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Saturday, 17 June 2006 |
By D. W. O’Dell
 Is the world crazy, or just us?
"We'll bring you the thrill of victory, the agony of defeat, and because we've got soccer highlights, the sheer pointlessness of a zero-zero tie."
- “Dan Rydell,” Sports Night
“[Chauncy St. John of New Delhi] took all ten wickets in one inning.”“What does that mean?”
- “Jeremy” and “Natalie,” Sports Night
The World Baseball Classic, recently won by Japan, shows that America has been rather successful in exporting its sporting traditions to the rest of the world. And I suppose the mere existence of NFL Europe is added proof (although I don’t understand why, whenever I see there’s a game on, it always involves the Rhine Fire).
But what about the reverse? Why has the U.S. proven so resistant to the world’s sports manias? Soccer (or football, if you wish) and cricket are popular all over the world, except in the United States. How can the United States reject sports that are embraced with passion in every other country?
People have been predicting the impending arrival of soccer as a major sport in the U.S. since…forever. Perhaps the first big thing in U.S. soccer was when Pele joined the New York Cosmos of the North American Soccer League in 1975. But soccer’s popularity did not soar. Nor did it take off when the U.S. hosted the World Cup in 1994. Not even the U.S. Women’s Team winning the world championship in 1999 caused professional soccer to establish itself as a viable alternative to baseball, football, basketball and hockey as a major sport in the United States.
Cricket is even more under the radar. In 2004 the United States fielded a team that qualified them to participate for the ICC Champions Trophy tournament; if this was televised on ESPN, I must have missed it (the team was subsequently humiliated in the actual competition). At this point professional lacrosse had a higher profile in America than cricket.
What is responsible for the failure of the world’s two most popular sports in the world’s wealthiest nation? Is it that these “new” sports can’t compete against established sports like baseball, football or basketball? Doubtful. With the existence of multiple ESPN channels and the emergence of X-Games, arena football, and poker as major sports (poker?), other activities have been able to gain a toehold on the public consciousness.
Is it cultural? Soccer in particular has been singled out as being a boring, low scoring sport that goes against America’s short attention spans and love of action. But cricket matches end up with scores in the hundreds, and that doesn’t seem to attract Americans to cricket, either. Of course cricket matches frequently take several days to play, which, again, taxes American patience.
Soccer would seem to have a lot going for it. Youth participation in soccer is at an all-time high. Cash-strapped school sports programs can have kids play soccer by just giving them a ball and a couple of goals; there’s no need for bats, helmets, catcher’s gear, etc. And as the Hispanic population increases through immigration and high birth rates, more people with a cultural connection to soccer will live in America.
One problem soccer has is that advertisers don’t have the opportunity to insert commercials, since the action is more or less continuous for forty-five minutes at a time. Baseball, with its 18 half-inning breaks per game, is ideal for advertisers; football and basketball have evolved to where there are sufficient time outs to allow advertisers to hawk their wares. But Budweiser will always be loathe to sponsor a soccer league when there is no possibility of stopping play to remind people what a cool, smooth, refreshing beverage Bud Light is.
Cricket’s similarity to baseball will probably always impede its ability to attract players in the U.S. Why take the trouble to learn cricket when baseball is all over the place? At least talented soccer players in the United States might find gainful employment overseas; I’m not sure how much a talented U.S. cricket player might earn playing in England, but odds are it’s a lot less than they could make in another sport. And then there’s the fact that cricket players must wear funny outfits; at least soccer players just wear shorts and a shirt (and a sports bra, at least in Brandi Chastain’s case).
I, personally, have long mocked soccer for taking place on too large of a field and there being too much time between goals. When friends point out that billions of people around the world disagree with that assessment, I reply, “I’m right; they’re wrong.” No one, other than the heads of soccer leagues and cricket organizations, are staying up at night wondering why Americans don’t like soccer and cricket.
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