it six, and shucks, if you’re really famous, we won’t even call a foul on you if we can avoid it. Give them a couple more seasons, and the NBA will have trampolines all over the court and have the players armed with tasers.
June 16, 2010 at 7:22 pm
bbstudent
kevin: Low-scoring is abnormal in the major sports, making it exciting when a game stays in the low numbers. The scores are of a greater variety than what you find in soccer.
Hockey is a faster version of soccer.
I can’t justify watching golf or NASCAR.
June 16, 2010 at 7:37 pm
kevin
Yeah, I know low scores aren’t the norm. My point there was that regular sports fans are able to value more than scoring in other sports — good pitching in baseball, strong defense in football, etc. — and yet are somehow unable to look past a 2-1 score in soccer to see all the amazing stuff that happens on the field.
June 16, 2010 at 8:30 pm
Vance
The passing in soccer is about as random as in basketball. Yes, the pace is different, but the principle is similar — to the extent the play is good, each pass is a recognizable effort to work toward a goal, in a palpably fluctuating strategic context.
I didn’t mean to compare soccer to Ulysses (indeed like SEK I love the book, while I merely like the sport); rather I meant to highlight the tic, in both discussions, of presenting personal preferences as facts in support of arguments that in turn buttress those preferences.
June 16, 2010 at 10:50 pm
andrew
The passing during the “wandering rocks” section really is exquisite, but I thought Ulysses bogged down quite a bit as it went on. Too much fancy footwork. It’s good that it picked up again in injury time or else there might have been a riot.
June 16, 2010 at 10:51 pm
Trina Council
You’re probably right about the philosophy that if the U.S. would win some games it might become more popular. When the Dallas Stars first came to Texas back in the 90’s, they were a novelty. Hockey was unheard of in the state. But they quickly became popular, why? Because they kicked ass and won a lot of games.
I’m not crazy about soccer. I hate baseball and basketball (both boring as hell to me). But I do like football and hockey. I like the contact sports. I’d probably enjoy seeing some Aussie rules rugby here.
June 17, 2010 at 12:18 am
Walt
Since the answer to this question is completely obvious, and about as much of a head-scratcher as “Why isn’t the native language of France Tagalog,” I can only assume the point of discussing it is trash talk. Americans will answer (sincerely) that they find soccer boring and stupid, and then someone will say “but your sports are also boring and stupid”. These are compelling arguments, because in fact all sports are boring and stupid. And I say this as a person who at various points in my life have been a massive fan of football, baseball, hockey, basketball, and yes, ice skating, someone who’s hoping that his football team will stink this year so that he can finally have his motherfucking Sundays back.
June 17, 2010 at 4:02 am
jim
The real reason soccer hasn’t become a popular spectator sport in the US is that it’s difficult to apply American betting methods to it. It’s too low-scoring to establish point spreads and results in too many ties for straight head-to-head bets (the virtue of baseball, almost as low-scoring, for gamblers is that one team or the other will win). There aren’t enough teams for bracketology, either. In the end, sports that you can’t bet on don’t attract interest.
June 17, 2010 at 5:32 am
the dude
The media often frames this question as a sort of zero-sum game – whereby either have to either love the 3-4 “major” American sports, or we discard those for the commie/fruity/cosmopolitan game of soccer. See, e.g., the particular brand of American sports journalism represented by douchebag Rick Reilly, who takes great glee in poking his fingers in the eyes of soccer lovers (“They’re play acting!… The players are wusses!… The games don’t end 105-102!”):
http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/news/story?id=5288738
On the other hand, soccer as an American spectator sport has grown rapidly over the last decade, for both mega-events like the World Cup and Euro championships, as well as the year-to-year seasons of the Champions League, English Premier League, etc. Perhaps a more interesting question concerns the particular demographics of soccer fandom in the US – one that lacks the fatty midsection of the American middle class. To oversimplify a bit, soccer fans here are generally in two social categories – the relatively well-educated, cosmopolitan upper-middle class, and the immigrant working class. This high/low social alliance of American soccer fans is rarely commented upon in discussions of if/when/how soccer will “conquer” America. The more important question, really, is will your red-blooded, meat-eating, American-football loving member of the middle class take to the sport? For reasons of long-ingrained and constantly reinforced American sporting aesthetics, I suspect the answer is no.
Further, the American public is by no means exceptional in not treating soccer as life and death; the Aussies (Aussie-rules football), Indians (cricket), Japanese (baseball), and Chinese (no idea, but it’s not soccer… basketball?) all quickly jump to mind as other large countries that are not as enamored with soccer as we have been told the entire world is. In general, it would seem that Latin American/European/African cultures value the sport much more than Anglo-North American/Asian/Oceanic cultures do. Why this is the case would make for an interesting study.
In the end, as usual, the Simpsons capture the recent American zeitgeist on the subject:
June 17, 2010 at 7:23 am
bsci
Tangentially related to this topic I’ve noticed that soccer is a chance for US immigrants or people with other national connections to proudly display these loyalties. In what other sport is it ok for someone to fly an English flag and root against the US while in the US? That happened on my block and I’ve seen many other country’s flags on homes around my town. This doesn’t happen even for the Olympics.
Just noting one potential positive of the US lack of interest in soccer.
June 17, 2010 at 9:19 am
Jay
Jim – there are plenty of methods to bet on football. First scorer, First scorer plus final score, who leads at the half, the list goes on. There are betting shops in every cluster of retail stores throughout the UK, betting is a huge part of the culture there, far in excess of what we enjoy here in the US.
For me, as an American who lived in London for years and is now back in the states, the world cup is as much about the passion of the fans, fair weather or psychotic, who gather to support their team’s efforts. London during the world cup is about as magical a city as can be and I am gutted not to be there.
June 17, 2010 at 7:41 pm
Western Dave
Nascar is about as interesting as any other sport. Which is to say, given a certain amount of time investment to learn the minutia, it’s not a bad way to spend a rainy Sunday. Assuming your willing to follow the details of speed vs. handling vs. fuel mileage. And the notion of how the rising and falling track temperature and barometric pressure effects the automobile and the drivers’ ability to compensate for these changes until such time that equipment can be changed. Granted, I’m more of an IRL guy because there is less margin for error. But Nascar is where the money is (and thus where most of the best drivers are). And unlike F1, there is often passing on the track.
June 18, 2010 at 1:45 am
ajay
In the end, sports that you can’t bet on don’t attract interest.
This will come as a shock to the Hong Kong Chinese, who bet on football (especially the English Premier League) in terrific numbers.
June 18, 2010 at 8:58 am
Josh
In the end, sports that you can’t bet on don’t attract interest.
Just to pile on, not only can you bet on soccer, but during some matches the LED sideline advertisements will be updated in near-real-time with odds on various bets you can make on the match you’re watching. (E.g., “10-1 $PLAYER1 will be the next to score.”)
June 18, 2010 at 9:43 am
Vance
Glen Newey passes on the estimate that more than a billion pounds have been wagered on the Cup in the UK alone.
June 18, 2010 at 3:49 pm
lemmy caution
Given the popularity of american football and baseball, the real question is “Why isn’t a game derived from soccer popular in the US?”. Why no professional soccer-baseball leagues?
June 18, 2010 at 5:06 pm
jim
various bets you can make on the match you’re watching
For non-American values of you.
more than a billion pounds have been wagered on the Cup in the UK
And how much in the US?
Please remember that sports betting is illegal in most US states. Illegal betting with illegal bookies has to be simplistic. Odds and conditions have to be easily verbally specifiable and placeable in advance. The sorts of “exotic” bets that can be placed in the UK simply aren’t available here. Back when I worked in the NYC garment center and therefore had a bookie, he called me, from pay phones, a day or so before the games. I would have had no way to bet during the game that some player would have been the next to score.
June 19, 2010 at 6:53 pm
md 20/400
And how much in the US?
Please remember that sports betting is illegal in most US states.
This could be a difficult question to answer. Let me ask the Mob how much it is
June 20, 2010 at 4:49 am
chris y
The arguments that football isn’t popular in America because of low scoring and the difficulty of betting on it can be refuted by the fact that the one game isolationist Americans will always claim to be even more boring is cricket. Yet cricket scores are standardly several hundred on each side, even in the short form of the game, and the opportunities for complex betting are immense – the game in its modern form was more or less invented as a vehicle for betting.
The sad truth is that “real” Americans don’t like sports which require the spectator to engage their brains, and that’s about that.
June 20, 2010 at 1:33 pm
grackle
Take a rectangle of dimensions x by y; let a place, of some size at either end of the rectangle be designated as a goal; let there be z players on each team; and let there be a “ball.”
Divide some period of time into smaller parts and allow the two teams to compete for possession of the ball such that any team that moves the ball to the goal area of the other team has scored.
Ways and means of possession and ball movement may vary and as it so happens the game shall get a new name.
That takes care of soccer, football, rugby, basketball, polo and hockey. Only cricket and baseball are fundamentally different, and that may be arguable. Maybe there is a limit on the number of variations on the theme that any particular group feels a need for.
June 22, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Ian
Grackle,
Cricket is about getting a ball through a goal as well, except that rather than using a net or arguing tirelessly if it was in the strike zone or not, they use five bits of wood that define the goal.
Baseball just argues tirelessly if it would have gone through the invisible goal of the “stroke zone”.
June 27, 2010 at 11:19 pm
Mike Geary Truth About Abs
“The greatest feeling in the world is when your on that soccer field, and you know that your team is going to succeed because you look around and see your 10 best friends playing beside you.”