Why we hate soccer
Will Paul Allen and Drew Carey succeed in establishing Major League Soccer in Seattle? Some suggest they're kicking the ball uphill.
I used to play a funny foreign sport. As old friends will remember, I went through a phase where I was obsessed with six-wicket international-style croquet. I even played competitively for a while. But I never thought croquet should be America's new national pastime, and I never tried to get other people to watch it. I take that back. Our croquet club used to practice on the old Seahawks practice field at what is now Carillon Point in Kirkland. I once invited friends down to watch a tournament, and midway through they looked at me in disbelief, told me it was as entertaining as watching paint dry, and left. Women's beach volleyball it ain't.
But some people just won't give up being missionary about their sports, like investors Paul Allen and Drew Carey, who want to get us all excited about Major League Soccer in Seattle. America has spent decades trying to brainwash its children into becoming soccer fans. I have many friends who have spent the better part of their middle years shuttling kids to and from endless soccer matches only to see those children grow up to become – baseball fans. Now Seattle may have reached the cosmopolitan tipping point with soccer: We've got enough immigrants from soccer-loving countries to fill the pubs come World Cup time. But why hasn't soccer, the sport of our kids, become a big deal for grown-up Americans?
I stumbled across possible explanations in a book I've been reading, Buffalo Bill in Bologna: The Americanization of the World, 1869-1922 (University of Chicago Press, 2005) by Robert Rydell and Rob Kroes. Rydell is a professor at Montana State University in Bozeman. The book covers the rise of American mass culture and, according to the authors, the McDonaldsization of the world began in the 19th century. Sometimes it was a matter of entrepreneurial salesmanship (Buffalo Bill's touring Wild West shows) and sometimes as a result of all-out government propaganda. Woodrow's Wilson's P.R. machine makes Bush's efforts to sell American values overseas pale by comparison. The emergence of the film industry was another driver of the phenomenon.
One exception to the Americanization of European culture is sports. And it's worked both ways. Europeans have never taken to baseball, and likewise we remain impervious to soccer.
Part of the reason might be timing. Some sports seem eternal, but most major spectator team sports – British and American – were "codified and standardized" in the late 19th century. One theory goes that this was when the British Empire was at its peak, and sports like soccer and cricket spread quickly around the globe because they were embraced by emerging, aspirant colonial elites and middle classes. In some cases, the authors say, the sports had unintended democratizing effects, such as in India, where soccer and cricket challenged traditional class roles. So these new sports not only originated in empire, they also contributed to the shaping of post-colonial national identities.
American sports, long separated from British influence, became entrenched at the same time. They evolved in isolation, so while British influence was shaping world sports tastes, American fans were resistant to foreign influence precisely because it was British and we were the anti-empire – or a competing one. Codifying our own spectator sports was a way to assert our national identity. And if you doubt this, just see how much flag-waving, military marching, and U.S. Army advertising is integrated into the typical NFL game.
Another theory, put forward by cultural historian John Blair, is that Americans like "modular sports," games with quarters, innings, and half times, sports that lend themselves to being televised. Think how much of the Super Bowl is now about the advertising spots and how much is paid for them. These segments have become part of the entertainment. Think how much the beauty of baseball, say its fans, is in the statistics of the game. We like our bursts of action neatly tied up in tight entertainment packages.
On the other hand, Europeans like sports with "a continually unfolding narrative ... flow rather than dramatic spasms." Perhaps that explains while people can riot over a game or experience paroxysms of joy over a 0-0 soccer score. The telling is more important than the plot, the play more important than the scoring.
If these theories are true, it doesn't bode well for traditional soccer in America. It's un-American, a remnant of an empire we rejected and overtook. It's too free-flowing and not industrialized enough.
Of course, Seattle is a little different. The whole inspiration for Starbucks came from Italy, and Ecotopian Seattle has a secessionist strain. One could argue that soccer might succeed here precisely because it is out of the American mainstream. However, our major spectator sports don't much reflect that spirit – the Mariners, Sonics, and Seahawks draw on a mainly suburban constituency.
Comments:
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 6:23 a.m. inappropriate
Soccer Moms: I'm not in touch with families in Seattle, but in Portland, perhaps the most kid friendly urban city in America, Soccer is big.
Perhaps it is the influence of Phil Knight, he's certainly doing okay by the UofO - heck, I bet even Patty Murray owns one pair of Nikes.
-Douglas Tooley
Lincoln, Tacoma
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 6:56 a.m. inappropriate
lag time: I think what we're experiencing here is the lag time between something actually getting popular and some folks realizing its popular. We've been used to the top four sports in America being football, baseball, basketball and hockey that when it changes, its hard to accept.
The Gold Cup final (which also sold out Soldier Field) had a larger t.v. audience than the last game of the Stanley Cup. And, that was including it being on a cable station that most Americans don't get (Fox Soccer channel).
Also, the thought of baseball and football (the sports with breaks in the action) as being t.v. friendly is a pre-Tivo concept. For the last year or so, I've started watching games a half hour late so I can at least skip some of the commercials. Soccer has no breaks, so all of the advertising is within the game.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 8 a.m. inappropriate
RE: lag time: I was sad to see you guys especially write this kind of piece about soccer. Art Thiel sure, but for Pete's sake, soccer is the sport of the internet.
You guys should strike first and be the first establishment place in Seattle to bring in a soccer blogger. The Orlando Sentinel's most popular feature is their soccer blog. Even the Oregonian has a soccer blogger.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 8:49 a.m. inappropriate
RE: lag time: Just for the record, there was no "you guys" who wrote the piece. I did. Crosscut is neither pro nor anti-soccer. As to the "sport of the Internet," wouldn't that be World of Warcraft?
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 9:03 a.m. inappropriate
What More Can Be Said: MLS Championship Game Houston at New England
Sunday, November 12
Attendance: 22,427
Houston 0 0 0 1 1*
New England 0 0 0 1 1
*Houston wins 4-3 in penalty-kick shootout
Twenty Two Thousand for the Championship Game!
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 9:07 a.m. inappropriate
Baseball is quintessentially American in origin and characteristic. It celebrates both team and individual effort, it literally looks like America (you got big guys, small guys, fast guys, slow guys, black guys, white guys, now lots of Asian guys, fat guys, skinny guys, good guys, bad guys...every fan has a guy to call his own), and it's the ultimate sport for Reaganesque eternal optimism: no matter how down you are, you can always come back.
The batter alone against nine in the field. Nine in the field must play as a unit or be picked apart by a savvy batter. Even the old and bickering Oakland A's of Charlie Finley days knew that it was fine to hate each other in the clubhouse, but once you crossed the foul line, you played disciplined, team ball...PERIOD!
Football - true football, not foreigh soccer - allows us to vicariously go to war by proxy on the gridiron. A clash of larger than life titans wearing more armor than that seen on knights at King Arthur's Round Table and played in the worst of possible weather conditions affirms our collective manhood...even among women.
The New England Patriots, well on their way to destroying everything in their path, Don Shula's digs notwithstanding, is the team we all want ours to become. Ruthless, unrelenting, dominating in every category, and putting its stamp everywhere it goes. It's fitting indeed that the old Revolutionary War naval ensign motto, "Don't Tread On Me!" seems to be working for a time whose mascot is a Minuteman.
But soccer? Gag! Running about chasing a ball in your underwear and forbidden from using your hands. How foolish is that? And refs with cards? What? Are they playing a game or networking by handing out cards? What's the deal with that???
Soccer players marry Spice Girls. Do we want either our sons or daughters on any end of that proposition? Bend it like anyone you wish, but I'll take Clemente and Jerry Kramer any day!
The Piper
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 9:18 a.m. inappropriate
RE: What More Can Be Said: Actually it was 2-1 in regular time and the attendance was 39,000. I think you're thinking of the 2006 MLS Cup, which was played in Pizza Hut Park in Frisco TX. PHP has a capacity of 21,913, making the 2006 MLS Cup above capacity.
Above capacity sellout, For a Championship Game!
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 11:14 a.m. inappropriate
Thank goodness for Crosscut!: Among its other valuable purposes, it has provided a new forum for Skip to assail soccer. I remember him telling me years ago that there were two keys to America: "We don't do metric, and we don't do soccer."
I could write 4,000 words about why and how soccer can and can't make it in the U.S. (in fact, I dimly remember doing so for Skip sometime in the past...). But I'll limit myself to two points here.
The U.S. (and Major League Soccer in particular) is in this vicious cycle where all the best players go to where the money is--i.e., outside the U.S., which means the quality of play just isn't that great. If the NFL, NBA and MLB rosters were filled with B-list and past-their-prime players, I don't think they'd be doing so hot either, and not because of some complicated cultural disconnect.
I love Skip's description here: "The telling is more important than the plot, the play more important than the scoring." But the problem is, that's exactly my impression of baseball. Which bores the living crap out of me, by the way. I mean, isn't a "perfect game" this really exciting something-or-other where NOBODY SCORES? I do not understand baseball, why you throw any particular pitch at any particular time or hit a fly or a bunt. To me, it's all just the same tedium over and over. Which is exactly how soccer looks to people who have no sense of the game. I totally agree about the cultural differences. (We must have winners and losers at every moment, and the other sports provide it, down after down, batter after batter, every trip down the court.) But if people understood soccer better they could enjoy the in-betweens much more, just as they do with baseball.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 11:30 a.m. inappropriate
Soccer vs US sports: One of the big differences between the four main sports in the US and soccer is simply the flow of the games. soccer tends to be continious, flowing, non-stop.
With maybe the possible exception of hockey-which is kind of like soccer on ice-all dominant US sports are periodic, with lots of starts and stops.
There is certainly more "instant gradification" in The Big Four. Soccer requires patience, concentration, things that seem to be lacking in our modern US society. It isn't about short bursts of activity.
Don't get me wrong. I love the pace of baseball. It is also a statistics wonderland. But it still consists of pitch-by-pitch play.
Soccer has a ebb and flow and requires awareness of what is happening on the entire field--where the ball is may very well not be what is really important as something innocent-looking turns into the setup for a really great play or save.
Will soccer work in Seattle? I hope so. But I am not sure the cultural attitudes of "I want it now!" that are reflected in so many of our sports can be changed to appreciate the skill and craft it takes to play soccer.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 11:35 a.m. inappropriate
sport of the internet: WOW reference=zoink!
I was looking for a blog post that referred to soccer as the "sport of the internet," but I couldn't come up with it.
The central thoughts were:
1. Of all sports in America, soccer has an internet following because it isn't on t.v. a lot, nor in print publications.
2. World wide sport, meet the World wide web.
3. Social aspects of soccer are much great given the place supporter clubs hold in soccer culture. Social web, meet social soccer.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 11:42 a.m. inappropriate
You are Correct: I pulled that out of this morning's NY Times. Went back and checked and it was 2006. I don't think that changes the point, however. Soccer has a long hard road ahead to gain anything like a major league audience. I wish them well.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 11:53 a.m. inappropriate
Not something I would pay to watch strangers do.: Maybe it has something to do with the perceived absence of a class system, that everything is a competition. There must be many points scored, statistics kept, individuals lauded, to keep Americans like me interested.
My son that is the sports fan is obsessed with the score of (insert sport here). Who is winning, how much time is left. He's 7. He's more likely to watch any two teams in basketball, or football, or baseball, before a cartoon. But soccer, that doesn't appear to register with him. He understands the game, might watch longer than I ever would, but there doesn't appear to be much going on that he sees as a sport.
I liked playing it as a child 35 years ago, was pretty good, not something I would pay to watch strangers do.
I'd sooner watch the Sonics; they stink, might be moving, and they still draw nearly as many people as the "MLS Championship Game Houston at New England "
To me soccer looks like boys chasing wild a rabbit (a white hare might be more appropriate) in a neighbor's field. It's far away and pointless. I haven't expressed this to my children, some disappointments are best left to people to experience on their own.
Maybe they will like the new team, maybe we'll take up chasing wild rabbits.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 12:20 p.m. inappropriate
Class & Cricket: "cricket challenged traditional class roles".
In 19th Century England the County teams consisted of "Gentlemen" (amateurs) and "players" (who were PAID to play) who entered and left the field through separate gates!
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 1:26 p.m. inappropriate
Massive Logical Hole: Codifying our own spectator sports was a way to assert our national identity.
Then how do you explain baseball in Japan?
You cannot argue that Japan does not have a strong national identity--particularly in the 50s. If the Japanese can learn to love the great American past time within a single generation of being attacked--twice--with nuclear weapons, I don't think that the American revolution and the differences between European and American culture is an insurmountable barrier that the sport of soccer can't overcome.
Also, I've been to quite a few bars in this town the past two world cups, and a minority of the people there were "immigrants". Most were middle class whites.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 1:29 p.m. inappropriate
Soccer in Seattle: MLS has a better chance of success in Seattle than most US cities.
The idea that the game isn't interesting vis-a-vis baseball or football or lawn darts is parochial, close-minded, and silly. Any sport -- take Texas hold-em or women's billiards -- can take hold if the competition and personalities are presented well. But that presentation needs to be on TV and cable, and supported by the media and advertisers. MLS is starting to get its TV act together, so may have a chance. The local media around here will eventually get around to assigning people to cover, report on, and announce the games. A lot of the success of professional sports has to do with the quality of announcers. Think Dave Niehaus in baseball or Kevin Callabero in basketball or Steve Raible in football for examples of how important these people are to local team success. In soccer the announcers are hugely important as well. Think "GOOOOOOOOOOAL!!" And I remember watching "Soccer Made in Germany" years ago and Toby Charles was wonderful to listen to. I don't watch soccer much now, but those who do (I believe) typically watch the English Premiere League on Cable or DirectTV. These people are much less likely to to watch the Sounders who are a minor league US team playing against Fort Worth or Rochester in a national league that made no sense against teams no one knows about and with stars no one has ever heard of. That doesn't mean the soccer itself isn't high quality and the teams and leagues competitive. Rather, its the marketing and the media clout that minor league teams or minor sports lack. For example, we get 10 people locally writing about Jake Locker's neck, and NONE writing about the UW Soccer team's play. That's not just an imbalance but an EXCLUSION of coverage.
Thirty years ago Pele and the Cosmos and the NASL came to town and the Sounders were wildly successful in this city. In my memory, much more popular than the Seattle Pilots, a MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL team. But the NASL had little television revenue or exposure to maintain it and the NASL went broke. The MLS, on the other hand, has a plethora of billionaires supporting it, and it has been growing sustainably for about a decade now. Back in the 70's, few people knew much about soccer and even fewer played it. Cut to 2007 and most every kid now plays it in their early years, and most parents understand the game well. It's not really foreign to anyone. Depending on the style of play, soccer can be a game of technique, of beauty, of savagery, of endurance, of power, and of consummate skill. It's superstars are as mesmerizing as basketball's or football's or baseball's best. The drama at the end of a game can be as exhilarating as any sport. Worldwide the game is militaristic and nationalistic to an enormous degree. The sold-out stadium for the Manchester United friendly here a while back shows there are many loyal soccer fans here, not unlike loyal Bosox fans in the Seattle area.
Having said all this, the success of the MLS will come down to how well the marketing and media battles succeed against the already entrenched sports of baseball, football and basketball. Because of the cosmopolitan makeup of the city, my bet is that a Seattle MLS team will do quite well. Develop a winning team with a few stars, show the games on FSN with exciting, knowlegeable announcers, and the thing will take off like a weed. Develop a mediocre team with ordinary players shown on channel 66 late at night announced by someone who doesn't know the game, and the team will be a dismal failure and die.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 4:50 p.m. inappropriate
Bummin': I'm really bummed by the title and slant of this editorial. While the ties to the historical aspect of sport are some of the best thought-out reasons as to why soccer may not succeed in the US, the point by John Blair is really off the mark. I think there's a general misunderstanding of the intricacies of the sport that make people feel like they need to defend American sports against soccer.
Piper Scott a few posts up that points out the heroic aspects of our American sports in building a straw-man case against soccer. The same points you make about baseball can easily be turned and be positive points in favor of soccer. Minus the armor aspect the American football statements can also be applied to soccer. The last point about your heroes could be applied to soccer heroes but aren't and it is largely because you consume American sports.
Ultimately sports are entertainment. Just like any other entertainment you "consume" people are bound to have their preferences. Remember that just because a new flavor of entertainment is joining the group doesn't mean that the new one is inherantly wrong or anti-American. In fact, in Washington alone more than 300,000 of us play the sport.
Lastly, I invite anyone that is open to it to come and join us for the tailgates and gameday festivities. It might just open your mind to another flavor of entertainment.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 5:39 p.m. inappropriate
Soccer is OK, but only just: Soccer will never displace the big three of football, baseball and basketball. Hell, it probably won't pass professional golf anytime soon. But it's a fine sport and there's no reason that a team couldn't be successful in Seattle. Just don't expect too much.
Posted Wed, Nov 21, 6:58 p.m. inappropriate
Baseball and American football are like jazz and musical theater in that they're our sport/art forms; home-grown, all-American, and unique to us, we export them around the world, not the other way round.
Baseball is quintessentially American. A comment mentioned sports statistics. More young boys learn the intricacies of math (statistics, division, multiplication, percentages, etc.) by studying the back of cards from Topps or Fleer than in any tediousl classroom.
Baseball is the American story. No other sport matches its majesty, human diversity, courage, tense drama (yes it is important what pitch is thrown in what situation), and ability, at least in theory, to be eternal.
BTW...a "perfect game" isn't scoreless, but one in which one player, the pitcher, so dominates every other player on the opposing team that he mows them down one after the other; nine-innings of three-up, three-down. Don Larsen's perfect World Series game in 1956 (against Sal Maglie, no slouch himself!) for the New York Yankess against the Brooklyn Dodgers remains one of the most significant sports stories of all time. It shows the power of one man to take on all comers and win if he has "the right stuff," which Larsen, not known as an extraordinary pitcher otherwise, had that day.
Baseball is for everyone. In every game is a guy like you, and you never know if but what this is the game when it will be his turn to shine. If it is, then you'll shine with him because he's playing for you.
Jackie Robinson's story foreshadowed Brown v. Board of Education and paved the way for the American Civil Rights Movement. Only on a baseball diamond could old prejudices be broken and new respect found. When Pee Wee Reese, a southern boy from, I think, Mississippi, put his arm around Robinson symbolically telling the world that on the diamond they were brothers, Jim Crow's days were numbered.
Soccer cannot lay claim to even a scintilla of baseball's hold on the American psyche.
Football is different. From the days of Jim Thorpe, Knute Rockne, Red Grange, and Pop Warner, football was a great equalizer. When a Sac and Fox Indian from an Oklahoma reservation can become a two-time All American and a Norwegian immigrant can become the greatest football coach in American history, with both beating teams from Ivy League Harvard and West Point, thus showing that in America, at least on the gridiron in those days, all men are created equal, then you have something again uniquely American that cannot be duplicated by an imported sport.
While it's true that sports are entertainment, they oft times become more. Whether to restore national pride (think 1980 Olympic hockey team), capture the national imagination (the streaks of Lou Gehrig and Joe DiMaggio), or lead the way toward the better angels of our nature (again, Jackie Robinson) sports, particularly baseball and football, shine. Soccer has no such imprint upon our national soul.
Soccer has been knocking at America's door for decades, but we're too busy watching the Mariners or Seahawks to answer.
Drew Carey, no dummy, by insisting on a marching band intuitively understands that soccer lacks what we demand: a story and pagentry. The grueling extra-inning ball game and the hard fought battle between bitter football rivals (didn't the UW used to have a team? That routinely slugged it out with USC or UCLA for Pac-10 dominance? Don James, where are you now that we need you?); can you ask for anything more than that? With a half-time show to boot?
It's not that we don't get soccer, it's that soccer doesn't get us; in the fabric of America, it's not even a thread.
The Piper
Posted Thu, Nov 22, 9 a.m. inappropriate
RE: What More Can Be Said: That it is necessary to manipulate data to make your case against soccer is the point where I say "what more can be said?".
Posted Thu, Nov 22, 10:30 a.m. inappropriate
Unamerican? Not.: The challenges facing professional soccer have nothing to do with the nature of the game. The problem is a combination of timing, as you pointed out, and tough competition with numerous encumbent sports for American's attention. People can only care about and follow so many sports, so for soccer to succeed, it needs to take mindshare from football, baseball, basketball, and hockey, all of which have a long established history and have groomed generations of fans.
I think it may succeed. It's the most played sport in the country, and it's actually a better game than the others. I never thought much about soccer until I lived in Germany when Bayern-Munich won the European cup. Even Piper would have caught the fever if he were there. Much more exciting than when my home baseball team (the Twins) won their first "world" series in '87.
Posted Thu, Nov 22, 1:54 p.m. inappropriate
America's Next Top Xtreme Sport: One possible route for soccer here: Americanize it by going to extremes. One of the most popular incarnations of croquet in the U.S. is "xtreme croquet", a game that eschews greenswards and involves wacking balls across the countryside. Forget garden parties and think wilderness adventure with hefty mallets. Why not play soccer games in, say, the caldera of Mt. St. Helens? Add in an cruel elimination element such as banishment a la Survivor or ritual humiliation like America's Next Top Modeland you would have something that could get decent ratings.
Posted Thu, Nov 22, 7:38 p.m. inappropriate
Speak for yourself: "...we remain impervious to soccer." Spake another self appointed sports guru in the US. Been hearing this crap since I was 12 and for the last 34 years have enjoyed all forms of soccer in the States along with millions of other fans.
Posted Fri, Nov 23, 8:40 a.m. inappropriate
yawn: I almost refrained from commenting, because this article seems so desperately designed to elicit comments. Smells a lot like an earlier article you all had about why we hate bicyclists. Maybe Crosscut's motto should instead be "News by Old White Guys."
Posted Mon, Nov 26, 2:21 p.m. inappropriate
Compared to the Sonics???: Major League Soccer (which isn't even major league by world standards) had at least 10 teams this season who averaged higher attendance than your Seattle Sonics did last year (and certainly will this pitiful season).
And the NBA has ostensibly the very best players in the world, and is heavily supported by corporate ticket-buying.
The whole soccer-will-never-catch-on-here argument is so 1960s -- kind of like Mr. Berger himself.
Posted Mon, Nov 26, 10:38 p.m. inappropriate
not there yet: Soccer "fans", keep bitterly complaining about other sports that I actually like and how the world (other than me) love soccer more thank life, I'm almost caring about soccer, not because I like it, but I'll pretend to like it (just liked everybody but you).
Just kidding, I hope this works out for all the people that love to watch soccer, that's just not me.