You might have picked this up on the local news, because during official "tournament" games, they cover the court with stick-ons telling you so. ZOWIE! The excitement!
Why is the NBA doing something so silly and, well, boring, I hear you ask? Well, mostly because it's the sort of thing soccer does.
Association football, as they know it elsewhere, is always doing things like holding special cup tournaments and "champions league" competitions, all around the world, in what are essentially their year-round, never-ending seasons. The little men with big bank accounts who run professional sports in America look at soccer's success and are filled with envy.
How can we make our sports international favorites, and thus make even more money than the ungodly amounts we already do? they ask themselves, and their minions.
Thus we get NFL teams dragged over to Europe for league games, and the idiotic, career-ending "World Baseball Classic," and now the "NBA Cup." Baseball, which is so insecure it tries to imitate all other professional sports, also features endless rounds of playoffs, which is how we get the fourth-best team in the American League playing the sixth-best team in the National League, in what used to be the premier sporting event in North America.
(Even professional soccer in America tries to imitate soccer, plastering names such as "United" or "FC" or "Real" on its teams, in an affectation that has nothing to do with the organic ways in which those real teams abroad acquired those names.)
Is soccer really so popular? Allen Barra, one of our smartest writers on sports, makes the bold claim that, whenever a country has a possible alternative—U.S. football, basketball, hockey, field hockey, cricket, track and field, even baseball—soccer ranks a distant second, or less.
Soccer's biggest, sustained appeal—and most of its money—comes from Europe, of course, where the sport continues to reign uncontested. But is this because they play lots of "in-season" tournaments and "cup games"?
The Kop Curve was a section of stands in Liverpool's ancient Anfield stadium. The section was originally named "Spion Kop," in 1906, after a battle in the Boer War where the Brits lost a lot of men, and in this moment stands for all that we love most about sports.
The Kop stood for hallowed memories, tragic and happy, and for local pride—in this instance, for the group and the sound that was suddenly sweeping the music world. Soccer meant getting together with the lads once a week or so, to cheer and drink and sing, and reminisce—to build memories. The same way that baseball and basketball and football and all other beloved sports used to.
There is a dark side to this as well, as there always is to when men get together to drink and shout—something tribal, and bigoted, and too often racist, that led to soccer thugs and riots. Thank God there has been less of that—and more women, and people from all groups—at American games. But then, that's the struggle we all face, in everything, isn't it? Saving the best from the past while discarding the worst?
The men who run our sports don't get that. Indeed, even English soccer has come to seem more anodyne in recent years—not least because more and more Americans have bought in? (Looking at you, John Henry.)
I don't think the answer is inventing "in-season tournaments"—or coming up with silly reasons for selling new, "City Connect" gear, or everyone-in playoffs. I think it's keeping the games cheap enough and democratic enough for everyone to be able to afford them. For everyone to get together to sing and celebrate, and remember.
Instead, sports here and everywhere seem to be moving in the opposite direction. Yes, bring in more nepo babies and oil sheikh money to make it all the pricier, and more exclusive. Keep holding up cities, even struggling cities, for more stadium money—and moving to pathetic replicas of real places, if you don't get it. Stick ads all over everyone's most beloved memories, and lie as you breathe when the suckers question any of it.
As far as I'm concerned, you can take your in-seasons tournaments or your Little World Series. I'd rather be in the Kop—or at Yankee Stadium—circa 1964.
Hal's making money.
ReplyDeleteNobody's coming to save us.
We are doomed.
Yankee fan for life here.
Guess I'll tie myself to the mast and start singing the Star Spangled Banner.
I love you all.
Bring your large format camera when you do…..
ReplyDeleteHorace, I don't know who Allen Barra is and yet I do know he is completely full of shit.
ReplyDeleteBaseball has caught on big time in South America, but don't make the mistake of thinking they've completely forgotten about football. Basketball is big in Europe but don't get confused. When the major football tournaments start, the whole world watches. Except us.
There is way too much soccer bashing (or what it is properly called, football, because you see, they actually use their feet), as if somehow soccer is at the root of all evil in American sports.
You say that association football has doing these "special" cup tournaments as if they started doing them last month. Well, yeah, the FA Cup for instance has been played in England since 1871. The Champions League started in 1955. The Europa League since 1971. They've been playing the World Cup since 1930. All really new and special tournaments.
And yes, you are correct: there is a great deal of money involved, but most of the richest clubs are in England and now Saudi Arabia is throwing their cash around and American sports owners are jealous.
But more importantly, football clubs aren't just cash cows for their respective cities. In fact, most of the Premier League teams are neighborhood clubs and their ties to the community go back over a hundred years. They can't just up and move to another city like most of the scoundrels in America. And there have been times when club supporters have had a tremendous amount of leverage in running of clubs. Premier League clubs go out of their way to cater to the supporters associations that have widespread membership.
I myself am a rabid Arsenal supporter and our rivals in North London just down the road, Spurs are HATED. London has a handful of clubs in every corner of the city. It's like the old days in New York when the Giants and the Dodgers were here. Imagine if the Red Sox played in Manhattan. That's how bad the rivalry is, but when England plays in the European Championships or the World Cup, they set aside the bitterness and become one.
European football is NOTHING like American sports. The allegiances are still lasting whereas here in the US they fracture every time a team moves to Las Vegas, a thing that would NEVER happen in football.
It's true there's a lot of money to be made by footballers and their clubs, but they don't have the same money-grubbing antics displayed here in the US.
So, please, stop bashing football already. I know you and many others on this site don't like "soccer" but cut it out. I'm tempted to say you really don't understand the communal nature of the beautiful game or even the game itself. I used to think soccer was like watching paint dry until I took the time to understand what was happening. Now I get antsy by Thursday every week in anticipation of matchday.
Football around the world is deeply tradition-bound and no amount of money is going to change that. Think about this: last year there was an attempt to create a "super league" of all the best clubs in Europe. Do you know how it got defeated? It was the fans. The supporters raised a bloody stink over it and within two weeks it was a dead idea. Imagine that happening here? The Steinbrenners of the world think they're going to step into European football and take it the same way they've fucked all of us year after decade. It won't happen. Not in our lifetime it won't.
European football is not the enemy. And Allen Barra is still full of shit.
Dick- It is going to sound silly but Ted Lasso actually gave me a greater appreciation of soccer. I still don't really like to watch it but I understand more why people do.
ReplyDeletePlus, living in Sacramento where the Sacramento Republic FC made it into the championship game of the US Open couple of years back, even beating MLS teams, was a BIG deal there. They are par with the Kings (NBA) in terms of fan love. Maybe even better. So it gave me some additional appreciation.
As to Hal...
I thought that Hal bought a soccer team because they don't need as much equipment to play it and the fans don't get to keep "free" balls that go into the stands and drink more beer.
DickAllen, I actually LIKE soccer (though I also like to tease it).
ReplyDeleteThat was the gist of the article: the REAL attraction of soccer is the "communal nature" of the sport, as you say—not this or that tournament.
I fully grant you that the in-season soccer tournaments in the UK and elsewhere are traditional and real. So are the names—all the "FCs" and "United" and "Reals." I don't think I wrote ANYWHERE that most of them are "new."
I think both these tendencies become very affected, though, when—AND ONLY WHEN—they're adapted in the US. It's a simulacrum of soccer, and of soccer's real (and honored) traditions..
I'm very glad to hear that you think the fans will resist the onslaught of money and stupid American owners. I'm not as optimistic, but I really do hope you're right—and it was great that the fans resisted the European "super league."
As for Allen Barra, I don't always agreed with him—he's quite a kochleffl—but I was intrigued by how many nations have other sports they prefer. Nothing wrong with that—or with liking soccer!
Again, when I say we should "listen" to soccer, I'm saying we should look at the real reasons—the good reasons—why fans love it. Not the ancillary, money-driven reasons that are all our owners see or hear.
Incidentally, growing up in a small town, our little public high school was regularly trounced by the big, regional schools we played. The one exception was soccer. We didn't even have an American football team because too many guys would've been too small to play it well.
ReplyDeleteBut in soccer...just by being in shape, and concentrating on fundamentals (our coaches didn't know much about it), we were able to win. It was great!