What do you think of this soccer theory?

[LeftNYC]

Soccer hasnt caught on in the US because TV cant play commercials during it. Personally, I don't like Soccer, but I believe that if commercials could be played, TV would be more apt to put it on. Thoughts?

[951-Riverside]

1. American teams suck

...I tried watching the matches in Los Angeles but quickly turned the channel because it was sooo boring.

[Anarcho-Socialist]

2. You do make a point

Although for U.S. citizens, soccer(football) does not have the emotional and cultural attachments that baseball and football(American football) do. The best thing the U.S. could do is to recruit from soccer-mad immigrant communities into the M.L.S.

The U.S.' run to the final-8 in 2002 also helped, but it may take a generation or more to see soccer reach a higher profile in the U.S.

[Squeech]

3. Moreover

it's un-American because it doesn't require any specialized equipment. Baseball has to be played on a diamond with a specific layout, plus bats and gloves. Football has its own field, plus the massive protective gear. Don't even get me started on hockey!

But all you need to play soccer is a ball and a relatively flat chunk of ground. (In Brazil there are perennial pickup games on the beach.) Even if you don't have proper goals, you can simulate them by marking them out on the field.

Everywhere I've travelled in the third world, the town square has a soccer pitch on it. In contrast, I remember a news story about the city of Chelsea, a really poor city outside Boston with a growing immigrant population (legal and otherwise), cracking down on the hispanics trying to play soccer on the town green...

[Oeditpus Rex]

4. Maybe they can't, but they do

The last soccer match I watched on teevee — it was the MLS championship — had commercials during the action. And it was a 1-0 game. :grr:

[tjwmason]

5. A small point - but it was played before television.

and by that reckoning cricket would be highly popular, there's plenty of small gaps which can be filled with a couple of ads.

[Benfea]

6. You're reading too much into it.

Soccer hasn't caught on because it's not baseball, football, basketball or hockey. There's only so many sports a country can maintain interest in. In Japan there are only three sports: baseball, sumo, and everything else. In America, the list is slightly longer, but the same basic idea applies. Soccer will always be in the "everything else" category in Japan and America both.