Everyone on this board realizes Droski's ability to post numbers in context is suspect. Brazil/Germany did 26.5 million in the U.S., which is well above the second most watched college basketball game this year (Kentucky / Wisconsin), and just a hair under the national championship game, which was the most watched college basketball game in 18 years.
The ratings for the NFL playoffs are just absurd. Nothing even comes close. The college football playoff did pretty well (but like a fourth of what the SB did). tOSU/Oregon was the highest rated show in cable television history.
Believe it or not, we have experienced a massive jump in the last 10 years. We were just so woefully low before as to be hardly a professional league at all. Now we are a retirement/development league, which is actually an improvement.
Your average American can tell you the outcome of UK Wisconsin. I doubt the same can be said for Brazil Germany
Pakistan and India's cricket match in this years World Cup had 10 times more viewers than this years super bowl. The is the first time a sporting event exceeded 1 billion viewers.
Sorry you don't know the difference between average and by far the most highest rated event. It's like arguing figure skating is extremely popular by looking at the Olympic final event and ignoring the ratings the other 3.9 years.
Someone else has already said they don't think that is a big enough gap. I'll probably stick with my original statement. Still, the gap is quite large. Most guys who show promise end up moving overseas, and none of the old greats come until they can't make it over there anymore. I'm not sure what it will take to change that.
This guy nails the shit out of it: http://www.wsj.com/articles/why-i-hate-american-soccer-fans-1402012291 It's not that they all have the same stories about study-abroad trips to Europe, or that they get wildly excited about the simplest saves, or even, for inexplicable reasons, that 90% of soccer fans in the U.S. seem to root for Arsenal. My biggest gripe is that all of this feels like an elaborate affectation. Instead of watching the game in the time-honored way of American sports fans—by thrusting a giant foam finger in the air, say, or devouring a large plate of Buffalo wings—your soccer fanatics have taken to aping the behavior of our fans from across the pond. Never mind that no other sport is so linked to the working class. For these fans, rooting for an English soccer team is a highbrow pursuit and a mark of sophistication, like going to a Wes Anderson movie or owning a New Yorker subscription.
**** Arsenal. Also, I imagine most people rooting for Arsenal do so because they are perennial contenders, 10 years ago went undefeated, and are not Manchester United.
they can claim they are not bandwagonners because arsenal hasn't won in a while. it's like being a cowboys fan. if you didn't grow up in dallas, you shouldn't be a cowboys fan.
Lol, he didn't hit a single mark. 90% Arsenal fans? Nope. Do the English have the monopoly on singing during games? Nope. Face paint? Nope. Is it only social elites following soccer? Nope.
I'm shocked that it takes a once in 4 years event and we're holding that up as competitive in our market with football, basketball or baseball. Hell, the rally around your country team every 2-4 years works in every sport.
Every time I see a Bama or Gator fan in Knoxville, I ask when they went to school there. "Oh, I didn't go there." Oh, that is fine, when did you move to Knoxville from bama/FL? "I have always lived here." Your parents must have gone to school there, then? "Uh, nope." Oh.
outside of immigrants from heavy soccer countries the ONLY people big fans I know are white, highly educated, 22-35 year olds with no children. I defy you to find me a 50 year old dock worker from Detroit who cares about the EPL.
yeah that guy is real off base: http://www.theguardian.com/football/2014/feb/28/premier-league-epl-nbc-america-fans Logan is a 25 year-old American who harbors unusually romantic notions of life in working-class Britain. Since spending a semester at Oxford Brookes University, in 2008, Logan has embraced the style, culture and speaking habits of a (highly stylised) working-class Brit. He’s donned Doc Martins; he’s had a bulldog and a Union Jack tattooed on his chest, just above his heart. He has a number of other tattoos that pay homage to British heritage, national pride and Arsenal. The word “Gunners” is emblazoned on his back, in a bold and dark-red font.
