It read this article and thought i tw as the stupidest thing i have ever read. What makes me even more upset , is at the very end this idiot says that soccer games are telvised late at night because there is no room to show them anywhere else. Is this guy a moron or what. Hey genius the world cup is beeing played on the other side of the planet. Those games are being played live. Not even the olympics were being covered live to this extent when they were diwn under in 2000.
No vacancy
U.S. has no room for soccer on its full sports plate
Posted: Monday June 17, 2002 10:15 AM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Phil's take, give us yours.
There was a time not too long ago when I would have sworn I would never stay up into the wee hours of the morning watching soccer unless it involved an immediate member of my family or a team of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, but there I was last week, watching World Cup games while the sun was rising outside my window. I saw Brazil score on a scissor kick that was as remarkable a bit of athleticism as anything Kobe Bryant has ever produced. I saw a South Korean forward direct a ball from his chest to his right foot, then to his left and into the goal, all in about as little time as it takes Derek Jeter to make the double-play pivot at second base.
I don't need to be convinced -- these guys can play. Even if you don't know a sweeper from a stopper, it only takes a few minutes of watching a World Cup game to realize that much. But as entertaining as the sport can be when it is played at the highest level, it will never rise to the level of football, baseball or basketball in the American consciousness, which, believe it or not, is actually a good thing.
The main reason soccer has never been anything more than a niche sport in the United States is not, as soccer snobs insist, that Americans simply don't understand the game's strategy or appreciate its artistry. It is not that we have a video-game attention span that wanders when there are only one or two goals scored in a game. Soccer hasn't made it as a major sport in the States because we just don't have room for it.
The same goes for other so-called minor sports. The sports graveyard is filled with the bones of leagues and sports that tried to imitate the big boys, like the XFL and ABL (women's basketball). Others, such as the WNBA and WUSA, don't seem destined for a long lifespan. That's because American culture is saturated on the sports front. The NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball overlap and cover the entire calendar year. We Americans may have more leisure time than ever before, but there is only so much of it we're willing to spend on games, which leaves sports like soccer to fight for the small amount we haven't already committed to the three mainstream sports.
This may come as bad news to budding Landon Donovans and Brandi Chastains, but it's actually encouraging to realize that there is a limit to Americans' appetite for sports. We're not so competition-crazed that we can be sucked in by any sport that buys a set of uniforms, gets on television and calls itself a league.
The sooner those niche sports realize that they will always be niche sports in the U.S., the better off they'll be. The mistake almost all of them make is trying to imitate the major sports' model, chasing after network television contracts and trying to turn their players into celebrities. The WNBA has positioned itself as such an obvious female version of the NBA with its similar uniforms and team names that it encourages comparisons with the men's league, which is exactly what it should be trying to avoid. So more power to the World Cup. We'll watch and we'll appreciate, but when it's done, most of us will go back to checking out the baseball boxscores and waiting for NFL training camps to open. It's appropriate that most of these soccer matches are on after midnight because America's sports culture just doesn't have room for them during regular business hours.
No vacancy
U.S. has no room for soccer on its full sports plate
Posted: Monday June 17, 2002 10:15 AM
Sports Illustrated senior writer Phil Taylor touches on a Hot Button issue each Monday on CNNSI.com. After you read Phil's take, give us yours.
There was a time not too long ago when I would have sworn I would never stay up into the wee hours of the morning watching soccer unless it involved an immediate member of my family or a team of Sports Illustrated swimsuit models, but there I was last week, watching World Cup games while the sun was rising outside my window. I saw Brazil score on a scissor kick that was as remarkable a bit of athleticism as anything Kobe Bryant has ever produced. I saw a South Korean forward direct a ball from his chest to his right foot, then to his left and into the goal, all in about as little time as it takes Derek Jeter to make the double-play pivot at second base.
I don't need to be convinced -- these guys can play. Even if you don't know a sweeper from a stopper, it only takes a few minutes of watching a World Cup game to realize that much. But as entertaining as the sport can be when it is played at the highest level, it will never rise to the level of football, baseball or basketball in the American consciousness, which, believe it or not, is actually a good thing.
The main reason soccer has never been anything more than a niche sport in the United States is not, as soccer snobs insist, that Americans simply don't understand the game's strategy or appreciate its artistry. It is not that we have a video-game attention span that wanders when there are only one or two goals scored in a game. Soccer hasn't made it as a major sport in the States because we just don't have room for it.
The same goes for other so-called minor sports. The sports graveyard is filled with the bones of leagues and sports that tried to imitate the big boys, like the XFL and ABL (women's basketball). Others, such as the WNBA and WUSA, don't seem destined for a long lifespan. That's because American culture is saturated on the sports front. The NBA, NFL and Major League Baseball overlap and cover the entire calendar year. We Americans may have more leisure time than ever before, but there is only so much of it we're willing to spend on games, which leaves sports like soccer to fight for the small amount we haven't already committed to the three mainstream sports.
This may come as bad news to budding Landon Donovans and Brandi Chastains, but it's actually encouraging to realize that there is a limit to Americans' appetite for sports. We're not so competition-crazed that we can be sucked in by any sport that buys a set of uniforms, gets on television and calls itself a league.
The sooner those niche sports realize that they will always be niche sports in the U.S., the better off they'll be. The mistake almost all of them make is trying to imitate the major sports' model, chasing after network television contracts and trying to turn their players into celebrities. The WNBA has positioned itself as such an obvious female version of the NBA with its similar uniforms and team names that it encourages comparisons with the men's league, which is exactly what it should be trying to avoid. So more power to the World Cup. We'll watch and we'll appreciate, but when it's done, most of us will go back to checking out the baseball boxscores and waiting for NFL training camps to open. It's appropriate that most of these soccer matches are on after midnight because America's sports culture just doesn't have room for them during regular business hours.
Poor American football fans, having to put up with all this sh!t... 
