Why don't we have soccer fever?
Did you know that the women's world cup is happening right now? Better yet, did you know our US team is undefeated for the past two years? Where are the house parties? Where are the bars full of rowdy fans? I'm currently watching our women defeat England (3 goals in twelve minutes!) and it's fantastic! Next up, Brazil, Thursday at 8pm.
3 Comments:
Why don't we have rowdy cricket fans? I mean, India just beat archrival Pakistan in the world cup AND the first international Twenty20 championship ever.
Might be because people are interested in sports they've played or grown up watching. Women's soccer will eventually take off, but not until more little soccer-playing girls grow up to be spectators and start bringing other people to the game.
~Sid
Fair enough, but your cricket comparison isn't really directly analogous - presumably there are rowdy cricket fans in India and Pakistan right now. I'm talking about a national team, winning in a major international competition, and that team's home country seems mostly oblivious. I mean, their marketing slogan is "The best team you've never heard of." There was plenty of attention paid to the women's soccer team a few years ago, when we won the gold medal in the Olympics. I guess just as with everything else, our attention span is short.
There is little soccer can do to take a seat at the big boy table currently occupied by football, baseball and basketball. While hockey is no longer one of the big four sports, I would argue that racing, specifically NASCAR, has taken its place in national prominence. No longer is it just a sport for rednecks, as evidenced by increasing investment by corporate America.
I played soccer for 12 years, but I have nearly no interest in watching non-men's-World-Cup soccer. Part of the reason is because our national team stinks. Part of the reason is because our national league stinks. And the reason I don't watch women's soccer is because it is not at a high enough level yet. The fact that the US is on top of women's soccer and pretty bad in men's soccer is a commentary on how seriously women's soccer is taken in other parts of the world. As recently as 1999, there were 67 women's national teams in the world, and only a fraction of those were reasonably competitive (blowouts in women's soccer are far more frequent). By comparison, there were 198 men's national teams that competed to enter the 1998 World Cup.
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