OK, enough. I've calmed down.
Different topic. But something I said above got me thinking.
When I mentioned football in the US; there have been loads of false dawns where it looked as though it would take off for real in the US. But could it actually happen this time?
With MLS looking half decent, I wouldn't be surprised if it grows further. To me it does seem as though that league has been done kinda properly. Sure it does have a load of ex-stars taking a last pay cheque which straight off doesn't sound that great. But from seeing match reports and stuff it feels that there is quite a lot more to it. Those players are something like the icing on the cake, but, unlike when you had Pele playing in NY in the seventies, it seems as though at least there IS some cake.
How much do demographics affect it? I guess that in South and Central America football is the game so immigration from below the border - no doubt aided by senile Biden's totally open border policy - works in favour of the beautiful game too...
But more than that - and something that could become more of an issue IF football does establish a toehold to build from - it seems to me that if you take a person who has no particular ingrained reason to prefer one or the other out of American Football and Football and make them watch a match of each kind, then the latter is just easier to get into just cos the game is so much more continuous. Sure the AF highlights look good when some guy in his lovely shiny kit dives to catch an 80m pass but when you watch it live you realise what a tiny part of the whole thing that is. In fact, even a shitty play where they advance three metres lasts nothing compared to the break before and after that happens. AF has all those cheerleaders and adverts and stuff cos they are needed to fill in all the gaps when play is stopped - when they take the kick off and the ball is alive for ten seconds.... and then it stops and they swap the whole team.
I'm not making a parochial claim that football is a better game (obviously It is, but that's not what I'm arguing), I'm just saying that it's easier for someone who knows nothing about it to follow. I understand that AF benefits from studying it properly, that you can get more from it the more you understand it and the more that you can think about the tactics and so on..... but what is the incentive for a newbie to reach that level when there are other games which can give you the same rush without having to study them first?
Plus - correct me if I'm wrong here - but is it not also the case that there is a big thing at the moment with them worrying about the long term damage to the brain that you are likely to sustain if you spend your professional life trying to stop really fast giants wearing body armour by smashing your head into them? And as a result there is a serious possibility that they are gonna change the game to make it safer and less exciting?
And a lot of the same stuff about immediacy applies for baseball vs football too I'd imagine.
I suppose I'm asking people in the US, so I guess I'm asking
@Leo really cos you're the one who posted in this thread today.
TLDR - my feeling is that the MLS is working quite well and football might actually establish itself as a proper self-sustaining sport in the US that doesn't need to rely on aging foreign superstars to generate interest - would you agree?
And also, would you agree that compared to the homegrown US sports of American Football and baseball, football is a game that - due to its relatively more continuous game play and simple rules - is easier to watch and enjoy for a total beginner? And easier to play come to think of it cos you don't need so much stuff.
So when you consider that, plus the changing demographics of the country, add in the possibility of a controversial rule change in AF, plus yer average man on the street realising that you can get just as megarich playing footie and you can ply your trade in Europe or anywhere and become a world wide star instead of just in the US, do you think that there is a chance that over the next few years (I mean like twenty I guess) football can grow its audience, to some respect, at the expense of AF and baseball?