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What Will It Take For The US To Be Competitive In World Cup? (1 Viewer)

I see waaaaay more pick up soccer games than basketball games here in NyC. Was that your point?
Dude we have 2 huge soccer complexes in my town.  One is right by my house.  I literally pass it every day.  In my 15 years of living here I have never once witnessed a pick up soccer game.  There are two bball courts on the end of the facility next to the jungle gym.  I have seen in the hundreds games being backed up there.  You guys can keep kidding yourself about getting good in soccer but its just not in our DNA and we should be fine with it. 

 
Are MLS TV ratings up?  Down?  .
They are way up this year but that is the WC factor and nothing else.

In general the trend is that English ratings are moving up at a very slow pace and the Spanish ratings are moving up at a slightly faster pace.  But the growth is small especially when compared to every other business metric MLS has which shows much better growth.

 
I think people are confusing joining formal academies with just playing the game.  Formal training does not start until around ten or later in most countries but kids themselves are obviously playing on their own well before this.
 I agree with people talking about "soccer culture" needing to be more pervasive... and I'm sure you've been reiterating this point, but soccer as a viable pro option for kids is only really recent. And the even more recent advent of pro academies will do wonders to promote that...along with the incessant tv games available.

 
They are way up this year but that is the WC factor and nothing else.

In general the trend is that English ratings are moving up at a very slow pace and the Spanish ratings are moving up at a slightly faster pace.  But the growth is small especially when compared to every other business metric MLS has which shows much better growth.
I think if you continue to fill the seats, TV ratings will come...it may take 10 years to get to where we want it to be...this stuff just takes time.

 
Dude we have 2 huge soccer complexes in my town.  One is right by my house.  I literally pass it every day.  In my 15 years of living here I have never once witnessed a pick up soccer game.  There are two bball courts on the end of the facility next to the jungle gym.  I have seen in the hundreds games being backed up there.  You guys can keep kidding yourself about getting good in soccer but its just not in our DNA and we should be fine with it. 
So that field should extrapolate to the rest of the country... Gotcha. I stand corrected.

 
Dude we have 2 huge soccer complexes in my town.  One is right by my house.  I literally pass it every day.  In my 15 years of living here I have never once witnessed a pick up soccer game.  There are two bball courts on the end of the facility next to the jungle gym.  I have seen in the hundreds games being backed up there.  You guys can keep kidding yourself about getting good in soccer but its just not in our DNA and we should be fine with it. 
you're in the wrong part of the country to see the growth

 
Every time I try to see a game, its been a tough ticket. Caveat...most NYRBs games do not fall into that category. Same isn't true for a lot of other MLS cities that have been selling out all home games. Are those the exceptions or the rule for this? What about these euro summer games?

 
Well shouldnt that translate to more of the country then?

Why is it popular just in socal or NYC?
The United States is huge geographically, most sports have regional bias, soccer is no different.

Baseball is more popular in the Northeast.

Basketball is not as popular in the South.

etc. etc. etc.

 
I think if you continue to fill the seats, TV ratings will come...it may take 10 years to get to where we want it to be...this stuff just takes time.
it is true that ten plus years ago it was hard to imagine what has transpired for attendance in Seattle, Atlanta, KC, Portland, Cincy and many other places so it would probably just as tough to predict tv ratings ten years from now.

 
it is true that ten plus years ago it was hard to imagine what has transpired for attendance in Seattle, Atlanta, KC, Portland, Cincy and many other places so it would probably just as tough to predict tv ratings ten years from now.
Based on the trajectory I think it's safe to say MLS on TV will be a much bigger thing.

 
The United States is huge geographically, most sports have regional bias, soccer is no different.

Baseball is more popular in the Northeast.

Basketball is not as popular in the South.

etc. etc. etc.
I am not sure how you can quantify that because basketball is absolutely huge here in the south.  Its huge everywhere in urban America.  You point though about soccer being regional is exactly why it will never be big here in the US.  It has its own niche where as football or bball its embedded in our society and culture.  You cannot force soccer down on kids.

 
I am not sure how you can quantify that because basketball is absolutely huge here in the south.  Its huge everywhere in urban America.  You point though about soccer being regional is exactly why it will never be big here in the US.  It has its own niche where as football or bball its embedded in our society and culture.  You cannot force soccer down on kids.
You live in the South, which would have been my guess.

Here in SoCal, pro football is largely considered a lower class sport.  The middle class and upper class simply don't support youth participation in your beloved football.  American football is considered a trash sport for the lesser educated.

Soccer on the other hand is embraced by all classes in CA.

Food for thought.

 
I am not sure how you can quantify that because basketball is absolutely huge here in the south.  Its huge everywhere in urban America.  You point though about soccer being regional is exactly why it will never be big here in the US.  It has its own niche where as football or bball its embedded in our society and culture.  You cannot force soccer down on kids.
I always thought soccer was regional until Atlanta came along and that me reconsider my position a bit.

 
You live in the South, which would have been my guess.

Here in SoCal, pro football is largely considered a lower class sport.  The middle class and upper class simply don't support youth participation in your beloved football.  American football is considered a trash sport for the lesser educated.

Soccer on the other hand is embraced by all classes in CA.

Food for thought.
I accept that.  But thats the point, soccer isnt popular everywhere in the US whereas people still play football in masse everywhere regardless of what socal thinks about it

 
No offense man, and I am not calling you a liar per se, but its going to be hard to convince anyone here that soccer is more popular in NYC than basketball. 
"I see waaaaay more pickup soccer than basketball".

Basketball hoops (half court) across the street from my pad have people on them sometimes. Same goes for the other courts in the neighborhood. Just as likely to see other activiites on them. Every spot of green, especially fields with goals, are going non-stop. My local tiny park that's more of an park than a sports spot always has a game going in some crazy spot.

Dunno what to say. Dunno it's "more popular" but it's more pervasive...below 110th st. maybe uptown it's still most basketball?

 
I am not sure what this means
The massive popularity of Atlanta United has made me rethink how broad based soccer's appeal is.  No one predicted anything close that happening in fact most thought soccer would fail in Atlanta because that area of the country was not known for liking the sport.

 
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You live in the South, which would have been my guess.

Here in SoCal, pro football is largely considered a lower class sport.  The middle class and upper class simply don't support youth participation in your beloved football.  American football is considered a trash sport for the lesser educated.

Soccer on the other hand is embraced by all classes in CA.

Food for thought.
That's not the case in NYC, fwiw. And wasn't my experience in NCal.

 
"I see waaaaay more pickup soccer than basketball".

Basketball hoops (half court) across the street from my pad have people on them sometimes. Same goes for the other courts in the neighborhood. Just as likely to see other activiites on them. Every spot of green, especially fields with goals, are going non-stop. My local tiny park that's more of an park than a sports spot always has a game going in some crazy spot.

Dunno what to say. Dunno it's "more popular" but it's more pervasive...below 110th st. maybe uptown it's still most basketball?
Whatever you say man but like I said people are going to have a hard to believing that.

 
The massive popularity of Atlanta United has made me rethink how broad based soccer's appeal is.  No one predicted anything close that happening in fact most thought soccer would fail in Atlanta because that area if the country was not known for liking the sport.
gotcha

 
the sport is so big I went to try and buy some jerseys but there weren't any at the sporting goods store....they must have been sold out...

 
whereas people still play football in masse everywhere regardless of what socal thinks about it
this simply isn't true...your participation in American football has been declining for years.

conversely, youth participation in soccer has outpaced the other major sports.

 
in my area I see plenty of pick up basketball.

A little pick up soccer and street hockey

almost zero pickup football or baseball

========

This also is a poor measurement of a sports popularity since football and baseball are king in my area.

 
I'm glad the article highlighted this piece: U.S. Soccer's decision to alter birth-year registration;

I know in the club where my kids play we saw a decline and I heard that FYSA (Florida) stated a nearly 8% drop b/c of that rule.  For those that aren't aware, soccer used to have age groups that essentially mirrored your grade (like little league baseball).   But, a few years back, US Soccer instituted a change that all teams should be based on Calendar year.  So, kids born in 2006 will all play together.  This split up a lot of teams and many kids aren't able to play with their friends.   US Soccer did this to align to global soccer and it's beneficial for the 0.1% of kids that go on to play at an elite or even professional level.  Not so much to the young kids that want to play with their friends. 

 
The massive popularity of Atlanta United has made me rethink how broad based soccer's appeal is.  No one predicted anything close that happening in fact most thought soccer would fail in Atlanta because that area of the country was not known for liking the sport.
Most of Atlanta is transplanted. Like Phoenix. 

 
I haven’t read through the thread so maybe (probably) somebody’s brought this up, but USA woman’s soccer is typically always one of the favorites to win it all and when they don’t its an upset. So what are they doing that the boys are not? 
Don’t have time for a deep dive, but I think Title IX is a major cause for both the strength of the women and the lack of success for the men. 

 
I'm glad the article highlighted this piece: U.S. Soccer's decision to alter birth-year registration;

I know in the club where my kids play we saw a decline and I heard that FYSA (Florida) stated a nearly 8% drop b/c of that rule.  For those that aren't aware, soccer used to have age groups that essentially mirrored your grade (like little league baseball).   But, a few years back, US Soccer instituted a change that all teams should be based on Calendar year.  So, kids born in 2006 will all play together.  This split up a lot of teams and many kids aren't able to play with their friends.   US Soccer did this to align to global soccer and it's beneficial for the 0.1% of kids that go on to play at an elite or even professional level.  Not so much to the young kids that want to play with their friends. 
Thank god bio banding is likely way too complicated to ever be used in a broad scope else it would be even uglier IMO.

===================

For those unaware of the term, this is the definition:

Bio-banding allows players to be grouped based on their maturity and biological age and not by their chronological age. By doing this, massive swings in maturity that can be seen within the current chronological groupings are removed. By grouping players based on maturity, the physical advantages that early maturing players have when playing against less mature players are reduced.

 
Thank god bio banding is likely way too complicated to ever be used in a broad scope else it would be even uglier IMO.

===================

For those unaware of the term, this is the definition:

Bio-banding allows players to be grouped based on their maturity and biological age and not by their chronological age. By doing this, massive swings in maturity that can be seen within the current chronological groupings are removed. By grouping players based on maturity, the physical advantages that early maturing players have when playing against less mature players are reduced.
I had not heard of bio-banding before. But I do know (ok, think) that strict age grouping, regardless of the cutoff date, has a terrible tendency to exclude something like half the player pool because of normal developmental differences. An eight year old 11 months younger than one of his teammates is usually at a terrible disadvantage. 

 
I had not heard of bio-banding before. But I do know (ok, think) that strict age grouping, regardless of the cutoff date, has a terrible tendency to exclude something like half the player pool because of normal developmental differences. An eight year old 11 months younger than one of his teammates is usually at a terrible disadvantage. 
There has to be an objective cut off line or you start getting kindergarten red shirts like you do in HS.  Any cut off is going to have kids almost a year older than some of their peers.  Such is life.  FIFA uses the year of birth so it only makes sense for the US to follow suit.

 
There has to be an objective cut off line or you start getting kindergarten red shirts like you do in HS.  Any cut off is going to have kids almost a year older than some of their peers.  Such is life.  FIFA uses the year of birth so it only makes sense for the US to follow suit.
I'm not ready to throw up my hands and surrender to this inevitability. There have to be reasonable solutions to a systemic problem that handicaps half the world's youth athletes. There's nothing about the month in which you were born that determines how proficient you would be at age 21. So we're wasting lots of good talent by not figuring this out.

 
I'm not ready to throw up my hands and surrender to this inevitability. There have to be reasonable solutions to a systemic problem that handicaps half the world's youth athletes. There's nothing about the month in which you were born that determines how proficient you would be at age 21. So we're wasting lots of good talent by not figuring this out.
Didn’t Gladwell address this and mention like 60%of NHL players are born in the first quarter of the year?

 
This seems to be a very US-centric point of view.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Crouch

Here is a 6'7 guy who does/did a mean "Robot" dance for goal celebrations and isn't a GK or CB. The same reasons why this guy isn't in the NBA are a mirror to why the 6'7 athletes in the US aren't playing soccer. 

I feel some peeps in this thread are underestimating the skill and time needed to develop those skills that is needed to play the sport at its highest levels. Its not a sport you can pick up late in HS and excel at just cause you are big, fast and strong. The NFL has many examples of that. Soccer doesn't work that way. 
I never said 6’7 guys.  Obviously that rarely translates.  

 

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