Soccer: A Sport for the American Intelligentsia?
Over the past few weeks (and for the next two weeks) I’ve been captivated by the World Cup. As an American, this is stereotypically unusual; most Americans are pretty apathetic about the most popular sport on the planet. I’ve even been watching games that don’t involve Team USA.
However, I know I’m not the only American excited about the game; I see the (mostly American) twitterati going wild over game results. I read an article yesterday about how bars in the big American cities are packed at 9am for Team USA games. People in places like Washington DC, Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, Seattle are excited about the games. So, I ask – who are these people packing bars at 9am to watch soccer? Do they have jobs? Here in academia, I can spend a few hours in morning in my office or at home with the game on ESPN3 on my computer. What about everyone else?
I planned on typing up a long blog post about this; making a case for a soccer intelligentsia. I conjecture that the average US soccer fan is white, grew up in the suburbs, works in some creative form (academia, design, etc), drinks microbrews, lives in an urban area, and probably has a graduate degree. This lead me to some googling and clearly I am the 1,329,401st person to think about this problem. A better summary of my thoughts about this can be found in an already written article over at Slate.com
June 28th, 2010 at 11:36 am
As an American myself I’ve tried to educate myself on the international sporting sensation we call soccer. In ways I agree with your assessment of the sport as I love the no-commercials, national teams and club leagues, and trading that takes place. But the game isn’t perfect…why are the substitutions so strict, the penalties seem arbitrary, and scoring so infrequent? I’m sure if I played the sport I would understand it better but with all the excitement that I’ve seen this year why don’t they play soccer in America and have it broadcast?
June 28th, 2010 at 11:42 am
I was laughing at the comments the announcers on ESPN were saying about the Germany/England game. They were complaining about the referees and the goal that wasn’t given as a goal to England (which they claim cost them the game). I was thinking: Let’s AMERICANIZE this sport:
1. Add instant reply and goal detection, like in Hockey.
2. Split the game into quarters (FIFA has actually tried to do this) so we can insert more commercials
3. We need more STATS. US sports fans love random stats (i.e. “player x hasn’t scored a goal against team Y in 34 games”)
4. Cheerleaders. Think the Laker girls or the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders.
5. Explosions. Like after a goal, shoot off fireworks. Make a goal = Home Run.
Combine all of these elements and you may be able to attract Joe Sixpack to soccer. Otherwise, I think it will still be a sport for American intellectuals and the rest of the world…