This is the unfortunate part that we lose a lot of talents because the sports have becoming “pay to play” oriented for the youths.
Viewing Habits Suggests Soccer's Rise. Baseball's Decline.
- Thread starter Althetuna
- Start date
Football not hurt by concussion issue, still popular.
Gen Zer's are less involved in sports.
Soccer, basketball and football are the future of sports for Generation Alpha, survey finds
Morning Consult's 2021 survey suggests that Generation Alpha are favoring basketball, football, and soccer, while baseball remains low.www.cnbc.com
Soccer has been very popular for that age group since what, the 70's??? It's soccer. You jog around the field and kick the ball. You can be horrible at it and still kind of hide within the field of play. Everybody has fun. Everybody gets ice cream after the game. Yeah soccer.
I'm struggling getting my son to. I record every Sporting KC game and try to watch it with him but he just isn't that interested. He'll play any time I ask though. We've been to a few games too.
Watching guys flop around trying to draw penalty kicks is more entertaining than MLB?
7 inning games. No DH. No shifting (positions should be required to stay within a certain zone). Pitch clock (like a shot clock). One catcher mound visit per inning.
Baseball pitchers are insanely soft. I get the flopping and whining about falling stuff in soccer but that is nothing compared to a pitcher buzzing the tower on someone who ran around the bases the wrong way or stared at him etc etc etc.
I don't understand soccer enough to get into the matches. I don't understand the nuance enough to overcome the lack of scoring. If they modified the fields/rules to increase more scoring, I would likely get into it more as a casual fan. Some of these matches ended up 1-0 or 2-1 and the only scoring ends up on penalty kicks.
Baseball would help itself tremendously by going to 7 inning games and a shorter season. The money will prevent this from happening. Baseball just can't get out of their own way.
Baseball would help itself tremendously by going to 7 inning games and a shorter season. The money will prevent this from happening. Baseball just can't get out of their own way.
I wouldn't even worry about that. When I was playing sports throughout elementary, junior high and high school I don't think I ever sat down and watched any on TV. Still played them just had other things I rather be watching. Always enjoyed going to watch them live though.
That's because Little League regulated itself out of relevance. Too many rule changes every year. Seems as though "Soccer Mom Karen" took over Little League years ago.
I never understood in soccer why the players so often kick the ball to the other team. WTF? Then, if the ball isn't really close to them, the other players just kind of jog around and don't do much. That's all soccer is to me when I watch it. Then there is the flopping in the men's game. LOL....
Would rather watch a guy try to hit off a pitcher with 4 different pitches. Followed by the camera panning on the hot chicks in the crowd.
a lot of kids don't go out for high school baseball because it takes up pretty much their entire summer. Should move it to late April.
I’m one of the biggest USMNT and USWNT fans on here, and I think that you make some good points. But there is an undeniable “big event” aspect to World Cups that don’t really make those TV ratings an accurate measure of fan interest, IMO. Fox said they had 20 million viewers for the 2019 Women’s final and the men got 21.6 million for their knockout round defeat to Belgium in 2014. The Olympics also draws massive TV ratings, but I wouldn’t say that means people are huge fans of swimming, track and field, gymnastics etc. People like the Olympics because it’s a big event with some good natured patriotism mixed in.
My earlier point was that if you watched the 2002 Men’s World Cup (the best performance ever by the USMNT) and fell in love with that team, you had very few options to watch the stars of that squad after the tournament. Brian McBride went on to have a loan spell with Everton and then began his run at Fulham. Claudio Reyna was in England playing for Sunderland and Man City. John O’Brien was at Ajax. Apart from catching whatever MLS game might have featured somebody from that team, the guys who played in Europe were out of sight, out of mind.
Now, I can watch McKennie at Juve, and Tyler Adams, Gio Reyna, John Brooks, Josh Sargent, Chris Richards in the Bundesliga all on ESPN+. Pulisic (if he ever gets to play again) is easy to catch with NBC’s Premier League coverage. I just think that anybody who gets hooked by the National Team these days is much more likely to become a fan of the sport in general because they can now watch US players play for clubs in Europe. I’m a Fulham fan because I started to seek out Fulham matches when Dempsey was there and they actually were available on broadcast TV sporadically. Add in the fact that I learned that guys like McBride and Bocanegra called Fulham home for a while and they quickly became my club team. Now I’m engrossed in Fulham’s fight to stay in the Premier League and my interest has very little to do with Americans who play there.
Every sport has the floppers. Soccer just does it over dramatic. Look at Bron, look at Smart. Rmeember the whole student section flopped when they announced Smart for Okie State? Labron looks like he get's hit with a bat half the time and he is considered the best in the world.
Personally if I wanted to watch a few guys try to score and not get it done, I’d make observations at a bar. Yes I am talking about soccer. I do have two kids that played both soccer and baseball/softball. I know soccer is big around Des Moines but there are no leagues where I live past elementary school. Rec league Baseball/softball ends after second grade. After that you have to be on a traveling team which my kids are. There are leagues hosting tournaments all over the state but few kids can play. The teams we have cut off after eleven kids. So I believe that this hampers a child’s interest in playing ball. The blackouts and poor marketing don’t help either. I don’t even know of a kid that collects cards anymore. I recall in the 80s when I was a kid it caused all sorts of quarrels/fights while trading cards. Fun times!
The amount of “Sports Dudes That Never Played soccer past kinder-kicks” that are getting in to soccer over the past decade is huge. Think Ross Peterson and Bruno from KXNO types.
The most die-hard Crew ultras are all like that type. They go and drink as a group, walk to the stadium as a group, throw smoke and bang drums during the game together. Walk out of the stadium as a group, then go drink more as a group.
The common denominator of baseball and soccer and Nascar is you can walk away for any reason come back and chances are you didnt miss much. It always amazed me as a kid listening to adult fans in the baseball stands talking intently about random things and they always knew the count and the situation and when to watch the game. Soccer has that boring aspect also pass pass pass steal pass steal pass pass................ as a fan you know when to pay attention. Nascar..... I dont need to explain.
In soccer, shots on goal is what I like. I have always compared it to 3rd downs or scoring in the red zone. You need to play it perfectly or have a bad play on defense or some luck or penalties. I do understand what you are saying though.
Baseball meh.
I think that really depends on the school you're talking about. Baseball is probably right up there with Hockey as being a rich kid sport.
Before anybody gets all bent out of shape about what I'm going to say keep in mind I have had two kids play USSSA baseball at the same time. We're down to one playing travel/freshman ball and one playing rec league right now.
If you're in a relatively wealthy school district baseball is still huge through high school. When I say relatively wealthy I'm thinking West Des Moines, Urbandale, or Cedar Falls. If you live in one of those areas you've probably got several club baseball programs to choose from who will gladly take your $600-$800 for fees, then you need to buy a $300 bat to keep up with the Joneses and a $200 mitt. That bat if you're lucky will last two years before the kid out grows it or if you spent big money on a composite one the damn thing is probably going to crack during one of those cold April tournaments. Then you get to 13U and need a drop 8 bat then again at 14U you need a drop 5 bat and then when he's a freshman you need a drop 3 bat. Maybe you could save some money buying a cheaper glove but then you're probably buying a new glove every year because of the schedule that $80 glove feels like a wet paper towel at the end of the season. If you're a kid from a lower income household you just can't make that work but you can play rec ball and that's a whole lot more reasonable thing but seeing the difference between the two where I live you've got a whole bunch of kids who are unprepared for high school baseball just because their parents didn't have $1500 laying around to drop into their kids making up for the parents athletic failings.
Now you get into the have nots like a Waterloo East where half the varsity bench is made up of 8th graders. Baseball needs to figure out a way to get those lower income kids involved or in another 50 years it'll be a super niche sport that ends up on some 3rd tier channel where MLB is buying the air time rather than getting paid for their games.
