Two: It is not myopic for me or anyone else to not care about soccer. When you are discussing subjective preferences, I am not really forced to care about anything. If I were making wild claims about soccer you could say that my views on the sport were myopic, but it is not myopic to lack interest in one of the billions of forms of entertainment that is available in the modern world. I would say that my suggestion of the sports being overestimated and underestimated in terms of global popularity is not farfetched though.

Three: This is kind of what Aikman was saying about football and I make this point about soccer. It is not too big to fail. Nothing is. Baseball was the dominant sport in the US for at least a century. It failed to adapt to the marketplace and corrupt ownership/managing has been running the sport into the ground for the past few decades. Correct me if I am wrong, but from what I understand FIFA and premier soccer leagues are having similar problems. The list of problems with Baseball is long so it is a bit too much to add here if you are unfamiliar.

In this increasingly global society, people have a ton of options for wasting their time. In the end, any sport will remain popular for so long as it produces a good product. Any sport can go the way of horse racing or baseball if it fails to adapt. History is littered with examples of entities that thought they were too big to fail.

Soccer : A bunch of passive aggressive cross country runners doing a bunch of things that have little to do with teamwork.

And maybe Troy & Freaky Head Joe Buck in a hot tub together.

First, why are you surprised that this site would attract soccer fans? Can you really automatically preclude the possibility that some readers might like both sports? And even if you are a soccer fan, who has serious reservations about American football (like yours truly) would it not be in your interest to keep up on developments, just as NFL fans would do well to follow what is happening in other sports? Can you be this myopic? Second, your suggestion that the NFL might be more popular than soccer based on the value of NFL franchises is using a flawed measure. All NFL teams minus the Packers are privately held businesses. The vast majority of professional soccer teams around the world course are not. Therefore you cannot draw a direct line between the value of a commodity as measured by $$$ and popularity. Yes, the NFL is the most successful professional sports league in the world based on revenue. But this influence ends at the water’s edge. A better measure of popularity might be the social, cultural, even political relevance of any particular sport. And in this case, soccer appeals to far more people than the NFL could ever possibly imagine. Soccer is not just popular in Europe. Try 95 per cent of Latin America, all of Africa (minus perhaps South Africa), the entire Middle East, increasingly India as well as China, where a new generation of very rich entrepreneurs are building a brand new architecture for the sport. As said before, I will buy your argument if a). the NFL has the same status around the world as the MLS has in North America (third-best attended ahead of NHL and NBA) and b). monks in Tibet start caring about Tim Tebow.

Internal Knitting.

Knit Uno
Pearl Dos

Nothing like it!!!

Easy: soccer – demographics/media interest/changing cultural tastes all point that way – even the corporate overlords of this site are getting into it

In some countries, e-sports (gaming) is bigger than physical sports. It will be a different world when the next generation doesn’t identify with football.

Where does he say anything remotely like that?
…I heard Troy speak those exact words on sports radio 670 the score in Chicago last month…in addition…I have heard 2 sports attorneys say the the future of the NFL may be in jeopardy if those concussion lawsuits filed against the League result in large settlements against same…..because no insurance companies would underwrite the League in the future, at any premium.. because of the high risk. The fallout here would take down the college football programs for the same reason and the NFL would lose it main source of new talent.Parents would not want their children playing football at any level. These are serious threats folks…I would not just kiss them off as meaningless. Greed and the fight for the almighty dollar could sink the NFL ship !

If that is the one thing that life has taught you, you need to go back to school. In the United States, the Baby Boomers peaked the population, then the following generation – Generation X – shrunk to half the size.

If there is one constant in life – its that “Things Change” — go back to 15 years ago and people left houses without cell phones and the internet was a fraction of what it is today.

Only a fool assumes that things always stay the same.

Please be wrong Troy, please be wrong!

I can’t really tell if you are “trolling” or not, but you seem to be serious. The reality is that anyone who has extreme views or leans far left/right is trying to impose their lifestyle on others. The Right has a very extensive and recent history of trying to impose puritan dogma on the general populace. The party is full of neocons now and has lost its way a long time ago. The thing that I find with most people of your ilk is that you preach less government control while supporting laws that force other people into your vision of “moral” direction. One: most “Christians” in this country barely know what Christianity is supposed to be about and follow puritan dogma instead of Christianity. Two: if you are yelling about how everything is someone else’s fault, you probably have no idea what is going on. Crazy people think that either the Right is all to blame or the Left is all to blame. If only journalist and the media had any moral compass and gave a voice to the moderate majority. Unfortunately that does not sell as well as extreme rhetoric. It is sad when the term moderate has become a euphemism for not being crazy. Go fighting moderates!

________________________________

I would actually say 22 men lightly jogging for 3 hours to end in a 0-0 tie but your description is just as good.

 ———
You are as arrogant as stupid. They are fitter than the fatsoes that play in nfl. There is no timeout and no tv break and they running full speed most of the time.

It’s like the other moron who said that 90% people watching soccer are from third world with nothing else to play. Such an arrogant American. There are plenty of other sports and people play and watch. Its the fat lazy Americans that don’t play anything.
Btw, even world cup cricket outdrew superbowl.

I checked out your source and I have no problem conceding you the point. You are correct, at least as it pertains to the NFL as a whole contributing more cash to the right than the left. However, this link justifies what I said about the teams that openly contribute primarily to Democrats…

http://www.opensecrets.org/news/2011/10/nfl-teams-play-political-football.html

As for the rest of your comments, I think it’s a bit naive to assume the NFL has willingly decided to dilute it’s product with politically correct concerns that only worms in the national media care about, and that fans are largely unhappy with. The NFL can see what is coming, they didn’t get to where they are by being fools. It isn’t exactly hard to read the tea leaves (government intervention, lawsuits, incessant media harrassment etc.).

However, you seem to me to be the kind of person who believes he knows what’s best for everyone, ie a “nanny-stater”. I happened to play football at a relatively high level, and I can tell you firsthand that the men who choose to play the game know the risks. They are intimately familiar with the violent nature of the game on a physical level, and wear the black & blue fruits of their decision to play as a constant reminder of the choice they have made. They don’t need some pantywaist in a corduroy sweater and male capris to come along and tell them how to play the game anew in order to please the nancy boys of the world who think it is their business to make life “safer” for everyone.

No thanks, buddy. The risks are known to all, just like smoking, drinking, or unprotected intercourse. We don’t want the government policing our social lives for our health benefit and if we are not hypocrites of the highest order ww will not want government or any other “enlightened fellow” tampering with our sports either.

No thanks!

I am for the right of the individual to accept risk at his/her own discretion. You are the one here speaking for the obsessively controlling few, to make those decisions for those you deem to be absent of the ability to think and decide for themselves. This is arrogance pure and simple as is exemplified in your closing assertion that you can speak for the perceptions of the other readers at this site. You presume to know too much, sir!

Have a nice evening!

According to the Center of Responsive Politics, of top five teams, people affiliated with NFL teams gave 67 percent of their money to Republicans and just 29 percent to Democrats in the years that President Obama has been in office. All together, they have given more than $1.4 million to political candidates in that time. In short, the NFL tilts to the right. If it were a bird, it would never get off the ground, because of one of its wing is as scrawny as Marc Bulger.

And yes, the NFL has lots of connections in Washington, currently and in the past, by way of ambassadors, members of Congress, a former vice-presidential candidate and so on.

And no, Washington will not care about the NFL and the way in which it chooses to write and enforce its rules, unless somebody could prove that said rules failed to prevent major incidents (read: on-field deaths as they were common before the forward pass, which Ted Roosevelt did force upon the league)

As far as I know (and unless somebody tells me otherwise), the NFL has initiated all of the changes that we have seen in last five years on its own accord. Washington had nothing to do with the rule changes and if it did, I would question its priorities.

I for one applaud attempts to make the game safer. While I question the assumption that the game by its very nature can be made safer, I would never question any measures to make any profession safer. Why should professional sports be an exception to the moral obligation to give employees all the necessary protection, so that they may enjoy the means to earn a living?

Your comments suggest a rather cynical attitude towards the rights of individuals to control and protect their bodies from harm and readers might get impression that you are trying just a little bit too hard to prove something.

Stop buying, stop going, stop watching as frequently and FORCE the league to make changes! Strangle demand a bit and the price will come down a bit. Strangle demand a lot and the price will come down a lot. Simple economics, though admittedly easier said than done (though not impossible).

May I remind you that political donations from NFL owners tilt heavily, and I mean heavily, towards the right, as in the far right?
This, of course, has not prevented the NFL from developing its own form of socialism by way of revenue sharing and rewarding bottom teams with the chance to pick up the best college players at capped salaries.

If that is not socialism, tickle me pink.
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It is socialism. I wouldn’t argue with you there. But spare me the bs about Goodell’s “political connections”. This administration doesn’t care too spits for Roger Goodell, hell they don’t even care about the Constitution, you think they give a steaming poop about a game? These are the same type of jackboots that go around banning dodge ball in school because the less athletic kids often get their feelings hurt when they lose. The same dolts that ban throwing a football on the beach in LA? The same pinkos that reward every child on the team with a trophy for “participation”. The NFL is a manly man’s game and that just doesn’t wash with the metrosexual’s in the media, or the politically correct disciples of Marx in DC. I don’t trust them and neither should anyone else who knows anything substantial about the history of the “progressive movement”. Again, it’s ALREADY HAPPENING. Open your eyes! The game has been softened up big time in the last five years. You think they are going to stop and leave the NFL alone? Heck no! Look at the nerds in the media running their holes about concussions every five minutes. They WILL kill this game. Goodell has already proven to be weak in the face of this sissified demand for change. Again, it’s already happening.

Also, you are wrong about the political donations. Plenty of these teams are happy to fund their own demise by sending the bulk of their donations to Democrats (yeah, I know, Republicans suck too, but at least they are not constantly trying to steal my money or engineer my life for me).

The guilty parties are…

Seahawks, 49ers, Giants, Saints, Bears, Bengals, Vikings, Patriots, Raiders, Eagles, Falcons, and Dolphins

That’s 12 teams donating to, in majority, liberals. That’s nearly half the league. So dump this myth that somehow the NFL is some monstrous Republican cash cow. That’s pure bs. The league leans right at the top, sure, but it is hardly the strong tilt you make it out to be.

Soccer is the #1 sport in the world bar none, outside of the US, Canada, and a few Asian countries. The US, despite getting likey the 10th or 20th best athletes can still produce a fairly competitive team on the world stage. Just imagine how good the US could be if more kids with athletic ability (coordination, speed, agility, etc) played soccer instead of trying to get into highly competitive leagues such as the NFL, NBA, or MLB.

Those bashing Aikman are really shortsided. The NFL is immensely popular, but it can only go down in popularity. The average fan can’t afford to go to the game without making some supreme financial sacrifices, and the asinine blackout rule is keeping fans from watching the home team. The NFL won’t be knocked off its perch anytime soon, but to say it will always be #1 is ridiculous.

Oh, please. Spare us your suggestion that the “politically left,” “progressives” and “socialists” will force the NFL to share its wealth with other “worthy” causes, as they “emasculate” American males of their “masculinity” to make “inferior men” feel better about themselves.

The National Football League lives a charmed life whose connections run deep into the very heart of political power in Washington.

Goddell, himself the son of a former US senator, has immense political connections, never mind some of the owners.

And if — and that is big IF – the present or any future administration would ever attempt to change the current balance — the NFL could draw on this and other institutional advantages to prevent anything of this sort from happening.

May I remind you that political donations from NFL owners tilt heavily, and I mean heavily, towards the right, as in the far right?
This, of course, has not prevented the NFL from developing its own form of socialism by way of revenue sharing and rewarding bottom teams with the chance to pick up the best college players at capped salaries.

If that is not socialism, tickle me pink.

It’s interesting that people harp about concussions but aren’t concerned about other dangerous jobs.

As the left continues to expand it’s reach into our lives, it will attempt to socially engineer it’s own view of utopian society. The NFL will be forced to emasculate itself as masculinity is seen as a threatening trait that makes inferior men feel bad about themselves. Don’t believe me? Do they still keep score at your kid’s local little league?

Besides, the NFL makes too much money for the socialists who run this country to tolerate. They will inevitably demand that the league’s bountiful income be redistributed (forcibly confiscated) to some other “worthy” political cause down the line.

And don’t tell me anything about King Barry being sports fan, the man couldn’t even tell us who his favorite White Sox player is, nor did he know what stadium they used to play in!

If we keep electing “progressive” politicians there will be many bad days ahead for contact sports in the United States, you watch and see. It’s already happening.

LESS IS MORE.

That is the secret to the NFL’s success. Baseball, Basketball, Hockey… they all play way too many games…. the product is spread too thin…