Picture the following two scenarios:
1) A male or female, mid-20′s. Playing soccer on a local Sunday league team. Wearing brand new adidas predator cleats, a nice stylish team jersey and he/she running and pinging balls all around the field effortlessly.
2) A male or female, mid-20′s. Looks like he/she is having a heart attack more than actually playing soccer. He doesn’t even have cleats on, barely has anything on that matches, including sporting a knock off Real Madrid jersey from 2005. Huffing and puffing, but never stops smiling.
Out of those two, who would you pick as being the biggest soccer fan? Player 1 or Player 2? Who would you think would have the greatest chance to purchase tickets to a MLS game?
My obvious pick, Player 2, but I thought Player 1 for the longest time…
Yesterday on twitter, I made the statement:
Would the US produce better soccer players if deep down those players were actual fans of the game? Disconnect between player and fan.
Here is the plain and simple point:
Being a player does not equal being a fan.
In the United States, there is an extremely large disconnect between being a soccer player, and being a soccer fan. One does not imply the other (i.e. being a player does not mean you are a fan of the game, while conversely, being a fan does not mean you play the game).
In my beginning seasons with Queen City Football Club I was the director of PR and charged with helping to increase attendance (well, we all were). My immediate thought was to go to all of the youth clubs, talk about team, sell tickets, profit $$$, easy right?
Except for 90% of youth clubs, players and parents alike, they couldn’t care about your local NPSL (read: any club in the US) team. A majority of these fans are ‘one-and-done’ meaning they come to your team’s game once, buy souvenirs, food, etc and then come back once again next season.
Okay, I thought to myself, “Easy, next I’ll go to the adult leagues, they HAVE to care about soccer since they play.”
Thank you, come again.
Really? HOW CAN YOU PLAY SOCCER WITHOUT BEING A FAN OF THE GAME?
The more I thought about it, the more I realized Buffalo isn’t alone. Soccer supporters praise the game as the most widly played youth sport in the United States, but many of those players are not actual fans of the game, from young children to teenagers.
Not to mention the overwhelming majority of young players who can name the starting lineup for the New York Giants, but couldn’t tell you about any sort of soccer team that exists.
These youth and adult soccer players are, in fact players and not actually fans.
Being a fan does not equal being a player
For the last few years I’ve been able to take part in all but one of the Red Patch Boys Supporters Club tournaments in and around Toronto, Canada.
The RPB are a prime example of a MLS supporters club — a group of fans who join together to support a common team. Each MLS team has their own supporters clubs, some big, some small, but all fans at heart.
What was most striking to me during my initial tournament history was the difference in player ability. (Note, player ability doesn’t mean the skill necessarly, but also the amount of time and the age at which they started to play)
Again, my naievity led me to believe that most supporters would be rather skilled at the game, having transfered their love into fandom. While this was the case for several players, many of them were average players at best from a technical standpoint.
What they did have was an absolute unrivaled passion for the game which transfered into their play. Our tournaments may be for fun, but they were intense matches in every sense, complete with tackles, argued close calls, spectacular goals and epic misses.
The striking fact for me was many supporters never began to play until they started to support Toronto FC
The RPB are true ‘fans’ of the game. For those who participate in our leagues and tournaments, there are quite a few who are simply fans. As for a percentage of whom came from a player background? I’m not certain, but if I had to venture a guess, it would be around 40%.
So Why does it matter?
We are an extremely large nation, geographically and in population. Our soccer numbers grow year by year, but there is a disconnect between the amount of kids who play soccer, and the amount of kids who enjoy the sport outside of playing at practice. If you looked at the kids who play soccer, and think about the MLS clubs in those areas, the arenas should be packed, right? (again, I wish I had numbers to back this up, but I’m going on an opinion and an educated guess).
If children were fans of the game, they would want to play soccer when it wasn’t 6-7 on a monday night. They would search out fields to play on, or play in the street or in their backyard.
Juergen Klinsmann said, ”Today all the youth soccer is played in organized tournaments, we don’t have kids playing in the streets any more. But it’s in street soccer where the real talent appears.”
Would our soccer players be better if more of them became fans of the game? As a fan, you soak up information, you watch games, you emulate players, you live it and you love it. As a simple player, you go through the motions (which suck anyway in soccer coaching) and you go home.
There are children that currently are fans (I was one of them). Parents do not also have to be a fan for their children to be fans, as was the case for me. My parents couldn’t tell you Pele from any other Brazilian guy (or even know he was Brazilian) but that didn’t stop me from learning about the game when we didn’t have the internet to rely on.
I realize there are other variables that I’m not taking into account, such as ticket prices, game availability, and individual preferences, but those have a negligible affect.
My questions
Why are so many of our young players non-fans of the actual game itself, while many of the fans of the game are not former players?
Would the US produce better soccer players if more young players were actual fans of the game? Is the sporting landscape too crowded to let this go?
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I loved reading this post because I am just a casual soccer fan. I watch the World Cup and follow the scores, but I couldn’t name five players on the team.
However, my wife played and we want to get our daughter and (eventually) our son into the sport. But none of us are fans.
I think the big reason is because soccer is just played here. What I mean is that it isn’t like baseball or hockey. How many kids grow up watching MLS? I don’t say that to be insultory. The closest team to Buffalo is Toronto, and I can’t watch them. There are baseball fans that play soccer full time.
If we can give MLS more exposure than it already has, I think that is a step to growing fans of soccer and soccer players.
Hey Jason, thanks for the comment. I agree that soccer is just played here and we need to do a better job with the MLS and getting it out to fans, but in the end, if we get the league out to the fans, it’s the fan’s job to decide whether or not to watch it or not.
We are taking steps in doing that, and more fans are turning up at MLS games this year than ever before, but I have a feeling that trend is going to plateau.
Also, not many kids grew up watching MLS because MLS is really just reaching a stage where that is possible, especially with MLS Direct Kick and watching the games streaming online.
Ryan – great post and you’ve hit the nail on the head. Looking at my own kids – oldest played baseball (enjoyed watching, but not what I’d call a true die-hard fan), second played soccer through 4 yrs of DII (again, couldn’t care less about watching on a regular basis), and youngest (daughter) is increasingly passionate about playing the game and developing herself, but rarely watches a game unless I suggest going to a WPS game (Sky Blue FC right in our backyard) or watching on TV (and she loses interest VERY fast on these). Me, on the other hand, was not a player (HS didn’t have soccer as an interscholastic sport until after I graduated), but I truly enjoy catching a game on TV at least once a week – I appreciate the nuances of the sport, the skill of the players, and actually learning from what I’m watching – styles, technique, strategy and tactics. I consider myself a student of the game, have coached, and have now switched careers from 30+yrs in IT to being a full-time soccer guy (club, training, semi-pro).
My take is this . . kids today in the US have WAY too many options available to them, and most want to get involved in more than they have time for. Combine that with tons of school homework and cell phones and PC’s and the free time they do have is dedicated to sleeping in, just “hanging out”, or texting. I also think that generally there’s a lack of immediately available friends in the neighborhood (in suburbia in particular; kids that live close to you that you can hook up with). And even it there are a number of kids living nearby, having common interests is rare. And it’s that grass-roots, neighborhood, kids getting together and playing street or lot ball that develops passionate players. As a kid, I lived in a rural setting (my collection of friends was spread out over 5-6 miles). But, in those days, we’d all hop on our bikes and show up at a pre-designated time (no cell phones, so we’d arrange the next day’s or week’s schedule when we were together) at a local ball field and play for hours. For many reasons, that scenario just doesn’t happen today (except maybe in poorer neighborhoods in cities where the distractions of cell phones, internet, etc are less frequent).
Also, take that last comment – the structure of youth soccer in this country has evolved into a pay-to-play business. There’s a HUGE gap and disconnect between inter-city youth players (who have financial and transportation barriers to joining clubs), and the largely suburban clubs that advance and promote most of our top-end prospects. We’ve not only missed a major talent pool, but also an approach to the game mirroring Latin America if not also Europe — confidence, technique, comfortable with risk.
I’m not sure how, or even if, we can solved it – but you, I, and a lot of other concerned adults live trying to figure that out on a daily basis.
Steve – Thanks for a great comment. You really hit the nail on the head with the reply, very well said. My wife and I were talking about your second paragraph the other day. There are a group of kids who play outside everyday near our apartment and I smile everytime I go by them, because they are the only group of kids I ever see outside anymore.
Kids learn how to play when they are outside playing! It seems silly to say, but kids need to do that in order to learn basic social skills, not to mention improving as a player.
We have lots more distractions nowadays, but also we have a lot more fear in letting our kids go outside and play.
How do you feel about what I call, structuring unstructured play. Meaning, provide a time that your team/players can practice w/o being coached, just simple supervised in case something happens. I’ve heard several coaches try it here in Buffalo but they were shunned by parents who don’t have a clue.
Great post mate. I have many teammates that are not crazy supporters or even watch football aka soccer on the tube. They play because they like to play but when it comes to showing support for the MLS, they could care less. It is an interesting point your bring up and thanks for doing such. I sometimes wonder how one can love to play but not watch games like Real Madrid v Barcelona.
Thanks for the comment Vedran – I wonder just like you how someone who plays the game could care less about Real Madrid v Barca or any game for that matter.
Maybe they just enjoy the pleasure they get from playing the game they don’t care about anything outside of their place in it?
I play a lot here in Virginia, and know multiple players who are very very good at the game, can hang with ex-college players etcetera, but don’t know or care about any players beyond C-Ron, Messi, Ronaldinho and such.
Not saying everyone here is like that. Some of the most soccer-savvy people I know are right here. But the “play but not a fan” mentality it’s more widespread than I expected when moving here.
I think it’s more to do with exposure. Growing up in England I played football, but was also surrounded by newspapers and television broadcasts and radio shows discussing the game. You couldn’t help but pay attention. In the US it seems that you can play on your team, but then the sport exists for you only in that bubble, and isn’t pierced by the global game unless you make the effort to go out and look for it yourself.
Hey Daryl – great to see you comment here. Would you say it’s an all for nothing deal?
The more I see it, fans are either really crazy about the sport, or couldn’t care about it one bit. I guess maybe for fans, there isn’t a middle of the road type, it’s either care or not care, not really ‘semi-care’?
Hey Ryan! Great post!
I asked myself the same question for some time, but the answer seemed to be pretty obvious. No, they aren’t – at least in this country. The main issue is then WHY?
The US is a big enough country to have players AND fans for many different sports, not only basketball, baseball, football, and hockey, but also soccer, tennis, golf, cycling, … you name it. So this can’t be the reason, right?
What is it then? too many options for entertainment? I don’t think so either. I think we got to the conclusion that people play it, people ‘spend time’ with this game. Now why don’t they go a step further and support a team, buy tickets to watch some live soccer, watch a game on tv?
After living int his country for almost 4 years, I can only think of two reasons.
The first one, Daryl already pointed it out. Media plays, but most importantly PLAYED in the past, a major role to get to the situation where we are at now. In other parts of the world people are in contact with soccer 24/7. You don’t have to make any effort to follow it. You can be connected to soccer through Tv, radio, newspapers, friends, colleagues, the guy at the supermarket, your neighbor, the bus driver, a police officer, the president of the country, … everyone, even people who don’t care about the game, even people who ‘semi-care’ about the game
For example, my girlfriend, who is American btw, shows some interest in the game now, after 3 years together; 3 years in which I have been talking about soccer every single day. Really, she didn’t have to make a big effort, not as big as some other Americans have to if they want to follow the game.
For the second reason, I would like to ask you guys about it, because I am still new to this culture, US culture. When I play soccer against and with Americans, I feel that they only purpose of playing is the feeling for competition, and ultimately for winning. But, and I think this is the key, I need to achieve this myself, individually. By playing the game I can have some impact on the final result/score but what’s the point of buying tickets, watching games on tv, crying about a team’s loss, OR, win? at least, what’s the point of doing all this for a sport that nobody knows about in this country?
Right Ryan? what’s the point of being a Sevilla supporter in the US?
I hope I made some sense
Por cierto tio, para el proximo post podrias escribir algo como… What’s the point of being a soccer fan?