Soccer will never catch on here because it isn't conducive to advertising. Sports are about money here. If you can't have commercials, you can't make money. Same reason hockey isn't as big. Too bad, because they're both fun sports to watch.
I think soccer, basketball, hockey, etc. lacking in dimension.
In baseball you have intricacies like bunting, hitting for average, slugging, fielding, stealing, etc. In football there's running through the gut, wide tosses, hail marys, screen passes, shovel passes, trick plays, etc.
The more complicated the games, the more I like them. I didn't like either sport until my late teens because it was hard to sit down and watch a game I didn't fully understand.
The only exception to this rule for me might be auto-racing. The rules in F1 and CART aren't particularly complex, though I guess the technology is.
I think soccer, basketball, hockey, etc. lacking in dimension.
In baseball you have intricacies like bunting, hitting for average, slugging, fielding, stealing, etc. In football there's running through the gut, wide tosses, hail marys, screen passes, shovel passes, trick plays, etc.
WTH? 3-pointer,dunk, alley-oop, screen and roll, pick and roll, triangle offense,screen, double screen, bounce pass, sky-hook, jump shot, block, free-throw, rebound, assist, give and go, fast-break, half court game, 24 second clock, 14 second clock, turn around jumper, tear drop, 3 second violation, 10 second violation, illegal offense, illegal defense, lay-up, turnover, tip in, bank shot, reverse screen, reverse lay-up, post up game, back door pass etc etc etc.
Same with hockey. You just don't understand those games that you're calling "lacking in dimenson".
We'll see about 2010. It's great for the US federation to set a goal like that, but the footballing powers won't stop producing talents. It's not going to be that easy but considering the super weak opposition the US has in the area (top teams being Honduras, Mexico, Costa Rica ) it's safe to say it'll be very hard for us not to qualify to all future world cups and get better on experience alone.
I would suggest to you that once you understand it, hockey has plenty of dimension to it. It is an extremely dynamic game with many different ways of strategically occupying space in order to gain the advantage over your opponent. Add to this that it is a game of near constant motion (like soccer in many ways) and you can begin to see why those who watch it do so with such passion.
I never used to watch it, but once I understood the rules and understood why plays develop as they do it became much more interesting because I could begin to anticipate a play developing a second or two ahead of time. If you just try to follow the puck around with your eyes and don't watch the players without the puck, you're going to end up banging your head against the wall.
That's the problem: people watch hockey with a tunnelvision mindset instead trying to see things developing across a swath of ice (as in basketball for example).
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Originally posted by pensieve
Soccer will never catch on here because it isn't conducive to advertising. Sports are about money here. If you can't have commercials, you can't make money. Same reason hockey isn't as big. Too bad, because they're both fun sports to watch.
I think soccer, basketball, hockey, etc. lacking in dimension.
In baseball you have intricacies like bunting, hitting for average, slugging, fielding, stealing, etc. In football there's running through the gut, wide tosses, hail marys, screen passes, shovel passes, trick plays, etc.
The more complicated the games, the more I like them. I didn't like either sport until my late teens because it was hard to sit down and watch a game I didn't fully understand.
The only exception to this rule for me might be auto-racing. The rules in F1 and CART aren't particularly complex, though I guess the technology is.
Originally posted by Eugene
I think soccer, basketball, hockey, etc. lacking in dimension.
In baseball you have intricacies like bunting, hitting for average, slugging, fielding, stealing, etc. In football there's running through the gut, wide tosses, hail marys, screen passes, shovel passes, trick plays, etc.
WTH? 3-pointer,dunk, alley-oop, screen and roll, pick and roll, triangle offense,screen, double screen, bounce pass, sky-hook, jump shot, block, free-throw, rebound, assist, give and go, fast-break, half court game, 24 second clock, 14 second clock, turn around jumper, tear drop, 3 second violation, 10 second violation, illegal offense, illegal defense, lay-up, turnover, tip in, bank shot, reverse screen, reverse lay-up, post up game, back door pass etc etc etc.
Same with hockey. You just don't understand those games that you're calling "lacking in dimenson".
We'll see about 2010. It's great for the US federation to set a goal like that, but the footballing powers won't stop producing talents. It's not going to be that easy but considering the super weak opposition the US has in the area (top teams being Honduras, Mexico, Costa Rica
I never used to watch it, but once I understood the rules and understood why plays develop as they do it became much more interesting because I could begin to anticipate a play developing a second or two ahead of time. If you just try to follow the puck around with your eyes and don't watch the players without the puck, you're going to end up banging your head against the wall.
That's the problem: people watch hockey with a tunnelvision mindset instead trying to see things developing across a swath of ice (as in basketball for example).