never been to a live soccer game, but watching soccer on  TV is usually pretty boring. Then again any sport is more interesting to play than to watch.

Posted by wylie715 on 12/5/2012 1:14:00 AM (view original):
never been to a live soccer game, but watching soccer on  TV is usually pretty boring. Then again any sport is more interesting to play than to watch.

And yet kids all over America watch baseball and football. Not so much soccer...

there's a lot more football and baseball on TV than there is soccer.  Pluswhise, I don't know that all that many kids watch baseball on TV.  I know mine don't.

Posted by jiml60 on 12/4/2012 9:33:00 PM (view original):

Posted by swamphawk22 on 12/4/2012 7:20:00 PM (view original):
So then someone explain why the paradox exists.

Why is everyone playing a game no one likes?

How do you know the kids playing the game don't like it?

And why does everything have to popular with the masses to be viable?

I am sure the narrow scope of kids who fit the soccer player build enjoy the game.

I am not claiming mind control, just influence.

Again kids grew up loving Ruth and Dimaggio and played baseball. Loved Grahm and Brocklin and played football.

Kids didnt want to play soccer based on enviroment, so why do we have a soccer explosion in America?

because USA Soccer has spent a lot of money trying to get kids interested.

Just out of curiousity, say soccer was a socialist plot..what would be the goal of this plot??  Get American kids to play soccer? So what?  Does that mean they'll grow up to be communists or something?

The left has always been bothered by Patriotism and sexual stereotypes.

Baseball is the symbol of traditional America.

Football is the symbol of "Good old boys".

Killing them helps the left.

Less American and more "Global".

I consider myself left leaning and I love baseball.  I also consider myself patriotic.  Nothing wrong with being patriotic.  I will admit that sexual stereotypes bother me.

Soccer might be becoming more popular since there the white majority is shrinking and the influx of other nationalities into the United States. The demographics of America are changing. 

Whats wrong with kids running around a field and kicking a ball around? "Less American and more "Global". That's a real gem.
Swampmeat, you're a real piece of work.

ITS A SOCIALIST PLOT!!!!!!!!

I consider myself right-leaning and I love soccer.

Also, please respond meaningfully to my post on the last page.

I wouldn't hold your breathe waiting for swamp to responded meaningfully to any post. 

I guess it depends by what you mean by "meaningfully."  He's usually pretty good about giving reasonably thorough responses to things.  That doesn't mean they're logical, or even well enough constructed that a rational human being can properly follow the argument.  So maybe not meaningful in the sense that it intelligently addresses the questions I pose.  But meaningful in that it addresses the questions I pose.

Posted by dahsdebater on 12/4/2012 9:50:00 PM (view original):
Soccer isn't on TV as much as other sports because adults, who largely didn't grow up with it, don't like to watch it.  But the vast majority of the people who play it enjoy it.  More parents push their children into football and baseball than push their children into soccer.  Kids play soccer because they want to.  Why would parents who hate soccer so much push their children to play it?  Or are the socialists somehow forcing the children to play soccer?  And how, exactly, does that work?  What is the machinery of this plot?  How are the left-wingers forcing people to play soccer when it's the parents who sign kids up for soccer teams/leagues and pay their fees and take them to games?

Just because it doesn't get the TV coverage of the NBA, NFL, or MLB doesn't mean people don't like the sport.  A lot more people like to play tennis than watch it.  More people like to play golf than watch it.  On the other hand, a very small subset of the population ever plays hockey in any capacity, yet the NHL gets a decent amount of airtime (less than the big 3 leagues, but a decent amount).

FWIW, this might be of interest:

Beginning in 2013-14, NBCUniversal will become the exclusive U.S. media rights holder for Barclays EPL.  According to Richard Sandomir of the New York Times, NBC will pay the EPL $80-85 million annually and televise up to 380 games a season on NBC, the NBC Sports Network and at least two other cable networks.

So obviously some people want to watch soccer, or at least NBC is gambling on them wanting to.  The average attendance at MLS games this past season was near 19,000, which is significantly better than the NHL and marginally better than the NBA.  Admittedly this was over a shorter season, but MLB has the longest season of all and blows away the NBA and NHL in per-game attendance, so it's not a totally linear trend.  There is certainly an impact of popularity on per-game attendance, and that tells me that people want to watch MLS soccer in the United States.  And apparently NBC thinks they want to watch the really high-quality soccer coming out of England's top division as well.

Most of this is happening post infection.

In the beggining of "Night of the living Dead" very few zombies are around. Later in the movie their are many. That doesnt mean that they would have appeared if the meteor didnt hit.

There was a time in America where not only did almost no one watch soccer, but there was kind of hostility against it, at least in my area.

Then kids started playing it. I mentioned that I played it in high school in 1980. There was almost no support for it then.

It almost seems that support for the sport was backwards. People were forced to play it, and then they got interested in it.

And I want to stress that fat kids can play baseball, football, hockey and even basketball. They cannot play soccer. The player profile is far more restrictive than most sports.