So I roll out of bed today, and I realize...

[AbeBeta]

You are 100% wrong. I couldn't care less if the US was the best team in the world. I still wouldn't watch it. The sport sucks.

It sure seems to be all or nothing with you. 100% agree or 100% wrong.

Why post if folks have already said it perfectly right or perfectly wrong?

 

[skinsngibbs4life]

Not true. It's similar, but hockey is way better. At least you get shots on goal in hockey, and when you watch it on TV the players don't look like ants because the field is so ridiculously big.

Soccer is the first program I've ever seen that doesn't look fantastic in high definition.

oh god, a sport that plays on a field that is a whole 20 yards longer than a football field

 

[genghiskhan]

Did I ever call you an attention *****? I think I was calling myself one. :

Joking aside, you can iterject your opinion all you want, this is a free country. But then again, my opinion is that you are padding your posts by posting useless inflammatory crap.

The argument you are using is a fallacy. You see it a lot though, so you aren't alone.

Sometimes people assume that they can hide behind the "My opinion" veneer and somehow it makes whatever they say legitimate.

The TRUTH is, you can pretend that your opinion is that 2+2=5 but you are still wrong.

In other words, you can pretend that it's your opinion that I am padding my post count, but it is actually either true or not. It isn't a matter of opinion. In reality you are doing what is known as guessing.

Well, I'm telling you that you're wrong.

I've been a member of this board for over 2 years and I have 171 posts. Why in the world would it make sense that I'd all of a sudden decide to "pad my post count"? What possible payoff could there be for me?

As far as "useless inflammatory crap", I'd assert that this is a matter of perspective. My feeling is that I was just responding to "useless inflammatory crap" that was posted before me. I had no intention of posting in this thread until I saw some of the comments about how superior soccer is and how wrong I am for not embracing it. That particular notion is bogus.

 

[genghiskhan]

It sure seems to be all or nothing with you. 100% agree or 100% wrong.

Why post if folks have already said it perfectly right or perfectly wrong?

To reinforce what someone else said. To get my voice heard.

I wonder if you'd be questioning this if I agreed with you?

 

[genghiskhan]

oh god, a sport that plays on a field that is a whole 20 yards longer than a football field

Is that all it is? It looks way longer and twice as wide. Maybe it's how they televise it. How much wider is it? Seriously, I want to know.

By the way, a football field is pretty long, but they utilize it way better.

 

[Clove]

First, I wasn't here DURING the fact. I'm still just as entitled to interject my opinion on a subject as anyone else here is.

Second, if you think I could give a crap about my post count, you are enormously ignorant. Look at my post count genius. Do I LOOK like someone who cares about padding my post count?

Try not to be so clueless next time.

So when someone else posts something it's an opinion, but when I state mine, I'm an attention *****? Riiiiiiiiggghhhhhttt. I can only assume that the distinction is whether or not someone agrees with you. That's a wonderful way to go through life. Congratulations.

Someone got owned on this one..

 

[AbeBeta]

To reinforce what someone else said. To get my voice heard.

I wonder if you'd be questioning this if I agreed with you?

no, I'd just be thinking you were a sycophant

 

[Hostile]

no, I'd just be thinking you were a sycophant

Genghis isn't a flatterer. What he thinks is what you get.

 

[CanadianCowboysFan]

The only athletic events currently being held are MLB, the World Cup, the College World Series, and the WNBA (okay, so maybe that one doesnt count as an athletic event).

This time of year really, really sucks......

Don't worry, Wimbledon started today. That is usually decent tv.

 

[rlgiv]

oh, and also, altought a lot of you olden folk might not like it, the youth of america is greatly growing in interest in soccer. Better and better atheletes will play soccer and not other sports(you made the argument that soccer is easy to play for poor people, some of the best atheletes come from the inner cities of america, the ghettos, and if soccer is cheap, what do you think theyll start to play?) the "gooch" is a good example, he is a 6'4" beast who would normally have played another sport with his physical assests, but youll start seeing more guys like him, not like reyna or donovan who are tiny, and are only playing soccer cuz they were to small for anything else, i say that some time in the next 20 years the US will start becoming a soccer powerhouse and soccer will then become more and more popular and over take hokey as the fourth most popular sport

That's what they said 20 years ago.

 

[kiheikiwi]

Sorry to join the rioting so late....
I'm sure there must be some RUGBY on somewhere!

 

[Bob Sacamano]

is it just me, or when you guys watch baseball, do you see visions of needles and cotton swabs floating around each and every player's head?

 

[Bob Sacamano]

I'll have to admit though, I am enjoying watching much less of ESPN.

there you go, you can always find the positive in any situation

no ESPN! lol

 

[Da Hammer]

unlike many here I love both baseball and soccer so i've been real entertained watching the Rangers and the World Cup.

Soccer is by far the most popular sport in the World and so with some many people into it makes the World cup is so much bigger and more important than any other sport final. It brings the whole world together (except for USA) which is something great at times like this when the world is full of war and hate. the atmosphere at those game are just electric and its great seeing the players give it their all because they know if they lose its over for their national team for 4 more years. Unfortunately my team Mexico is out but you know I was proud with their performance against Argentina as they took one of the best teams in the world into extras and lost on probably the best goal so far in the world cup. to be honest right now i don't care who wins the World cup right now but i'm still looking forward to watching more fantastic games

 

[Da Hammer]

People here say that the reason that young players here don't continue to play soccer as they get older is because their are other more interesting and better sports to play. that i will argue its not true, the real reason is because soccer players here in the US dont make much money. the most money that a soccer player will make here in the US playing for the MLS is around $2-5 million dollars and that is for the star players. just about all the other players make less than $1 million. the alternative is to move to Europe where they can make lots of money but its not easy to be raised here in the US and then have to move to the other side of the world with different people with a lot different cultures.

Why would they want to do that when they can pursue sports that are here in the U.S where you can make that same money that you could in Europe and certainly a lot more than you would make in the MLS. I would guarantee that if the US invested more money into helping make the MLS a better league with much better salaries that it would become a much more popular sport for the young players to persue and soccer would rise tremendously in popularity, not as high as the other 3 major sports because they have been around much longer but it would still be very big.

There's no way that people in the US can get into soccer when the most talented soccer players don't pursue becoming a professional because of a lack of salary and so the MLS gets stuck with a lot less talented players that do decide to pursue soccer. Nobody wants to watch an inferior product. In Europe and even some Central and South American countries they make pretty good cash so the great talented players do want to become pro soccer players and so the viewers get a great product

 

[AbeBeta]

People here say that the reason that young players here don't continue to play soccer as they get older is because their are other more interesting and better sports to play. that i will argue its not true, the real reason is because soccer players here in the US dont make much money.

I agree somewhat but think a bigger issue is that most of the kids who say, play college soccer, planned to go to college anyway. You are talking about different demographic than college football or basketball players. These aren't kids who are in school only because the sport go them a free ride. Soccer kids grew up with options -- they don't need soccer.

 

[burmafrd]

So what if we are no good at World Cup Soccer. Just how many Americans care at all? In 20 years I predict some will be saying the same things they are saying now how Soccer will be the next big thing in the US. ANd they will be just as wrong as those that said it 20 years ago.

 

[AbeBeta]

So what if we are no good at World Cup Soccer. Just how many Americans care at all? In 20 years I predict some will be saying the same things they are saying now how Soccer will be the next big thing in the US. ANd they will be just as wrong as those that said it 20 years ago.

I think you are underestimating how many Americans watch the cup. ABC/ESPN isn't into throwing away $$$. Most directly, we've seen the US-Italy game viewed by nearly 5 million households -- the largest audience for a soccer game since the cup final in 2002. First round matches averaged a 1.2 rating (about a million households) on ESPN alone - the Stanley Cup finals averaged 1.3 rating - when you consider that first round matches started at 6 am and 11 am in the western US with 5/7 of the games during the week, that translates to a serious a** kicking over the hockey ratings. That's just the English language broadcast #s. Many folks watch on Univision (I do because their announcers are more exciting). Uni's ratings rival ESPN's share-wise. That means the overall viewing for each match is somewhere around 2 million households. Those aren't Superbowl #s (off the charts) or even NBA finals #s (average 8.6 share) -- but they eclipse the Stanley Cup and are about a quarter of the NBA finals. You think ABC/ESPN is happy with pulling a million viewers for an early morning soccer match on a Wednesday? They sure as hell are.

You want more? The Staples Center in LA was completely packed with Korean-Americans for every single Korea game - I imagine that was the story in every big city in the U.S for that crowd as well. Every damn English pub in the country is packed when Becks and company play. In my own small town, my local shows every game to a very excited crowd. Obviously many Americans do care about the WC.

To myself, and I imagine many others, it would be nice if the US could field a good team but that has nothing to do with my interest in the sport.

 

[burmafrd]

To put it brutally 5 million is NOTHING. There are almost 300 million in this country. Now groups like Koreans, etc whose teams are playing will be interested - but still that is a small number. I see nothing that indicates even a significant percentage of Americans care at all. If you cannot even match Hockey, which does poorly on tv anyway, and has been dropping in popularity for years, then you have no case.

 

[AbeBeta]

To put it brutally 5 million is NOTHING. There are almost 300 million in this country. Now groups like Koreans, etc whose teams are playing will be interested - but still that is a small number. I see nothing that indicates even a significant percentage of Americans care at all. If you cannot even match Hockey, which does poorly on tv anyway, and has been dropping in popularity for years, then you have no case.

dude -- I gave you comparative #s -- about 1/4 of the folk who watched the NBA finals -- again, you have to take into account the time of the games -- many are early in the morning on weekdays

those are damn good #s for broadcasts that occur when most of the country is at work or sleeping.

If you read my post, you'd see that the # of viewers for the WC actually outperformed Hockey -- or do you think Spanish language TV doesn't count? Of course, reading comprehension and understanding context never seemed to be your strong suit.