A sign that Americans still have a ways to go
in [World Football]
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From: William Clark on 10 Jun 2010 21:32 In article <MPG.267b253738ac2db398d38d(a)news-europe.giganews.com>, Manx Gunner <goal(a)4thegunners!com> wrote: > On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 12:49:58 -0400, RED DEVIL wrote... > > > With so many US players playing in Europe against good opposition the > > standard of the US team has really got much better. The problem > > remains on how to get a better quality domestic league, for me the MLS > > isn't any better now than when it started. All things take time I > > suppose. > > I've explained this before but I shall be happy to do so again. > > Let's consider a 10-year-old athlete, gifted with the talent to become > world class at whatever sport he chooses to pursue. That athlete has > grown up watching LeBron James (NBA, $100M+ by 21), Steven Strasburg > (MLB, $20M+ by 21), Matthew Stafford (NFL, $50M+ by 21), and Freddy Adu > (MLS, $3M+ by 21). Gee, which do you think he's going to pick? And what is the average length of a career in the NFL? Just about 3 years - period. Small (i.e. soccer-sized) kids don't have a real option of playing basketball to NBA level, and probably not baseball either. Now, at least, soccer is an option for them, and if they are watching Wayne Rooney or Lionel Messi, they are seeing players that play in glamorous European competitions and earn salaries right up there with NBA and MLB.
From: Insane Ranter on 10 Jun 2010 21:32 On Jun 10, 6:06 pm, "Mark V." <markvande...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > On Jun 10, 2:37 pm, Manx Gunner <goal(a)4thegunners!com> wrote: > > > > > I've explained this before but I shall be happy to do so again. > > > Let's consider a 10-year-old athlete, gifted with the talent to become > > world class at whatever sport he chooses to pursue. That athlete has > > grown up watching LeBron James (NBA, $100M+ by 21), Steven Strasburg > > (MLB, $20M+ by 21), Matthew Stafford (NFL, $50M+ by 21), and Freddy Adu > > (MLS, $3M+ by 21). Gee, which do you think he's going to pick? > > Ten year olds don't pay close attention to how much athletes make, and > even those that do don't make decisions on what sport to play based on > salaries. It's that many more ten year olds see James, Strasburg, and > Stafford play than see Adu, Donovan, Howard et al. If they watch Adu... well no wonder they pick someone else. When do they get to even watch Adu anyway in the USA? You almost have to dig to figure out when and where the Europeans leagues play and what channel and times. Or get some special cable package when all you have to do is just flip on free Air TV and get a baseball, football, or basketball game.
From: William Clark on 10 Jun 2010 21:38 In article <qa1216pfvhadadrmhc007vfbik7hbbthpl(a)4ax.com>, Jack Hollis <xsleeper(a)aol.com> wrote: > On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 05:45:17 -0700, Dwight Beers <hdbeers(a)gmail.com> > wrote: > > >> 2. In 1875, Ivy League schools, much like their upper crust > >> counterparts in England, chose to play with Rugby rules in favor of > >> soccer. Thus evolved American Football. Had the Ivy League choose to > >> keep playing soccer, American Football never would have existed and > >> soccer would have been a major sport in the US long ago. > >> > > > >Fact #2: The first Harvard-Yale football game was in 1820. > > I think you might want to check on that. The first Harvard - Yale > game in 1875 was what led to the Ivy League to adopt Rugby Football > Union rules. Wrong again, Jack, since 1820, a version of football was played at Harvard and Yale, resembling closely the kind of melee that is described in "Tom Brown's Schooldays" as taking place at Rugby School. The first formal game was 1875, and that was based on the rugby played elsewhere in the world at that time.
From: Mark V. on 10 Jun 2010 23:01 On Jun 10, 5:41 pm, Manx Gunner <goal(a)4thegunners!com> wrote: > On Thu, 10 Jun 2010 15:06:10 -0700 (PDT), Mark V. wrote... > > On Jun 10, 2:37 pm, Manx Gunner <goal(a)4thegunners!com> wrote: > > > > I've explained this before but I shall be happy to do so again. > > > > Let's consider a 10-year-old athlete, gifted with the talent to become > > > world class at whatever sport he chooses to pursue. That athlete has > > > grown up watching LeBron James (NBA, $100M+ by 21), Steven Strasburg > > > (MLB, $20M+ by 21), Matthew Stafford (NFL, $50M+ by 21), and Freddy Adu > > > (MLS, $3M+ by 21). Gee, which do you think he's going to pick? > > > Ten year olds don't pay close attention to how much athletes make, and > > even those that do don't make decisions on what sport to play based on > > salaries. It's that many more ten year olds see James, Strasburg, and > > Stafford play than see Adu, Donovan, Howard et al. > > Surely you don't think that income and exposure are unrelated? > > (I thought that was obvious, thus didn't expound on it.) There is nothing about the way you worded your paragraph that suggests it was obvious to you.
From: Mark V. on 10 Jun 2010 23:03
On Jun 10, 3:29 pm, Chagney Hunt <ess...(a)gmail.com> wrote: > On Jun 10, 6:06 pm, "Mark V." <markvande...(a)yahoo.com> wrote: > > > On Jun 10, 2:37 pm, Manx Gunner <goal(a)4thegunners!com> wrote: > > > > I've explained this before but I shall be happy to do so again. > > > > Let's consider a 10-year-old athlete, gifted with the talent to become > > > world class at whatever sport he chooses to pursue. That athlete has > > > grown up watching LeBron James (NBA, $100M+ by 21), Steven Strasburg > > > (MLB, $20M+ by 21), Matthew Stafford (NFL, $50M+ by 21), and Freddy Adu > > > (MLS, $3M+ by 21). Gee, which do you think he's going to pick? > > > Ten year olds don't pay close attention to how much athletes make, and > > even those that do don't make decisions on what sport to play based on > > salaries. > > They don't, but they are easily influenced by the parents. The pushy > parents trend has been on the up. I still doubt that parents are pushing ten year old kids to choose one sport over the other on the basis of potential earnings. "No soccer for you, young Norbert! Basketball is where the money is at!" |