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Bullwinkle58 -> RE: OT World Cup 2010 South Africa (6/24/2010 9:57:23 AM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Durbik
Americans are developing rapidly. In 30 years they will win every World Cup they want - it's just the matter of publicity concerning soccer in US. Back in 1990 nobody there even tried to assemble a pro soccer team to compete for qualifying. In 2002 they qualified, but lost even to Poland (and that's HARD). Now? They're winning the group.
30 more years I say.
We're the third most-populous nation in the world, and #1 and #2 don't care much about soccer. If all it takes is money and organizational ability, we have that. We have been putting millions of kids into youth soccer since the 1970s, but they don't seem to stick in it as they do elsewhere. But if interest picked up, and money flowed in, I think you'd be right. We'd at least be a contender in every WC.
For all the reasons hashed out here and elsewhere, ad infinitum, ad nauseum, I don't think soccer is ever really going to take hold here. I'm watching at least one game (match?) a day, but when the WC is over I'll go back to ignoring the subject again.
I do have to say that the very BEST part of the experience for me is the lack of commercials during play. I use my Tivo to watch the NFL, mostly because of the commercials. A broadcast is 3 hours, and clock play is 1 hour. It's not unusual to have 11-15 ads in between series of downs. They show a set after a touchdown, then anohter set after the extra point, then another after the kick-off. Baseball has commercials after every inning, but the breaks are shorter. Even the Indy 500, where the action is moving at 230 MPH, breaks away during the race. Watching the WC is refreshing. It's possible to sink into the experience and develop a sense of the flow of the thing without being jerked into a hamburger or pickup truck ad every four minutes.
Which is the most prominent reason why it'll never catch on in the USA.
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