On Jul 4, 2006, at 8:22 AM, Helio W. wrote:
I was expecting soccer to grow faster on popularity in the US since
the
Cosmos days... I always said that once soccer becomes popular in
the US,
with the incredible sports business machine and professionalism
behind it,
the US will be world cup champion many times. Can you imagine if
soccer was
as popular as football or basketball in the US?
Companies make more money on other sports, which are better suited
for TV and commercials. There are dozens of commercial breaks in a
typical baseball/football/basketball/hockey game; they've even
modified the rules in order to make more such breaks, since it brings
in more revenue to the teams. They pay the athletes lots of money to
promote their products, and the kids watching then dream of playing
that sport like the famous star they just saw selling sneakers or soda.
The other part to this is a bit of a backlash by "dads" whose kids
don't want to play the same sports as they did. I know a guy whose
son is the same age as mine; this kid was fast and coordinated from a
young age. He actually played recreation league soccer when he was 8,
and was one of the better players. But Dad had dreams of the kid
becoming the next Mickey Mantle, which I'm sure he thought he was
going to be growing up, but never made it. So the next year he
wouldn't sign the kid up for soccer, and made him play baseball only
in the spring. He became part of the town Little League board, and
was part of a group that tried to pass a rule that would have forced
kids as young as 10 to choose between the two sports: if you played
soccer, you were kicked out of Little League. This kid still plays
baseball and he's good at it, but had he been allowed to play
whatever he liked, my guess is that he'd be an awesome soccer player.
I've talked with several parents of my kids' teammates, and while
some were into soccer before they had kids, most were not, and
figured if the kid wanted to try playing soccer, why not? After
watching it for a couple of years, though, they start to understand
the game, and are now huge fans of the sport (even the games their
kids aren't playing in! ;-).
Since their kids are growing up with the sport, and can name the
best players in the world as their heroes, they will be bringing up
their kids someday in a soccer culture. So my guess is that soccer
won't really be a major sport in the US until the next generation at
the earliest.
-- Ed Leafe
-- http://leafe.com
-- http://dabodev.com
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