With the success of the United States in the Confederations Cup, the runaway success of the World Soccer Challenge and the solid television ratings of Euro 2008 and the UEFA Champions League the sport of soccer is currently getting quite a bit of attention stateside. ESPN is solidly behind the sport, with pundits such as Colin Cowherd and Bill Simmons touting the positives of the US run and the Premier League, with other main stream media outlets following suit. With baseball mired in its neverending steriod slump and the NBA sputtering along now is probably as good a time as ever for soccer to build up it's fan base. I'm solidly in that fan base, listening to World Soccer Daily on a daily basis, keeping tabs with a number of web sites daily and tuning in to Fox Soccer Channel consistently. Like most US fans I still get the occasionally rolling of the eyes when I mention I'm such a fan, with the typical retorts of "boring" and "not enough scoring" etc. What's my comeback? A couple of things.
1) You can watch a 90 minute match in right around 2 hours and be completely entertained. An NFL game takes 3 hours. It takes two and a half hours to watch an NBA game and the playoffs are even worse where the last five minutes of the fourth quarter can often take a half and hour. Have you seen a Red Sox or Yankees game lately? Good luck watching a baseball game in less than three hours. The beauty of soccer is it's a commercial less sport. The 45 minutes of each half are commercial free. Get up at halftime, hit the restroom and grab a beer for fifteen minutes bypassing all the commercials. Sit back down and you can see another add free half. It's nice to watch a major sport and not be inundated with endless advertisements. You can follow the sport and not have it take up your entire day-- for someone with kids its a big deal.
2) High Definition television has completely changed my viewership of the sport. There is nothing better than watching a Champions League match in glorious Hi-Def with surround sound. Hi-Definition has opened up a whole new appreciation of the game and has really changed the way the sport is viewed in the US. With channels such as Setanta and Fox Sports I can easily follow the Premier League here in the United States. You know what else is great? Being able to get up and watch Aston Villa take on Arsenal at 9:00 AM, watch a full match and be able to have the rest of the day to do what I want.
3) The season is fantastically long. Unlike American sports where the die hard fan has to put up with a lengthy off season you can literally follow the sport all year. Take this coming year for example. The Premier League season starts on August 15th and the FA Cup will end the English Season at the end of May. Take a few weeks off in June and then the World Cup will start and run late into July. Take a couple of more weeks off and you're starting up the season again. With so many leagues to follow, from the Premier League to Serie A to La Liga, the Bundesliga and MLS, you can virtually watch the sport every day. The Internet makes it easy to follow leagues that you don't get on television. I travel for work and am often in a hotel room and bored. I can get on Justin.tv and watch games from Argentina, or Brazil, etc. Follow the NFL? There's a seven month offseason! Major League Baseball? 5 months. NBA? 4 months. That's why you get such ridiculous coverage of the NFL from ESPN. There are die hard fans that need their fix but have to put up with a half a year offseason. If you follow soccer it's a matter of weeks. Not too shabby.
4) Finally, it's a heck of a fun sport to play with friends or your children. There's little work in getting a match together beyond tossing the ball around, deciding what the make shift goal will be and kicking it around a bit. A lot easier to get together than a pick up hoops or baseball game.
So there you have it. Why I love following soccer.
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