Hacker News Reader

Comment by kjs3 | Hacker News Reader

I'm assuming you're not watching American football. That has become so much 'the game is filler between the ads' that they stop the live game in the stadium (TV timeout) so as not to annoy people being fed ads watching it on TV.

View on HN

Maybe that’s why they won’t promote soccer in the US. 2x45 minutes of game separated by only 15 minutes. And I wish the NBA was like F1 where you pay a subscription and you have access to pretty much everything. I don’t mind sponsored labels and name drops.

Don't mean to go off on a rant here...but soccer will always struggle in the US until the refs start aggressively calling simulation aka 'diving' (and maybe changing some penalty kick rules to discourage it) on the Neymar wannabes flopping around and acting like they've been shot by a tazer at the slightest touch. I've played soccer since I was like 10, and I've been a season ticket holder at my local MLS team since they started, so love the game. But I'm often too embarrassed to even bring up soccer with lots of my US based, sports-mad friends because inevitably the conversation devolves into how games turn on eye-roll worthy acting on the field, refs buying into it, and I can't argue they're wrong (esp since I played rugby as well so have little sympathy for "fake ouchies").

And since we're on the topic...soccer also needs to adopt rugby's rule that only the team captain can talk to the ref and question calls, and respect is required. But, you know...baby steps.

Thanks for the detailed explanation why the NBA is obscure in the US.

Read for comprehension, not just look at words and remember the last ones. It helps.

Soccer will always struggle in the US because of culture. Outside of the US, soccer is the sport everyone gathers around the TV to watch, but here in the US that's usually the NFL. If American Football never came to existence and we played soccer like the rest of the world I bet that the US would have dominated and we would have clubs like PSG and Real Madrid. But because we have American Football here, all the money and attention is on that sport and soccer is just a niche sport.

The MLS can do alot to become more popular but it won't ever be what soccer in the rest of the world is because to do that they would have to dethrone American Football which is just never happening.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com