Yep, another ESPN thread (MOD: Soccer popularity)

[His Beardliness*]

You can't call soccer boring if you watch baseball or football. That would make you a hypocrite

correcto

 

[Rhodes 81]

i like to watch hockey, american football, baseball, soccer, rugby, tennis, and hell, i'll even watch golf (though i think you have to play golf to ever want to watch it).

some of you seem to think liking any other sport besides hockey is evil and that all others need to be purged. i don't get it. why do you all think every other sport is terrible?

 

[LiquidSnake]

NHL, NFL.

ESPN is grasping for straws here. I'd say the Champion's league is more popular in North America over the crap that is MLS.

There are better athletes in the CFL than MLS.

 

[His Beardliness*]

No it wouldn't. Baseball and football both has way higher scoring than soccer and football is much faster than soccer. Baseball has hits, runs, home runs, stolen bases, doubles, triples, and just so many different ways to make a game exciting. Nothing in sports is more exciting than a no-hitter or a perfect game. Soccer is 95 (?) minutes long, slow as ****, and the score ends like 2-1.

Soccer has loads of tackles, shots, corners, free kicks, throw-ins and they run there too! Honestly Baseball is just a slightly lesser version of cricket. The only thing that gets exciting in Baseball is a home run, which doesn't more often than scoring in soccer.

C'mon how is watching someone failing to hit a ball exciting?

 

[ChroNOS]

Meh, the fact remains that Soccer is still the #1 sport worldwide and likely the one with the biggest growth in N. America ever since the MLS was implented. Even if it hasn't surpassed hockey here, it will eventually. Hockey lovers need to deal with it.

 

[LiquidSnake]

Meh, the fact remains that Soccer is still the #1 sport worldwide and likely the one with the biggest growth in N. America ever since the MLS was implented. Even if it hasn't surpassed hockey here, it will eventually. Hockey lovers need to deal with it.

Until the US does something at the World Cup, I disagree.

 

[bruinsfan46]

ESPN said that the woman's World Cup goal on Sunday was the fifth most dramatic thing of all time. Over the shot heard round the world, Kirk Gibson's home run, and Roger Clemens appearing in George Steinbrenner after signing with the Yankees. So yeah they are really trying to push soccer. Its a nice goal and all but let's have some perspective.

Lol at a women's soccer goal being more dramatic than what Kirk Gibson did. When watching women's sports people should come to expect last minute collapses as the quality of play is so much lower, just like you would expect a peewee hockey team to inexplicably cough a game up to their opponents more than an NHL team.

You can't call soccer boring if you watch baseball or football. That would make you a hypocrite

You're really comparing apples and oranges. I'm not a soccer fan and am a baseball and football fan so to me while the pace of play and action in baseball and football is slow when the play is on something is actually happening. In soccer it's far from a rare occurrence for a team to register zero shots on night. I can enjoy and appreciate a pitcher shutting a team down or seeing a really good NFL team stifling the opposition. I don't get the same satisfaction watching a soccer team get held to zero shots. Just my personal opinion, soccer is the world's most popular sport so some really enjoy it obviously. I'm also a golf fan where the pace of play and action is the slowest.

 

[ChroNOS]

Until the US does something at the World Cup, I disagree.

Well, there is only one winner every 4 years, so your logic is flawed there. And perhaps if you weren't in your basement bashing a sport you've never watched more then a handful of games, you'd know the US could compete with European tier2 countries. So while not a contender, it can compete fairly well.

Either way, the growth will likely come off by the MLS a lot more much rather then it's success at the world cup, arguably. The cheap ticket prices & the supporters clubs will do that.

 

[FootKnight]

if you can't see why a no-hitter is exciting you are insane.

Okay, guy. I find most basball games boring anyway and having no hits doesn't somehow make them less so. I can see why it's an achievement, but that doesn't make it exciting, except as the game is nearing it's end for the "is he going to get a no-hitter" factor. I can understand that someone who finds baseball exciting would find it more exciting than normal, but that doesn't mean I personally see why it is.

As someone who doesn't really like baseball, the way that errors and hits are used makes the concept of a no-hitter odd anyway, since a batter can hit the ball and get on base, but still not get a hit. The fact that you can have no-hitters that aren't shutouts is funny.

 

[Roland of Gilead]

Soccer? You mean the real football They actually play the ball with their feet, not hands like "american" "foot"ball. Dont know who decided to name that "handball" to football, he must been in drugs

Football is fun to watch, usually. That italian anti-football I dont like, boring as hell.

Edit: Baseball sucks big time, its boring as hell too.

 

[Kane One]

Just out of curiosity, how old are the people here who hate every sport except hockey? Usually it's young teenagers who just hate everything they don't know anything about.

 

[Hertl Power]

Just out of curiosity, how old are the people here who hate every sport except hockey? Usually it's young teenagers who just hate everything they don't know anything about.

Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they are younger. You can cut the elitist attitude And no I am not a teenager and love serveral sports.

 

[Bexlyspeed]

I think in the states and in Canada there are just as many Soccer fans as Hockey fans, but i don't think they support the MLS they support their home leagues. MLS is a crap league for one reason, they don't know their place and try to sell themselves like the best league in the world, when everyone knows they aren't. so i think its comical that anyone would say MLS is bigger than the NHL.
and there is no way that anything that happens in the woman's world cup is more exciting than any historical sports moment. that like saying the time i threw 6 TD's on my street corner when i was 14 was the greatest sports moment ever. why isn't it? because nobody cares! nobody is emotionally invested in my two hand touch football career, or the woman's world cup

 

[Kane One]

Just because someone doesn't agree with you doesn't mean they are younger. You can cut the elitist attitude And no I am not a teenager and love serveral sports.

That's not what I was trying to say..

And what did you mean by football has 11 minutes of action and takes 3:15 to finish the game. Technically, it has 60 minutes of action.

 

[GirouxGiroux]

I think in the states and in Canada there are just as many Soccer fans as Hockey fans, but i don't think they support the MLS they support their home leagues. MLS is a crap league for one reason, they don't know their place and try to sell themselves like the best league in the world, when everyone knows they aren't. so i think its comical that anyone would say MLS is bigger than the NHL.
and there is no way that anything that happens in the woman's world cup is more exciting than any historical sports moment. that like saying the time i threw 6 TD's on my street corner when i was 14 was the greatest sports moment ever. why isn't it? because nobody cares! nobody is emotionally invested in my two hand touch football career, or the woman's world cup

The hell are you talking about.

 

[Hertl Power]

That's not what I was trying to say..

And what did you mean by football has 11 minutes of action and takes 3:15 to finish the game. Technically, it has 60 minutes of action.

There are 60 minutes of play clock, not 60 minutes of action. After most plays the clock keeps running. The average game has the clock running for about 49 minutes with players in the huddle or waiting for the ball to be snapped. The actual time of the plays add up to about 11 minutes.

Hockey on the other hand the clock only running when the play is going on. There is actually 60 minutes of action during a game.

 

[Kane One]

There are 60 minutes of play clock, not 60 minutes of action. After most plays the clock keeps running. The average game has the clock running for about 49 minutes with players in the huddle or waiting for the ball to be snapped. The actual time of the plays add up to about 11 minutes.

Hockey on the other hand the clock only running when the play is going on. There is actually 60 minutes of action during a game.

Yea, I'm not so sure about that. You may be right, but I don't see how that's possible.

Edit- I just checked and you're right. Color me shocked.

 

[Hertl Power]

Yea, I'm not so sure about that. You may be right, but I don't see how that's possible.

Someone timed several games last year and made a report and article about it a year ago for a paper. The general math though is that the typical play lasts an average of 7 seconds. There are just under 100 plays in a game.

7x100= 700 seconds. Which would be 11 minutes 40 seconds.

The practical way about it is just to think or watch the amount of time that runs off the clock from the player to be tackled after one play until the ball gets snapped on the next. That is where most of the game clock lasts.

Found the article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704281204575002852055561406.html Wall street journal so it is pretty trustworthy.

 

[Bexlyspeed]

The hell are you talking about.

Have you ever heard the commissioner of MLS speak about the league? how they push landon donavan as one of the best players in the world??

 

[Ogrezilla]

if you can't see why a no-hitter is exciting you are insane.

If you can't see why a 1-0 (or 0-0 tie for that matter) soccer game is exciting you are insane.

 

[GirouxGiroux]

Have you ever heard the commissioner of MLS speak about the league? how they push landon donavan as one of the best players in the world??

What do you want them to say? "This league sucks, don't watch it." You're reaching, man.

 

[TheSituation]

Did anyone actually watch that soccer game.It was pretty good.

It was one of the best games I have ever seen in any sport.

 

[Ogrezilla]

Yea, I'm not so sure about that. You may be right, but I don't see how that's possible.

Edit- I just checked and you're right. Color me shocked.

The broadcasts fill the time pretty well with replays and analysis. They can show the same play 2 or 3 times per pause, focusing on different players each time. I love watching football on TV, but I went to a Steelers game once and really noticed just how much time there was between each play. I don't plan on going back, my couch and TV are just fine

 

[TheSituation]

I think in the states and in Canada there are just as many Soccer fans as Hockey fans, but i don't think they support the MLS they support their home leagues. MLS is a crap league for one reason, they don't know their place and try to sell themselves like the best league in the world, when everyone knows they aren't. so i think its comical that anyone would say MLS is bigger than the NHL.
and there is no way that anything that happens in the woman's world cup is more exciting than any historical sports moment. that like saying the time i threw 6 TD's on my street corner when i was 14 was the greatest sports moment ever. why isn't it? because nobody cares! nobody is emotionally invested in my two hand touch football career, or the woman's world cup

To be honest Chastain's PK in 1999 will probably be more memorable to the average American than ANY hockey moment.

 

[Ogrezilla]

To be honest Chastain's PK in 1999 will probably be more memorable to the average American than ANY hockey moment.

of course it will be, a girl took her shirt off