Previous to living in Romania, I never really understood how big soccer was in the rest of world. Soccer was played at home by kids in the local park, but never really was in the same league as the traditional American sports of baseball, basketball and football (the American kind). When I first arrived in Bucuresti, I quickly realized that in Europe (and the rest of the world) futbol is king. In Bucuresti there were three major teams; FC Dinamo Bucureşti, FC Steaua Bucureşti and FC Rapid Bucureşti. One of the first things my mission president told me about serving in Bucuresti was that if anyone asked (and everyone did) what futbol team I was with, to tell them that I didn't really know and just liked basketball. If you told some kids that you were with Rapid and they were with Steaua (Romania's most successful futbol club) they tended to get hostile. Whenever there was a futbol game on TV, tracking went terribly. Everyone was home, but no one wanted to talk. One night there was a big match between the national team and a German club, we didn't watch the game, but knew what the score was in the morning just by hearing the cheers and yells from the apartments below and above us. (Romania lost).
So why is Futbol followed with such passion in the rest of the known world, but just a 2nd class sport that we watch if college football is over and the NBA isn't on yet in the United States? I have a few ideas, and would like to hear your feelings.
The popularity of Futbol
Lets first just try to understand how big futbol really is.
- The World Cup boasts an audience twice that of the Summer Olympic Games. - FIFA official website (2006-12-05). Archived from the origi nal on 2006-12-30. Retrieved on 2008-01-06.
- Over 240 million people from more than 200 countries regularly play football. - "FIFA Survey: approximately 250 million footballers worldwide" (PDF). FIFA website. Archived from the original on 2006-09-15. Retrieved on 2006-09-15.
- The 2008 FIFA world cup was broadcast on 376 channels, in 214 countries, with a total cumulative television audience of 26.29 billion and over 1.1 billion watched the final game – according to FIFA.com
- The Super Bowl, in comparison was watched by 93 million people in 2005. 98% of this audience was in the United States, according to progressiveu.com
Click on this map to see how the love of futbol is spread throughout the world.
So why didn’t futbol stick in America?
So, if futbol is loved the world around, then why isn’t it popular in the United States? Why didn’t our primarily European ancestors bring their love of the game with them to their new home?
Some ideas that I had, and some that came from a USAtoday article entitled “Why the United States doesn't take to soccer”
· Something about the way in which our nation was founded, has created a strong sense of competition and resolution via conflict. Something about a game that can last for 90 minutes and end in a draw or a 1-0 victory just doesn’t resonate with us. For example, the 2005–06 season of the English Premier League produced an average of 2.48 goals per match. "England Premiership (2005/2006)". Sportpress.com. We like games that involve violence and a lot of dramatic scoring opportunities. My aunt was in Germany for the Work Cup final and told me that the fans there believe that each pass, each stop is beautiful and cheer each time someone makes a good play, even if it doesn’t result in a score.
· Soccer has roots in Britain, which exported the game to its colonies some 150 years ago. Little surprise we just said no. In the colonist’s minds, futbol was another element of British rule that came from the same pattern as taxation without representation.
o America was all about being independent from Great Britain, so soccer's inability to stick here really is a product of historical forces," says Randy Roberts, a historian at Purdue University. "It's also worth noting that the sports that gain popularity in any culture tend to have great appeal with the lower classes. That's true with soccer in the rest of the world and with sports like basketball here."
· So long as soccer here remains the casual sport of middle-class suburbanites and their elementary school offspring, it won't penetrate our popular culture.
· Sports are mirrors of life, which can help kids realize where they fit in. Will you be the guy who can throw that game-winning touchdown pass or not? Soccer doesn't seem to promote that."
- Our finest athletes don't gravitate toward the sport, eliminating the possibility of us ever seeing a Michael Jordan of soccer emerge from our shores. "Kids in this country may grow up playing soccer, but most seem to stop playing it fairly early in life because they lose interest.
· One powerful appeal of soccer is that victories on the pitch — especially national-team triumphs that resonate well beyond World Cup stadiums — amount to brief but shining moments in the sun for countries that, in geopolitical terms, don't enjoy such stature. Brazil is soccer's king, having won the World Cup five times; the country doesn't have commensurate clout at the United Nations.
So what do you think? Why don’t we as American’s take to futbol like the rest of the world? Is it just a fluke that will change over time, or does it say something about who we are and the way that we look at ourselves? Why do you like or dislike futbol? Why isn't your love of futbol equal to Basketball or football?
24 comments:
I was in Sao Paulo Brazil when they won the world cup in 2002. I was in the MTC and we were in the middle of Elder's Quorum. We had to stop class for 5 minutes because we literally couldn't hear anything but celebration from outside. It was nuts.
I think that soccer is a popular sport for poorer countries, 'cause all you really need is a ball. I've seen people kicking around balled up tape before.
I don't like it 'cause I never played it growing up.
I admit that there have been recent inroads into futbol in America,
•Viewership is up 90% over the 2002 Cup," says ESPN senior vice president and research guru Artie Bulgrin, referring to the South Korea/Japan World Cup.
• Futbol superstars such as Beckham and Freddie Adu have raised awareness of the sport
• Salt Lakes local futbol club, Real Salt Lake
Despite these inroads, it still seems as though Futbol is distended to be just a second rate sport. We just don't love it here like we love football and I don't really see it changing anytime soon.
we had an exchange student from brasil come stay with us, and he kinda got me into soccer. but i still think its boring. 90 minutes or so, no scoring half the time? come on. if anything, rugby is where it's at.
I had the chance to travel around Europe this past spring and I've always heard that soccer is huge in other countries, but it wasn't until I was actually surrounded by a soccer loving culture that I truly understood what a big deal it is.
When we were traveling around, my friends and I all got different soccer jersey's and ended up wearing them, I remember when we were in Germany, and a girl I was with was wearing a jersey from Holland, it was crazy the reactions she got by people who were non supportive of the jersey she was wearing.
I like watching football over soccer, simply because I'm more accustom to it, I know what's going on it a football game, and I know that most people I'm friends with will be able to relate to football. I think that we as Americans enjoy football over soccer because it is more culturally acceptable to watch and play football. Soccer is gaining some recognition, but to a lot of kids it's more of a girl's sport here.
I think that believing that Soccer is the great American sport would hurt America's pride. We are clearly not the best in it.
We have our own sports, and pride ourselves on having the world's best Basketball team and such. Is there any competition from the rest of the world? Not really, no one else cares.
When we have and do compete in the world of sports, it often has political undertones. We can beat Russia during the cold war, or we should beat France and Germany because they didn't support our invasion of Iraq.
We lose to those countries when we have a national Soccer team. We just can't love a sport that we don't dominate.
Oh, and Soccer is way more entertaining to watch than basketball. In basketball, the last 3 minutes of the game is the part with suspense (unless one team is just crushing the other, then there's no suspense at all in the game).
In Soccer, you have that suspense throughout the match. It is like ninety minutes of the end of a basketball game.
I think it's awesome how much pride the World Cup brings out in nations across the globe. My Italian professor talked about how big the world cup was when he was on his mission. He showed us pictures and I think it would be awesome to be a part of something like that, however-our nation is made up of 50 very independent states. We wouldn't have national pride cause we'd have individual teams. (hence the NFL) There wouldn't be 3 top teams, there would be 50...or maybe a few less, but still a lot. We're unified at the Olympics, but other than that-it's all about intranational competition.
Why football is king in America and why soccer never really made it is something I've always wondered.
I guess it's because football was born in America, and we claim that as our own. Over time, it became the preferred sport over other sports similar to it, like soccer, and it's never been the same ever since. It's taken up a culture of its own.
Actually, the U.S female futbol team has been one of the two best female teams in the world (the other is China's). I never understood why Americans just don't like soccer. Never found an answer for it. And its funny because the rest of the world call soccer football and they call football either American football or something else.
Americans don't have an emotional bond with a national (men's) futbol team. Perhaps that is because they haven't had much success yet. The national women's soccer team was very popular for a few years after they won the world cup in 1999. Mia Hamm even became an American icon after that and boosted popularity of the sport among young girls. I think futbol will never get as big as it is in Europe and other countries... however, like any sport, success would bring increased popularity and attention.
I love soccer. Ever since I played soccer when I was little, I have loved it. When I was in high school, my friend and his family got box seat tickets to the real Salt Lake verses Real Madrid game. I was thrilled, he was depressed. I came to understand that he played baseball and his dad was a professional baseball player. For some reason that sport doesn't like soccer at all. I think it is because it's not "all American" like baseball. It doesn't follow our country heritage way back. And I agree with other people in saying that soccer can be played in even the poorest countries, because all you need is a ball.
I think this was an interesting post. As I look at sports, I think that there are various sports for various targets, and unfortunately, soccer fall short in the eyes of some. For instance, Tennis and Golf are sports for the sophisticated. Hence why you find American Express offerring its high paying customers pre-sale purchase abilities at the U.S. Open. Nascar has its set of fans that are unique in their own right. Basketball and Football are for the adrenalin fanatics. Unfortunately, I don't think that futbol is as exciting as football and basketball due to low scores and less opportunity to be a physical specimen and dominate opponents, and it is not as sophisticated as Tennis and Golf. So unfortunately, futbol falls in between and through the cracks...no matter how much I love the sport.
i like watching college soccer, but i've just never gotten into professional soccer. every time i see it on TV, the field seems to vast and the game seems slow moving that i just can't watch it like i can watch football. i agree with what other people said about it being popular in poorer countries because all you need is a ball, and i want to add to that: maybe the USA hasn't caught on because it's just not violent enough!
I am not a big fan of soccer at all! To me, it is really boring! I think that a lot of American's view it the same way. America is a "trend setting" country. Maybe the idea of soccer is not a popular idea because we did not invent it. Not only that, but we are not the best at it. We are prideful, and usually enjoy the sports we dominate.
It's hard to really get into something that culture doesn't care about. I really love football... And the fact that Americans love it makes it better - because the rivalries, the intensity, the accessibility. That's what its like for Europeans and futbol... I hated futbol before my mission to Argentina. During World Cup, I was confused first as a German and they would threaten me because their team beat Argentina. Then, they hated me because they thought I was English. I actually took an interest in the sport. I respect it, I like it.. but let's be honest - the best teams are abroad, MLS soccer is like the minor leagues. So you have to watch other countries teams to see the best play, which takes away from the homegrown rivalry sensation that football here generates. Even if you were a true lover of futbol, it's hard to really do anything - you can't go to the games of the worlds best teams, your friends probably won't want to even talk about it - basically you have to go counter-culture!
I think it's true that historically we wanted to be different - our "cowboy" attitude was attracted to the faster, rough adrenaline sports.
That was super interesting about how we are not satisfied with such a low scoring game. We are such a instant-gratification kind of society, and I think that it really does say a lot about us that we take to sports that score up into the 70's and often higher. I do think that soccer is a popular sport, just not professional soccer. If you think about it, almost every little kid plays soccer, but then moves on to other sports as they get older. I think that this could have a lot to do with availability of these sports as other options... in tons of the countries where soccer is super popular, kids grow up playing soccer all day every day because you basically need NOTHING to play it. grab a ball and you're good.
I've always had a soft spot for soccer, which only grew after my mission to Germany. I don't think anyone can answer the question why soccer is the world's game and Americans can't get behind it. We have so many other sports to fight for our attention, when the rest of the world really only has basketball and soccer, but why is that? Who knows, but recently I think it has something to do with the "slow pace" of the game. That is also a reason why baseball is declining in popularity. Americans need to be wowed and have collective ADD.
I was the same as most RM's. I hated watching soccer before going to Honduras on my mission. Now I love playing and watching it. I know why soccer isn't important here. We like more action than one goal a game. And our best athletes don't play soccer. Could you imagine if Kobe, LeBron, LaDainian, Chris Paul, and Devin Hester played soccer. We could export the best players to Europe. I don't think the USA will ever accept soccer, even if Beckham comes to play in LA. Although I now love soccer, no one here really cares.
I agree with the premise that Americans like games that involve violence and a lot of dramatic scoring opportunities. The historical link to Britain also seems like a strong reason. Futbol is huge... ( even if all the posted stats do some from the FIFA website!) I think the US will catch up eventually - I have just been to go and watch David Beckham come to play in Salt Lake City. Futbol will never overtake Football in popularity-- it is a case of tradition and established structures.
i feel that americans are proud of their own sports because they created them, they are american staples. we typically do not like foreign things. soccer is a foreign thing, it was started outside the U.S. and thus does not have the same genuine foundation as football, basketball, and baseball. so we are pretty much unwilling to accept a sport that was started in another country, because of our american patriotic belief and pride, which isn't a bad thing at all. it's just interesting.
I think that soccer is a growing sport in America. Especially for girls. But I don't think that soccer will ever be the same in America as it is in other countries. The reason for this is that we already have football and basketball and baseball that have filled the space of American sports
People like watching sports that they play themselves. Sure, a lot of people played recreational soccer when they were 9 years old, but when they got into school sports, soccer seemed less appealing than football or basketball.
I can see why poorer countries would love soccer -- all it requires is a ball and a little bit of open space.
Sports that Americans love, on the other hand, require a lot of money. Just think of how much money it costs to equip one person to play football, hockey, or golf, not to mention the cost of skiing or snowboarding.
Most countries can't afford to participate in these expensive sports, but if they could, I'm willing to bet that a fair number of them would forget about their soccer balls.
-Michael Williams
Futbol is great. I'm a little sad that it isn't as popular as it is around the world.
However, there is one thing that still puzzles me. It seems as if almost every kid played in some kind of soccer league long, long ago. If so many kids are exposed to soccer while young, why doesn't that carry over to the teenage years, and then adulthood? Is it because soccer is the only sport their bodies can handle at that age? I'm not sure exactly what happens, but if there was a way to keep kids in soccer for longer, I think we could see a shift in futbol's popularity in the US.
I played soccer longer than any other sport I ever tried. I personally think football is a little boring (just my opinion). Despite the fact that soccer is a low scoring game, it is a fast-past constantly moving game and I love that. It is interesting to watch and there isn't the stop and go four hour long drawn out game like in other popular American sports (football perhaps?)
However, I think the fact that football is a truly American sport that we can claim as our own will always keep it as America's favorite pastime.
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