This talking head on Fox - not sure what her credentials are - said based on what she’s seeing from the size of watch parties across the country, there are new fans to embrace the sport in the US. Ma’am respectfully since at least 1994 every four years Americans have gathered to watch the red, white, and blue. If the World Cup grew the sport in this country, MLS would be in the conversation with the NBA not the WNBA. The “new fans” have always been there and will be back in 2030. They’re not watching MLS or other soccer leagues. Sorry to break this to you.
Yes people have been talking about the sport of soccer growing in the USA but the issue is it's a zero sum game. There are not infinite eyes and interest on sports in America. If soccer is growing in popularity, then it will have to be at the expense of another sport like football, basketball, baseball etc because you are ultimately competing for the same athletes. If you are a young kid you can't play every sport, you have to choose. A lot of them are still choosing to play basketball and football because it's more lucrative financially and you get to play at home instead of overseas if you want to make money.
I just cannot understand how guys miss penalty kicks, especially blasting them one-foot too high. At a minimum, you must make the goalkeeper block the shot. Similar for close-in shots on goal, but it's sort of understandable because of the chaos.i
Ya, I don't get it either but I also don't play football.. how do you miss it THAT BAD..it would be like shooting a free throw above the backboard lol
I don't want to derail things too badly, but it's undeniable that soccer has grown leaps and bounds in terms of popularity since 1994. The growth has been holistic: our dominant women's team, the FIFA video game, easily-viewable European games, social media, and, yes, MLS have all contributed.
Not to say that World football is the fastest at implementing and upgrading their rules...... Faster than the NBA even. Wingers do crossovers with their feet. Leo Messi the Messiah of Futball going INTER Miami contributed a lot as well.
VAR got out of control and arbitrary, it was never deemed to be implemented for those kind of situations, but the referees are trying to control every detail while making things worse and unjust. A lot of fans are asking for VAR to be withdrawn completely.
Nothing to do with anything because that's AI. Yes. They are. You are wrong. People are watching the English Premier League, La Liga (Spain), Serie A (Italy), the Bundesliga (Germany) every weekend. Not even people like @Raz or myself who either live in one of these countries and/or have been involved in the game their entire life. I see people all of the time wearing Arsenal, Manchester United, Tottenham, Barcelona, Real Madrid, AC Milan jerseys who have never touched a soccer ball in their life. There will likely be even a greater jump in audience for those leagues come August when the players they're watching right now start their club seasons. As far as the MLS goes, it's still a selling/retirement league, unfortunately. However, it's grown in popularity and revenue (roughly 10 times the size of the WNBA since you made that dumb comparison). Not sure why you think your opinion on this is more apt than I'm guessing Rebecca Lowe (anchor for NBC's EPL Coverage) or Carly Lloyd (former USWNT legend, multi-time WORLD player of the year and World Cup winner). Sometimes I really hate World Cup years.
Yeah and by the time they show the VAR video, so much **** can be altered to show you a tippy toe on the line. Fifa is not to be trusted with anything.
