The merry-go-round has come full circle…AGAIN…to the popularity of soccer and tennis in the US. Some pundits would have you believe that the US men’s soccer team beating Spain and leading Brazil at the half in the Confederations Cup will now sway the good American people to love the sport that the rest of the world adores (except Japan and Canada). Now soccer will be relevant in this country!!!! The youth of America will all drop their bats, helmets, and basketballs and rush out to buy shin-guards and learn how to flop.
I can't see the US ever understanding this sport
But as Samuel Jackson said in Pulp Fiction, “Allow me to retort.”
Soccer will never be #1 in this country…it will never be #2…it will never be #3…it will never be #4…it doesn’t even have a chance to out-seat the PGA as #5 or the NHL at #6 (that’s right hockey fan, the NHL has fallen hard behind NASCAR and golf). The rest of the world treats soccer like we treat the NFL (they even call it football…crazy), but here it’s not much higher on the totem pole than lacrosse. Here, it’s boring. Here, it’s foreign. Here, it’s a niche sport.
******DISCLAIMER***** Soccer fan is probably fuming by now…welcome to reality and discuss with hockey fan, who is equally pissed at me right now. For the record, I played soccer for a number of years and like the sport, but I know where it lands in the par-3 of American sports…in the bunker.
If the US won 3 consecutive World Cups, it would be celebrated, but still nothing would change. Here, football is a weekly event…a celebration. Baseball is a tradition where fathers and sons bond and histories and records go back 130 years. Basketball is the sport we created and perfected and grabs most inner city youths. Golf is our leisure sport…we all play and fail, and then marvel at the pros who make it look so easy. Hockey is Canada’s sport, but we are best friends so we have to like it. And NASCAR is the stronghold of the redneck population…the Miller High Life of sports (if you can call it a sport…for another day). I didn’t even mention Boxing, MMA and Poker, which are also more popular.
Soccer will always be treated like the Olympics in the US. We’ll have an interest and root for team USA, but when that’s over we’ll forget about it until major international play resumes. That’s it. It’s kinda like White Castle. You consume it every 3-4 years and kinda like it until the next morning when you swear you’ll never go there again.
Now that I’ve corner-kicked soccer into the parking lot…i’ll serve up a little tennis. Since Andy Roddick’s epic final at Wimbledon, I have started to hear the same rumblings about tennis in America. “All we need is a great American player to put tennis back into the American focus, and Roddick can make that happen,” I heard a tennis analyst proclaim. Another floater that I will over-head volley into the stands.
Tennis hit the top of the hill in the 90’s and it’s been all crap in this century. Not only has American tennis severely declined to the point where no one cares, even with the Williams sisters, tennis worldwide has been on the decline…men more than women.
It used to be that we cared about our American players but also knew foreign players. People we really didn’t care about rooting for, like Ivan Lendl, Boris Becker, Steffi Graf, Gabrielle Sabatini, and Bjorn Borg were household names!! Who can you name now?
I Bet you never would have guessed these are the two best players in the world
Maria Sharapova, but not because of her tennis, and maybe Federer because of all the attention he’s gotten lately…that’s it.
For tennis to get back to where it was in the American landscape, we need 2-3 great American players and 3-4 worthy foreign rivals. I don’t ever see that happening. Tennis is like the NBA…boring as hell without any stars.
Stay tuned for my future write-up about why Pete Sampras is still and likely always will be better than Federer. USA! USA! USA!
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I could not agree more on soccer, but you knew that already!
But your point on Federer is a good one. I touched on that same issue lightly in a Quick Hits column after he won his personal Grand Slam. Had Federer played at the same time as Aggasi and Sampras in their primes he would have been third on the totem pole, and might never have sniffed a title.
Comment by grhii — July 10, 2009 @ 9:34 am
Written like a true non-fan of either sport. What I don’t understand is why you have to be a fan of one and nothing else. Soccer and tennis aren’t going to “unseat” baseball, football, basketball. But, I like watching all of them just as much. Because I watch for the sport and not for the soap opera of it. You watch for the ongoing stats and player stories…and maybe a little bit of the game.
What comes first for you? The personality or the sport? If it was the latter, this conversation wouldn’t be happening.
Comment by Katie P. — July 10, 2009 @ 8:58 pm
Ouch! The sister just torched your ass! You going to take that?
Comment by grhii — July 10, 2009 @ 10:07 pm
I’m surprised that someone getting a PhD has such a weak ability for reading and comprehension. This article was a commentary on where tennis and soccer land in the hierarchy of sports popularity in the United States of America, not whether I’m a fan or not. I referenced our country 11 times in my writing. This is a reflection on the American populace, not me. And none of what I said can be denied. Look at TV coverage, ticket sales, merchandise, revenue, player endorsements, etc. and you’ll see what I’m talking about.
Every sport will always have it’s hardcore fanbase. Even bocce ball has people that Tivo it when it’s on once a year.
Every times we have a little success in these sports, a hardcore fan in the media tries to make us believe that it will rise in the ranks of popularity. American sports fans as a whole know what they like, and it’s not soccer or tennis (anymore).
I like both sports. I watched all of the US men’s games against Spain and Brazil in the CONFED Cup. That’s not going to make me want to watch the MLS every week. I was a huge fan of Sampras, Agassi, Lendl, and Stephan Edberg. I used to get up early in the morning just to watch Wimbledon and the French and US Opens. Those times are gone. It’s a two-man sport. Excellence is interesting, but all there is to look forward to is Federer vs. Nadal. The other players just aren’t that good…if they were, Federer or Nadal would lose to them once in while. I’m not going out of my way to watch Djokovic vs. Murray.
Soccer is what it will always be in the US, and we’re past the golden age of tennis.
America has spoken. It doesn’t matter whether I like them or not; this is how it is. Instead of attacking me, give me some facts about these sports that prove I’m wrong and that support their popularity in America is more than what I’ve said…you can’t.
Logic and facts rule reason…not emotion. Boom…roasted.
Comment by pacmanxu — July 11, 2009 @ 5:47 pm