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General discussion (archive)'murica football to be named "Patriotball"?(137 posts)(137 posts)
(137 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted June 29, 2014
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DieRuhe: I had recently commented to a friend something along the lines of "Is it just me, or is there something weird about this soccer push lately?" When we were growing up, it seemed practically non-existent.

Sure, it's had a market, albeit very small. I remember 25 or 30 years ago a team was created in Portland, Oregon, but the public wasn't into it.

So is it demographics? Perhaps. But what I think it really is, is someone finally found a way to make some serious money from it, hence the push. It just seems funny to me - now suddenly everyone loves soccer? Next the press will be saying "Everyone loves jai-alai!" and that'll start popping up everywhere.
99.9% of everything done in this world is to make more $$$ for people or to satisfy the desires of people who want to copulate.

So my guess is, the powerful people behind "soccer" weren't satisfied with the small amount of people into the sport in North America and did something about it because they want to make as much money as possible. More fans, more money.
Posted June 29, 2014
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VABlitz: I'm fine with you guys having that boring sport called soccer. I still can't understand how you can be excited about games that play to a 0 to 0 score throughout much of the game. I have attempted to watch the game on numerous occasions, but perhaps you need to be drunk to enjoy it.
I'm not particularly interested in either of these sports and really don't feel like defending soccer but dang, I consider the score argument incredibly irritating. The fact that there's few goals in a match makes each goal and also each situation that almost results in a goal highly exciting. For me sports where scores just keep going up in regular short intervals for both teams lack the tension that soccer has. Don't get me wrong, I understand people who consider soccer boring but I consider the score argument in itself pretty dumb.
Post edited June 29, 2014 by F4LL0UT
Posted June 29, 2014
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DieRuhe: But what I think it really is, is someone finally found a way to make some serious money from it, hence the push. It just seems funny to me - now suddenly everyone loves soccer? Next the press will be saying "Everyone loves jai-alai!" and that'll start popping up everywhere.
now that you mention it, that might very well be true as well -__-

Personally, for various reasons i tend to like the "fringe" (read: no money) hobbies and sports most. Its not like am searching for them - but they are usually the ones to catch my eye. Some of those have been monetized over the years pretty well though. Like say long distance running - its not so obscure as in the past. Which is really shame in certain ways.
Posted June 29, 2014
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VABlitz: I'm fine with you guys having that boring sport called soccer. I still can't understand how you can be excited about games that play to a 0 to 0 score throughout much of the game. I have attempted to watch the game on numerous occasions, but perhaps you need to be drunk to enjoy it.
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F4LL0UT: I'm not particularly interested in either of these sports and really don't feel like defending soccer but dang, I consider the score argument incredibly irritating. The fact that there's few goals in a match makes each goal and also each situation that almost results in a goal highly exciting. For me sports where scores just keep going up in regular short intervals for both teams lack the tension that soccer has. Don't get me wrong, I understand people who consider soccer boring but I consider the score argument in itself pretty dumb.
I'm exactly on the same line as this. Didn't want to post something in defense of football (or any other billioners-hit-a-ball nationalist shows), but yeah. My first thought was for people who'd watch hours of fictional chases between cops-and-robbers with just one of them scoring a bullet into the other at the end of the movie. Football is not about accountancy, it's about the ball "fencing" that is happening on the field, its tactical developements, its temporary openings exploited in last minute deflected attacks. And it's tense precisely because scores matter more when they are actual achievements than when they add one point on "449876 to 557433" boards. Actually, if I'm not mistaken, the lamer the teams are, the higher the scores. You'll see "7 to 10" scores in amateur competitions, but the more pro it gets, the harder it is to succeed putting a ball in. And that's the point.

I don't like football, but at least I 'get' this.
Posted June 29, 2014
*started reading, got to the point in the URL where Coulter appears, stopped*

Coulter makes a compelling case for the US to institute a program to pack all annoying mouthpieces into a shuttle and send it directly into the sun.
Posted June 29, 2014
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yarow12: In America, football is like anime: all people need is to be properly introduced to it to realize why it's so amazing.
Thank you Toonami and Adult Swim. Thank you that one Mediterranean restaurant I went to last Friday that had two TVs showing a match while I ate something I don't even remember the name of. And thank you those high school females who skillfully played at the nearby 'soccer field' yesterday evening.

Interestingly enough, an American co-worker--who is a college football player, mind you--said "I am now a believer" a few weeks ago after watching a match on his phone with some international students. He even took a 'break' to watch the US play Germany yesterday. Yep, his future children are going to have football and football in their lives.

It's a cultural matter, though. That same co-worker said he "didn't know how much I liked guns, ATVs, and Country music until I dated a White girl." Give it time, and the USA will be just as crazy about football as it is football, regardless of whether or not that makes sense.
God I hope not. One of the good things about America is that we're free not to give a fuck about that tedious and generally boring sport.

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DieRuhe: I had recently commented to a friend something along the lines of "Is it just me, or is there something weird about this soccer push lately?" When we were growing up, it seemed practically non-existent.

Sure, it's had a market, albeit very small. I remember 25 or 30 years ago a team was created in Portland, Oregon, but the public wasn't into it.

So is it demographics? Perhaps. But what I think it really is, is someone finally found a way to make some serious money from it, hence the push. It just seems funny to me - now suddenly everyone loves soccer? Next the press will be saying "Everyone loves jai-alai!" and that'll start popping up everywhere.
Tennis had a similar push back in the '70s, but I think the soccer trend may be more durable due to all the foreigners failing to give up their interest when they get citizenship.

There is something distinctly un-American about all this interest in soccer.
Post edited June 29, 2014 by hedwards
Posted June 29, 2014
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hedwards: There is something distinctly un-American about all this interest in soccer.
Sharing one common interest with the international community and following rules set by groups from overseas... yeah, does sound pretty darn un-American. :P
Posted June 29, 2014
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hedwards: ne of the good things about America is that we're free not to give a fuck about that tedious and generally boring sport
(Implied : Baseball isn't.)

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hedwards: foreigners failing to give up their interest when they get citizenship.
(Implied : They are supposed to.)

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hedwards: There is something distinctly un-American about all this interest in soccer.
(Implied : American = good ; un-american = bad.)
Post edited June 29, 2014 by Telika
Posted June 29, 2014
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hedwards: ne of the good things about America is that we're free not to give a fuck about that tedious and generally boring sport
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Telika: (Implied : Baseball isn't.)

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hedwards: foreigners failing to give up their interest when they get citizenship.
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Telika: (Implied : They are supposed to.)

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hedwards: There is something distinctly un-American about all this interest in soccer.
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Telika: (Implied : American = good ; un-american = bad.)
Baseball is like cricket. It's as much about the company as the game. You have ample breaks during the middle of the game when you don't have to be paying attention. There are definitely times when things are going on constantly, but unfortunately, in the modern era where there's a lot of focus on the long ball, you don't get the kind of good games that we used to have.

I never implied that un-American was bad, but if people are going to stick to un-American things, I seriously question why they don't move to Canada. It's easier to get citizenship there, plus you don't have to give up things like soccer and the metric system. It's like America, but with things like that changed.

Soccer OTOH, is sort of the worst of both worlds, it's a game where you can go an entire game without anybody scoring a single point.
Posted June 29, 2014
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hedwards: that tedious and generally boring sport.
Surely you are referring to American football here. Such a dull sport. It ranks there with watching golf for me.

American football: Start. Stop. Start. Stop. Repeat until someone scores, because all the team has to do is make it to the other side. They take more time setting up for a play than actually playing.

Proper way to watch a football game on television:
- Find a good book, paint a wall, mow the lawn, or do something exciting.
- Tune in every-so-often until you find the final two minutes of the game. These 2 minutes will probably take 15 minutes to play. For a regular game, this will be about 1 1/2 minutes after the start. For the Super Bowl, tune in about 3 1/2 hours after the start.
- If the score is lopsided, you've saved yourself from watching a boring, uneven game. Pat yourself on the back and go back to doing something exciting.
- If the scores are close, the end of the game might be worth watching.

Example, the Super Bowl this year wasn't worth watching for a neutral person just wanting to watch a good game.

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hedwards: There is something distinctly un-American about all this interest in soccer.
There is a good deal of interest in soccer in my home town while having a pretty minimal influx of foreigners.
Posted June 29, 2014
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hedwards: I never implied that un-American was bad,
Yes, you implied that, within one country, people should stick with stuff-of-that-country, and discard stuff-"un"-from-that-country. (I like that "un-", it's slightly closer to "anti-" than "not").

As for the stupidity of the "points" argument, it's been adressed above. You can also spend hours on a chessboard before scoring a mate (OH NOES, BORING, NOITHING HAPPENS).
Posted June 29, 2014
low rated
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hedwards: that tedious and generally boring sport.
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adambiser: Surely you are referring to American football here. Such a dull sport. It ranks there with watching golf for me.

American football: Start. Stop. Start. Stop. Repeat until someone scores, because all the team has to do is make it to the other side. They take more time setting up for a play than actually playing.

Proper way to watch a football game on television:
- Find a good book, paint a wall, mow the lawn, or do something exciting.
- Tune in every-so-often until you find the final two minutes of the game. These 2 minutes will probably take 15 minutes to play. For a regular game, this will be about 1 1/2 minutes after the start. For the Super Bowl, tune in about 3 1/2 hours after the start.
- If the score is lopsided, you've saved yourself from watching a boring, uneven game. Pat yourself on the back and go back to doing something exciting.
- If the scores are close, the end of the game might be worth watching.

Example, the Super Bowl this year wasn't worth watching for a neutral person just wanting to watch a good game.
Right, this year it wasn't particularly worth watching, but that happens in any sport. In fact I challenge you to find a sport where there isn't the odd boring game or match. The question is whether or not that's the status quo.

As far as football goes, yes there's a lot of stoppages at times, but there's also a lot of excitement at times. You know that something is going to happen on every play. And unlike soccer you know that at some point something is going to happen. None of that scoreless tie bullshit.

I do grant that I got a lot more interested in the sport once I got to know it. But, unlike soccer, football is actually fun to both watch and play. Soccer is pretty much only fun when it comes to actually playing. And quite frankly, Americans are too fat to play.

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hedwards: I never implied that un-American was bad,
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Telika: Yes, you implied that, within one country, people should stick with stuff-of-that-country, and discard stuff-"un"-from-that-country. (I like that "un-", it's slightly closer to "anti-" than "not").

As for the stupidity of the "points" argument, it's been adressed above. You can also spend hours on a chessboard before scoring a mate (OH NOES, BORING, NOITHING HAPPENS).
Chess isn't a sport. It's a competitive activity, but it isn't a sport by any reasonable definition. And what's more, the interest in the competition is independent of the pacing. Reading the list of moves in order is only marginally less interesting than actually watching the match in real time. Sure, you do lose out a bit on the tension, but particularly for timed matches, you gain a bit by being able to contemplate the possible moves.

Also, mate is winning the game, if you're going hours without anybody taking a piece, then there is nothing happening. Each piece does have an informal point score associated with it. Just because the score isn't relevant doesn't mean that there isn't any progress being made. In soccer it doesn't matter how many times you move the ball back and forth across the field, all that matters is how many times you manage to get it into the goal.

If you're gong to draw an analogy, chess has a lot more in common with quidditch than it does with other sports.

No, un- is closer to a- than to anti- or not. If you're going to argue semantics like that, the least you could do is know what you're talking about.
Post edited June 29, 2014 by hedwards
Posted June 29, 2014
real rugby is funnier than american football. at least the players don't look like MMO characters.
Post edited June 29, 2014 by user deleted
Posted June 29, 2014
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hedwards: In fact I challenge you to find a sport where there isn't the odd boring game or match.
Chess Boxing. Especially since one can win at either the Chess or the Boxing round, and they usually play to their strengths.
And yes, Chess Boxing is a real sport.
Posted June 29, 2014
I played soccer with my neighbors at least three times a week growing up in the U.S. I was on a little league team during part of elementary school, and both my junior and high schools had soccer teams. In college, just about every damn living group had its own soccer team. (Granted, there were many international students.)

Certainly, the U.S. interest in professional soccer has been slim compared to interest in baseball and football. Still, we play it very commonly, particularly as kids.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)'murica football to be named "Patriotball"?(137 posts)(137 posts)
(137 posts)