Me and sports

I don't watch sports much. I couldn't participate as a kid much so it never stuck to watch sports. One exception is soccer. I was talking to my new office mate Larry about the World Cup this afternoon. We went over why Soccer will or will not catch on i the U. S.. People are talking about this because it was brought up at lunch yesterday as well.

We went over things like the recent contrives and the U. S. team doing pretty well this time around. We also covered things like people in the U. S. wanting instant gratification and drop dead times in the game. As it is, soccer ends when the referee says it ends. People in the U. S. seem to want a stop watch displayed on the screen at all times. The soccer method is more gentlemanly in my opinion.

We also went over things like running the score up a bit to attract the U. S. audience. This was tried in the seventies to massive failure. Good athletes in the U. S. do not go in to soccer. Good soccer players in the U. S. do not play here.

I've known many people, including Larry, who played soccer growing up. They can't compete against the Mexican kids because they do not live and breath the game.

The lack of English commentary is an issue, though I swearer I heard about an online audio simulcast in English for several games that are in Spanish otherwise. Surely, this could be solved with some relaxation of telecast rights for a given amount of time until interest here catches up with some goal.

There is a podcast that I listen to about the World Cup from the BBC. However, I find myself ignoring it quickly because it is geared toward people who are obsessed with the event already. Still, it is worth a listen if you can stand names of athleats and even some countries dropping you have never heard of.