Quote from: tekla on June 29, 2010, 08:18:09 PM
But, it's never been a government/national deal. Even the Olympics are not nearly as big a deal as the 3 pro seasons are and the college football/basketball playoffs. And those have always been controlled (either by the pro owners, or by the major colleges and universities) on a private level, not as a government deal, and your right, the money in it is HUGE. So, because of that the best little boy jocks get funneled and trained in one of those three sports from very young, and not as some government program, but through lower level school sports and stuff like Little League and Pop Warner football, and CYO/police leagues in basketball. The very best American athletes tend to end up playing football, basketball or baseball - cause that's where the money, the fame and the history rest.
I do understand your scepticism about government and sport. But what I referring to is not the players, as such, but the encouragement of spectators.
The players are the tools of the deal. Any money they earn for themselves is relitively insignificant. Some earn huge sums, most don't.
But while the players make up the spectacle. The spectators are the focus. It is they who create the vast bulk of the money generated. Mostly in merchandicing and association.
If you look at the way the spectators of different sports behave. Here in the UK, there are three principal sports. Cricket, which is a hero sport, similar to your baseball or American football. Rugby, a full contact sport and football, (soccer), the spectators behave very differently.
It isn't that individuals are any more different or similar than anyone else. But when we join a group, as humans, we naturally, if unconsciously, tend to act according to the manner of the group.
The latter two sports mentioned, are both group sports in that the spectators tend to look at the team rather than the individuals.
With baseball, for example, the focus tends to be on single players, because at any one time, only two players will be essentially active. The batter and the pitcher. The batter and the basekeeper. And so on.
With American football, the game is designed to highlight and individual, the quarterback, with the rest of the team acting as backup.
With basketball, by contrast, the focus in on the team. Individual players stand out. Frequently, they may achieve star status in their own right, but they function as part of a team, standing out because of their contribution to the team, rather than because the support the team has made to their achievement.
How this transcribes into crowd behaviour of course, is another matter. Since I am not in the states I haven't had an opportunity to observe it.
In the case of football, (soccer), the focus is on the team. Again, individual players may stand out and be stars in their own right, but the team is the cohesion that binds the supporters and creates the tribal nature of the supporters culture.
The players are a side issue here. The important issue is the supporters. How, being a suppoter affects the nature of society as a whole and how this affects the position of the individual within the context of society.
There is no actual skill in supporting, other than having the mental vacancy to collectively work themselves into a frenzy. But the group, supporters of a particualr team, form a co-operative, based upon an equality.
The rivalry between different groups of supporters creates a social structure where supporters of winners assume personal credit and achievement. The observation of the utter futility of people supporting the England football team is a significant case in point. Failure to support the team, before they have been knocked out of the competition is seen as virtual treason.
I suggest that there are essentially several reasons the US probably won't promote soccer too highly in the near future.
Firstly. It is unlikely they will win. The US undoubtedly has the potential to win. It's culture is competitive. It certainly has the local expertese to train suitable athletes. But it, so far, lacks the background experience. That it can reach the finals, repeatedly, in the last 20 or so years, is a testament to its enormous potential. I suspect that, with suitable incentive, the US could quite easily, reach the final game. But once it has done that, the position of Soccer in the US will have irrevolkably changed and there would never be a going back. The social consequences with the US would be significant, dismantling the existing basis of social tribalism, namely persecutory group. But the internationl consequences would be much more so. The working classes in the us would begin comparing themselves with the working classes of other societies, through the vicarious achievement of individual players. That will lead to the tendency of Americans to see themselves as an exclusive group, secretly superior to all others, needing to be continually vigilent of outsiders, attempting to usurp their apparent differences, to disappear.
Secondly, the commercial profits, which in any major sport are almost entirely derived from merchandicising and sponsorships, are already well established in American football and baseball. Probably basketball as well. Shifting a large part of this to an unknown is unlikely to appeal to investors without significant justification.
Thirdly, the current positioning in the US, where soccer is portrayed as a woman's or children's activity serves the purpose of allowing those in the US, who are socially and personally of the type who would collectively support sport, rather than play it, and maintain sufficient self respect not to be utterly embarrassed by this preposterus contradiction, to maintain their own self image of effective winners, without actually having to participate. (The supporters, not the team. The team being irrelevant.)
I've just realised I have once again, produced a long response which you might find tedious to read. I apologise.
