Why don’t other countries like football?
Football remains the exception. According to the NFL, only 74 players out of more than 1,600 roster spots across 32 teams were born outside the United States. The overwhelming majority of those came to the country as children and were developed as players in U.S. high schools and colleges. And football’s audience is mostly American as well. Sunday’s showdown between the Baltimore Ravens and the San Francisco 49ers will be broadcast in 180 countries but, while exact viewership stats are hard to come by, it’s a safe bet that outside the United States — or at least North America — the vast majority of those staying up late to watch will be American expats. The winner of the game will also have a plausible claim to the title of “world champion,” but mostly because the rest of the world isn’t particularly interested. …
It’s probably not the innate Americanness of the sport. Few activities are more quintessentially American than baseball, but the national pastime has found a wide following throughout Latin America and Japan. And geopolitical tensions with the United States haven’t stopped Venezuela from producing Major League stars or millions of Chinese from following Yao Ming’s NBA career. Plus, successive generations of immigrants to the United States from Notre Dame’s legendary Norwegian coach Knute Rockne to the Jacksonville Jaguars’ Pakistani-born owner Shahid Khan have fallen in love with the gridiron game. …
More likely, non-Americans aren’t all that interested in watching football because they don’t grow up playing it, or at least watching it at a local level. “Our sport is not played in many curriculums in schools around the world,” says Chris Parsons, vice president of NFL International, which promotes the league abroad. “Other sports have the benefit of that, such as soccer and to some degree basketball, so they have greater opportunities to engage.” In the United States, high school and college teams serve are the incubators of NFL talent, and the lack of such infrastructure abroad is one major reason why so few non-U.S.-educated players have made it to the pros.
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It’s American, and requires some fairly expensive equipment.
Count to 10 on February 4, 2013 at 10:03 PM
High cost of entry.
lorien1973 on February 4, 2013 at 10:12 PM
Beta, pure and simple.
Oil Can on February 4, 2013 at 10:14 PM
Duh. Other countries are mostly populated by sissies.
Dukeboy01 on February 4, 2013 at 10:16 PM
Am I the only one here who thinks American football is a bit boring to watch?
A lot of people here really go overboard with it.
bluegill on February 4, 2013 at 10:20 PM
Who cares what other countries think? Our fathers went through a hell of a lot to get away from those other countries. Millions are still trying to get here from other countries.
Who cares what other countries think about the forward pass?
Scribbler on February 4, 2013 at 10:24 PM
You’re are one and only..:)
idesign on February 4, 2013 at 10:33 PM
*our*..
idesign on February 4, 2013 at 10:35 PM
I’d rather the US beat the world at its own version of football than worry about why they hate us and our version. Our USWNT already does, and it is going to be sweet when our men do, too.
GO, USMNT!
Christien on February 4, 2013 at 10:36 PM
Soccer is a communist plot to weaken and destroy the youth of America.
Watching paint dry is more exciting than watching a bunch of knob-kneed Euros in shorts kick around a ball for 3 hours.
wildcat72 on February 4, 2013 at 10:39 PM
It’s going to be schadenfreudelicious to watch soccer haters in America make common cause with anti-Americans abroad to poo-poo the USMNT when they finally win the World Cup.
Christien on February 4, 2013 at 10:48 PM
Who cares? Who cares what they think in other countries?
LOL. That’s nutty. What would be great about the US team (whatever the hell that is) winning the world Cup would be that Americans couldn’t care less. The rest of the world lives or dies on that idiotic thing and Americans would care as much about winning the World Cup as they do about winning the Davis Cup – which is to say, “not at all”.
But your crack about making common cause with foreign America-haters is kinda silly. Soccer doesn’t interest most Americans enough to make cause about anything. It’s a boring game that is best left to Europe and the third world where they seem to like a sport that makes use of the opposable thumb illegal. Great stuff …
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 4, 2013 at 10:53 PM
rofl, We’re trying mighty hard to catch up. Just look at our skeet shootin, sissy bike riding president.
arnold ziffel on February 4, 2013 at 11:08 PM
Exactly. Football costs too much. Other countries do not have the economy to pull it off. Highschool football in Texas rivals the stadiums of pro soccer in most countries. Even soccer in advanced economies like Germany can’t compete with college football stadiums. Autzen, Neland, Doak Campbell, Michigan, vs. what Signal Iduna Park? No contest.
Theworldisnotenough on February 4, 2013 at 11:24 PM
Bill Whittle’s Guide to the World Cup Soccer explains it well.
KelThuzad0398 on February 4, 2013 at 11:30 PM
YES! Why don’t people on the right side of the political spectrum understand how much of a victory over the world this would be? It will be like winning WWII versus everyone! You think the French left hates us now? My goodness they would be apoplectic! The schadenfraude will be electric, eye-searing ecstasy!
Theworldisnotenough on February 4, 2013 at 11:35 PM
Theworldisnotenough on February 4, 2013 at 11:35 PM
That’s all true, but the very idea of a “national team” is un-American. We don’t really do “national” teams, outside of the Olympics (which is a Eurotrash pseudo-competition, anyway). In America we enjoy professional teams and respect professionals. Soccer has more than a few professional teams and no reason to hold any idiotic national competition anymore than we would put together an “American” baseball team to run around the world playing a bunch of sub-par national teams from other countries for some silly, contrived competition. In baseball, nothing will ever matter like the World Series, as that is the peak of the professional ranks.
Barky and the idiot dems have been trying to turn us into Europe and Indonesia with some extra care for “national” teams (with Barky personally pitching for the Olympics from the White House – again, very un-American and pathetic) but most Americans couldn’t really be bothered, whether there is fun in crushing the rest of the world’s national teams or not. If Americans cared about soccer, even in any little bit, we’d have a decent professional league (that people actually attend and root for) and we would eventually have the best players in the world and the best teams in the world performing in our league (as is true for every other sport that Americans have really taken to) and, in that case, our professional championship series would be the one that would really matter.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 4, 2013 at 11:46 PM
Heh. Indeed.
Christien on February 4, 2013 at 11:58 PM
Yes, yes, not all Americans can compete on the world stage. It’s OK to sit back while others do. Besides, there are more and more of us to take up any slack cheering for them.
Christien on February 5, 2013 at 12:03 AM
American youth football–that’s the one where up to a certain age they don’t let the real big kids run the ball or play QB, TE, RB, or WR, because they might hurt the other kids, right? Recover a fumble or intercept a pass, the big kids have to take a knee immediately?
Awww…rub some dirt on it.
Christien on February 5, 2013 at 12:21 AM
Did you really not understand what I wrote because that response has nothing to do with my comment? Do you understand that America doesn’t really do “national teams”? We are an individualistic nation that has a limited government, which is very different from just about every other nation where they tend to view the government as the owner of everything that deigns to allow the little people to enjoy a few privileges, now and then. Those are nations that love to do “national teams”, set up by their governments, for their governments, … In America, even our Olympic athletes had to find their own funding because we DON’T REALLY DO NATIONAL TEAMS.
This is the difference between a people who view their government and very limited and their own liberties as very extensive versus those who view their governments as all-powerful, essentially in charge of everything, and everything for the state in all areas. That is how tribalistic Europe has long, long been. It is their nature. Not ours. Specifically, not ours.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 5, 2013 at 12:27 AM
Christien, were you born and raised in America? Just wondering. Because you really don’t sound as if you were.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 5, 2013 at 12:29 AM
Yeah, yeah, I got it the first time. When we do deign to do national teams, IMO cheer ‘em on–fake it ’til you make it, if you have to. Or don’t…no matter, I’ll cheer loud enough for a dozen, at least.
Christien on February 5, 2013 at 12:33 AM
Off Topic
But when the lights went out at the Super Dome, I was flipping over to ESPN to watch the World’s Strongest Man. I don’t know this seem way more manly than the Olympics. And it makes soccer look feminine.
Oil Can on February 5, 2013 at 12:40 AM
Outside the USA, besides the Aussies, The Brits, the Germans and the occasional Russian most Europeans are too diminutive and fragile to make it through a game.
viking01 on February 5, 2013 at 12:58 AM
No. You still don’t get it. “We” don’t really do “national teams”. Private concerns put together teams that they call “the American team” – as opposed to other countries where their national teams are, indeed, national teams. Even in the Olympics, all of the participants had to find private funding for their venture. It was not a government operation. And when the Olympics is hosted in America, it isn’t a “national” event. It’s a state/municipal event, just like other sports, with the federal government taking a supportive but fairly nonexistent role … until Carter turned the Olympics into a political football and Barky totally perverted the whole idea by making the White House the door-to-door salesman for the Olympic bid of Chicago. Very un-American and just plain pathetic. The Europhiles loved it, though.
And the World Cup doesn’t have the best teams competing, just as any teams in the Olympics aren’t the best, since the best teams are not those put together by nationality. The best teams are found in the best professional leagues. But Europeans, and most of the rest of the world, are obsessed with their tribalism and think that everything derives from government, so they are all about “national teams”. We, in America, are more about performance than nationality when it comes to sports. We are individualists, not tribalists. There are a few areas in the American system that are of national importance and they are described in the Constitution. Sports teams are not there.
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 5, 2013 at 1:14 AM
Nice soccer flop by David Fakers, btw.
Christien on February 5, 2013 at 1:14 AM
I meant a private event supported at the state/municipal level. This is why the only time the Olympics ever turns a profit is when it’s held in America. Everywhere else, the national governments run the Olympics and they are total wastes of money, sucking billions in waste and generally leaving stadiums and construction that is never used again but just wastes away. Of course, the Sarajevo Olympics did help to develop some of the best tennis players in the world … but that was the abandoned, dry Olympic swimming pool that Djokovic and Ivanovic and the others used to practice in, so I don’t know if that really counts as having been in continuing use
ThePrimordialOrderedPair on February 5, 2013 at 1:17 AM
Only soccer can make a hangnail injury look like labor pain.
viking01 on February 5, 2013 at 1:24 AM
I’ve been aware of all of what you said LONG before HotAir ever existed, but thanks for restating what I already know, in your own words. Honestly, it would behoove soccer haters to work on some new material. I haven’t heard an original gripe from them about the sport in decades.
Christien on February 5, 2013 at 1:27 AM
That or a good non-call against Jim Harbaugh’s team.
Christien on February 5, 2013 at 1:30 AM
Europol investigation finds suspected fixing in 680 matches.
I guess that strikes corruption off the list of possible reasons they don’t like football.
Christien on February 5, 2013 at 2:01 AM
Because other countries are made up of effeminate men. They like their men weak and writhing around in pain after getting tripped on the soccer field.
This is why we like it.
The Notorious G.O.P on February 5, 2013 at 2:40 AM
Why don’t they like it? Because it’s American, of course.
Duh. Let’s not over-think this, people.
Splashman on February 5, 2013 at 4:23 AM
BTW, baseball went international before America hatred (i.e., envy) infected the world, so the author’s dismissal of anti-American sentiment as an explanation is not valid.
If there is another explanation, it’s probably akin to Bill Whittle’s.
Splashman on February 5, 2013 at 4:35 AM
From all I can tell, they prefer soccer and the fans getting their azzes kicked by each other. Players get paid millions and the fans have the worst injuries.
Cindy Munford on February 5, 2013 at 7:03 AM
Heck, I give a darn about why American Football has not caught on in the rest of the world. I will admit that I don’t know a darn thing about soccer. Do various colleges and universities in Europe have anything like our college football teams for soccer?
SC.Charlie on February 5, 2013 at 8:35 AM
Heh – every time “soccer” and football are compared at HA, a comment like this inevitably comes up. As one of the rare Americans who loves both games with equal passion and vigor, I hear this a lot from my friends as well.
Anyone who loves both games understands why football has caught on in only minor pockets around the world (Tahiti, Germany, etc): it’s extremely expensive and, more importantly, anyone who’s been raised on soccer has trouble adapting to the stop/start nature of football. When you’re used to watching two 45-minute halves of commercial-free, nonstop play, and then you attempt to watch a college or NFL game with his five-second bursts and 35-second stoppages, you understand why the world prefers soccer.
I’m a lifelong Giants fan and an NFL geek, but as the rules continue to change and the nannies are going after the integrity of my beloved game using concussions and class-action as a trapdoor to ruin it, I more and more prefer the beautiful game to America’s game (and I’m one of Those People who has multiple screens in his living room to better enjoy his absurdly expensive NFL Sunday Ticket subscription).
As for Wildcat’s repetition of the Commie plot, I get where they’re coming from, but if one steps away from the trees and views the forest, soccer is arguably the most conservative game on the planet. It is resistant to change just for change’s sake; the only player who gets special treatment is the Keeper, all others are equal; the rules are universal at all levels and understood by all who play; when you make a major mistake, you get a caution, and when you make two you get ejected (talk about law and order). I could go on, but I’m late to the conversation.
King B on February 5, 2013 at 9:31 AM