Today, a few million of my closest friends and I watched the United States defeat Ghana 2-1 in their first game in group play in the 2014 World Cup. It was fun. I had fun. The people with whom I watched appeared to have fun. The people I watched live tweeting their raw emotions appeared to have fun.
Fun. Sports are supposed to be fun.
Rooting for Team USA in soccer is a unique experience as an American because it's the rare opportunity to root for a legitimate yet viable underdog. This isn't basketball, or to a lesser extent ice hockey, where the U.S. is a major favorite to win competitions. This isn't field hockey (it's not just for girls in Catholic high schools in most countries!) or cricket, where the United States simply does not try nor care. This is a country in which the United States can be the country its residents like to pretend it is in the big picture--a scrappy underdog that gets by purely on its grit and determination and not its overwhelming supply of natural resources. That and I think soccer is a pretty fun sport to watch anyway, but it is amplified when everybody you know is on the same side. I get mildly annoyed when I meet people who root for my rivals but I get outright offended when people don't root for the United States.
Okay, so that's my case for liking the World Cup. But if you don't, it's your loss. I don't care. Nobody should care.
The World Cup opener between Brazil and Croatia, in spite of being in a mid/late Thursday afternoon and having no specific partisan ties for most Americans, got a higher TV rating than every NHL playoff game, and every NBA playoff game before the finals. Now, you can argue (correctly) that the United States is not the biggest country for soccer and that soccer is not the biggest sport in the United States, but does it matter?
At this point, trying to get people who don't care about soccer to watch soccer is like telling them about this band you just discovered called "The Beatles." You should check out this album "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band! It'll blow your mind!" It's a waste of time--enough of the world is on board with what you like that you don't NEED to convert anyone. With that said, if someone is receptive to joining the bandwagon, you should by all means want to usher them aboard. And that's a problem too.
Everyone starts somewhere. Not everyone is on board at the same time with everything. I didn't discover the music of Oasis, my favorite band, until I was in college and they were in the midst of promoting their final album. It wasn't because I was stubbornly opposed to them nor did I have some pre-existing bias against them--I just wasn't familiar with their work. Luckily, nobody cared that I jumped aboard the bandwagon and on the rare occasion that I find somebody else who wants to geek out about them with me, they are just happy I'm down. And vice versa. And some people are just discovering new things, like a passion for the U.S. Men's National Soccer Team, later than others. Why begrudge them?
It's this kind of exclusionary attitude that keeps soccer coverage down. I'm willing to guarantee that most ESPN personalities are at least conversational in soccer (they know major players and the basics of the game...you know, the kind of stuff that is really all you need for a few seconds of talking headdery) but that's not good enough--when someone tries to talk about soccer that doesn't have pre-existing established credentials, he is intruding on an established fraternity. And thus there is no progress. Fans can't decide if they want soccer to be a bigger deal or if they want it to remain a small cluster of fans.
But I say welcome aboard if you're interested. And if not, it's your loss. I'll enjoy the ride.
No comments:
Post a Comment