The only person left who defends Barry Bonds
As a soccer fan one of the most annoying aspects of the World Cup is that people who aren’t fans complain. Glenn Beck believes that soccer is being shoved down the throats of the American people. Much like Glenn Beck’s program all one has to do is turn the channel and the World Cup magically disappears. I understand not everyone likes soccer. It’s a free country, but sometimes the complaints are over the top. The quote below is from the June 11th Glenn Beck broadcast:
It doesn’t matter how you sell it to us. It doesn’t matter how many celebrities you get. It doesn’t matter how many bars open early. It doesn’t matter how many beer commercials they run. We don’t want the World Cup. We don’t like the World Cup. We don’t like soccer. We want nothing to do with it. You can package it any way — you can spend all kinds of money. You can force it on our television sets. We will not enjoy the World Cup.
I’m not sure what’s more fascinating: Beck’s ignorant generalizations or the idea that he speaks for the American people. The ratings for the World Cup are up 80% over 2006. This is after a 65% increase from 2002 to 2006. I don’t really care if Glenn Beck doesn’t like soccer. Tons of Americans don’t like soccer, but many people are really starting to like it. Of course I also understand that Beck may have been using sarcasm and hyperbole, and I’m okay with that since it’s my stock in trade.
Is soccer ever going to be bigger than baseball, football or basketball? Nope, and if it does you are very likely to see four horsemen galloping down Main Street. But every four years Americans get excited about the Olympics. Both the Summer and Winter Olympics feature sports that are even smaller than soccer. Who’s complaining about that? The dumbest statement I’ve heard about the World Cup comes from The Nation’s Dave Zirin. Zirin believes that the far right hates soccer because they’re racist imperialists:
As sports journalist Simon Kuper wrote very adroitly in his book Soccer Against the Enemy, “When we say Americans don’t play soccer we are thinking of the big white people who live in the suburbs. Tens of millions of Hispanic Americans [and other nationalities] do play, and watch and read about soccer.” In other words, Beck rejects soccer because his idealized “real America” – in all its monochromatic glory – rejects it as well. To be clear, I know a lot of folks who can’t stand soccer. It’s simply a matter of taste. But for Beck it’s a lot more than, “Gee. It’s kind of boring.” Instead it’s, “Look out whitey! Felipe Melo’s gonna get your mama!”
The stupidity of some political observers continues to astound me. Wouldn’t it make sense for racists like Glen Beck to hate all American sports based on the amount of minorities who participate? I’m not even sure why I’m wasting time trying to analyze these kind of idiotic ideas. Dave Zirin is another “sportswriter” who unfortunately wants to be a pundit. Why are so many journalists liberals? This isn’t the first time Zirin has played the race card. He also believes the controversy surrounding Barry Bonds is solely because of race.
Glenn Beck and Dave Zirin… They sit on opposite ends of the political spectrum, but they’re both overpaid morons.
I love this post!
One reason why people like Beck dislike the World Cup is because we can’t compete with the best of the best. Sure we might win a game or two, but we are a far cry from being an elite soccer nation. When it comes to competing with the world, many Americans won’t tolerant being average. Unfortunately, people like Beck cannot appreciate a world tournament where US is not top gun. But being the underdog is equally fun to me!!
A friend of mine had an interesting rationale for why our talent remains limited. The majority of our talented athletes choose other sports (baseball, football, basketball) to refine their skills in, while nations like Brasil have their best athletes playing soccer. Could you imagine what athletes like Lebron, Barry Sanders, or Ozzie Smith could do on the pitch?!?! It would be sick!
Long live World Cup!!!
Oh, without a doubt the reason we’re not that good is because we have other sports. That will change over time. I don’t know why Beck doesn’t like soccer. He didn’t grow up watching it. I think the 1994 World Cup was my first real experience with the game and I grew more interested as time has passed.
I don’t think there’s a sinister reason why people don’t like the game. If they didn’t grow up watching, they don’t care. It’s the same reason American Football hasn’t caught on in Europe.
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