Will soccer league ever be big in North America?

As usual, I agree with Joe from Chicago.

Football (soccer) is quite sellable on TV.

1. Except for national teams, most clubs have commercial announcements all over their uniforms.





2. There is a big chunk to be made on TV deals with static publicity (around the field). Big companies -for example Spain's Interdorna- pay millions of dollars to TV networks in order to control the static publicity.
(The TV network pays the team for the television rights).



3. There are the so-called "supers". Image superimposition, both within the game (little figures move in the low part of the screen, to form a logo or make other kind of advertisement) and during the lost time (the ball goes out, a few seconds, good enough for the camera to focus on the stands and change them, via computer, to, for example, have virtual fans waving a commercial, or even a political logo). At the beginning and end of periods, superimposed computer figures appear on the screen. Yesterday, for example, they entered the field, and blew a gigantic baloon with the logo of the leading brand of cellular phones.
Superimpositions are a pain in the ass, but let networks commercialize from one fourth to one third of the playing time.


4. When unregulated, commercial imagination takes you anywhere. In Mexico all football commentators have to say, at least once every period, that "this is the Comex Tournament, and Comex is the color of football" (Comex is a chain of painting stores).

Well, we don't have such here, but listening/watching matches in the "Daimler-Stadium" or "AOL-Arena" gives them an even higher number of name-dropping (my team still plays in the Parc Stadium, my wife's in the Westphalia Stadium - both are nearly bancrupt :wink: ).

The fact that Donovan only plays as a substitute is simply them dissing MLS, and out of respect for older players. He's just a kid, but very capable of starting.

He played for spurs (Tottenham)

Former teams were Millwall, Leicester City, Rayo Vallecano, Tottenham Hotspur, FC Southampton.

Are you sure you want to admit to that?


Americans have, I think, some ingrained prejudices against advertisements on uniforms (does anyone remember the big stink when a movie studio wanted to put "Spiderman II" logos on the bases in major league baseball?). Of course, NASCAR drivers and their cars are covered with ads, so I think the prejudice only extends to team sports. And we certainly would never go so far as to name the teams after their corporate owners, like they do in Japan, but that hasn't stopped companies from buying the naming rights to the stadiums in which the teams play.

Soccer's problem isn't that it won't work on tv (it works everywhere else), the problem, as I see it, is that soccer missed its chance to be America's sport over a century ago. Just when soccer, as a professional team sport, was establishing itself in Europe (around the end of the nineteenth century), baseball was already well-established in the United States as the summer game, and football was rapidly becoming firmly established as the autumn game (in high schools and colleges initially, as a professional league in the 1920s). Unlike in Europe, where there were relatively few competitors to soccer as a team sport, in the US the field was already fully occupied. There was, in other words, no room for soccer.

(As an extended aside: soccer enthusiasts have less to complain about, in this regard, than lacrosse fans. Lacrosse, after all, is indigenous to North America and has been played here longer than any other team sport. But lacrosse never really caught on either, even though there is a professional lacrosse league. Comparisons between the two might be instructive.)

In order to fit soccer into the scene, it now needs to be perceived as a better alternative than an established sport (most likely baseball, since, in the US, soccer plays its season in the summer). And right now, it's not the tv networks that perceive soccer to be inferior (they'll broadcast anything -- witness the "X Games"), it's the public that clearly prefers baseball.

So if soccer is to catch on, it needs to draw fans away from baseball, and right now I just don't see that happening. Currently, it's quite likely that more people play soccer (or played it as kids) than play baseball, but that level of participation has not led to a commensurate level of interest in the professional game: soccer kids, in other words, don't grow up to become soccer fans. Frankly, I think that's because many people find soccer a much more enjoyable game to play than to watch (I feel the same way about golf and bowling).

In any event, soccer needs to put a product out there that will turn baseball fans into soccer fans. So far, and for whatever reason, soccer has failed to do that.

I personally find it stupid when I look at a team of soccer players and can't figure out who they really play for. Siemens? Exxon? Give me a break.

Well, it seems little girls like soccer and the highlight
of the soccer season every year is: those little tykes play
against their parents. So next Saturday, I'll be out
there in my improvised soccer gear and hope for no injuries

We do that too. One of the girls who played that day ran into me...and bounced off like a rubber ball hitting a wall. 100lbs of weight difference is a tremendous inertial advantage. Be careful, try not to run into them and don't blow out your knee.

P.S. This was against a competitive U13 girl's team that beat the parents 7-0.

Haha cj
Don't worry, these little girls are only 8 and 9 years old,
we'll let them win big time. I won't blow out my knee,
but I certainly need shin guards, as these girls kick up
like crazy.

Last year we lost 10-2 (had to put a bit of a fight up)

I only once played against my niece (former Austrian U19 international and 1st Austrian Bundesliga) in mother-of-laws backyard ...

Just the two of you Walter?

Do you have any children? Here in the US it's a big deal
for little kids to play soccer and every Saturday the parents
sit on the sidelines and scream their lungs out.

My daughter goes to a private catholic School and the
Priest is from Ireland. He's worse than all of us together...

Both of my girls are now on competitive teams, my younger daughter is also currently playing for her school team, and the oldest is swimming. I'm not bragging so much as I am begging for mercy, between those two and my son's baseball all we do is drive them around to practice/games. It sure keeps them in shape though. Between swimming and soccer my oldest got her hard body back in just two weeks after months of slacking off.

Well, just the two of us (and her brother).

No, we don't have own children - but a couple of godchildren plus more of froiends, who (the children) like to stay here frequently.

As far as I know - and that's only from viewing pre-matches at my favourite amateur club (4th division): parents and especially mothers are are the worst when kids play football. :wink:

Soccer is definitely the most participated in team sport in Oz - especially with the kids. Parents think it's safer than the rugby-like sports.

It's a hugely popular sport but the national league has never been as popular as the other ball sports (League, Union, AFL, Basketball, Cricket etc) on TV. However the European leagues are very popular, particularly the English.

I think it will grow in popularity in the US because a) the national team is top 20 and it's about time the US was good at a team sport that other countries play seriously, b) because so many kids play it many will carry that interest into adulthood, and c) the growing hispanic influence.

cj, yes at one point, we become our childrens' chauffeurs,
but thank God I only have one child. I couldn't handle more...

Walter, admittedly we Mothers are worse. I'm usually hoarse
after a soccer game my daughter plays in. I get so competitive that I once reduced her to tears. I should take beta blockers
beforehand

Jane - in Australia we have a code of conduct for parents at kids games http://www.ausport.gov.au/ethics/codeparent.asp.

One much publicised story a couple of years ago was a former AFL star slapping aat nd swearing the umpire of his son's under 10's match. Admittedly said star, Warwick Capper, is a star twit.

I refereee (typically assistant) and I always volunteer to do whichever side of the field is the most obnoxious, because often the other AR is young. I have told parents and coaches to shut up or I'd red card them and escort them off the field.

We don't have that yet hingehead (your link doesn't work)
however, our catholic rival school opponents are often
from the "south bay" close to the Mexican border and
the kids are mostly hispanic. That means, the children and
their parents are much more into soccer and better
organized than us "gringos"

What we see here in California is that the teams from latino neighborhoods dominate at the younger levels, but as they move up, the teams from more well off communities with professional coaches and trainers start to have the upper hand. The latin parents sure make more noise on the sidelines though. Sometimes they get out of hand too, and it isn't pretty.