Being an athlete who excels in professional sports is tough, maybe one of the most difficult things in the world. That is why there are so few of them. But something that may be even more difficult than being a professional athlete, is being the coach of those professional athletes. In no other job are you criticized for the failure of your team and then forgotten about when your team does well. Being the coach of a professional team is a job that requires you to shoulder the blame when things aren’t going well and then step into the background when your team is doing well. Coaches must love to coach and must be willing to do just that, coach.
While coaching is important, it seems that we have now entered a time in professional sports where a coach can no longer coach or attempt to bring about change on a team. Typically when a coaching change is made it is a chance for players to hear another person’s voice and allow for the new coach to do some things differently, but how often is to often to change? A New York Times article highlighted the short leash that NBA coaches are on, that article can be read here.
Since when did coaching in any major sport become something that changes when the weather patterns do? An interesting study although extremely time consuming would be to look at the number of coaching changes that have occurred in the major sports (football, baseball, basketball, and hockey) over the past five years. For basketball Jerry Sloan has been coaching since 1988. During that time there have been over 225 coaching changes. Did you read that number??? That means that there is on average 11 job changes every season. Remember, there are only 30 teams in the NBA so that is a little over a 1/3 of the teams every season.
By no way am I saying that every coach should be kept, but the firing of Michael Curry that occurred yesterday is a bit frustrating. Curry wasn’t a great coach after only getting the team to a 39-43 record, but look at what he was given. He had to deal with Allen Iverson in a mid-season trade that was anything but beneficial to the Pistons. Joe Dumars is quickly becoming the Matt Millen of the NBA with 5 coaches now in 9 years. Dumars needs to make sure he gets it right with this next coach. Typically, the most successful franchises are the ones who “stay the course”. In the NFL you have the Pittsburgh Steelers, MLB you have the NY Yankees, in the NBA you have the Utah Jazz. Does consistency mean you will win and make the playoffs every year? Of course not, but there is something to be said about consistency. All I am asking is that given the current state of our country, economy, and speed of life, one would think that consistency and staying the course would be appropriate and important.
Yes, the title is bold and yes, I am a fan of soccer. So before you get all huffy puffy at least hear me out my reasons as to why soccer will never matter in the U.S. Soccer as everyone knows is a global phenomenon. In a typical World Cup year viewing records are set boy those who watch the final. For the 2006 World cup ti is estimated that 26 billion individuals watched the World Cup at some point during the tournament. Of those 26 Billion the estimate is that 829 million were from North America and the Caribbean. This was with every game being broadcast on ESPN or ESPN2. That number compared with every other continent is so small that it is almost laughable. Europe brought in 5 billion, Asia had 8 billion, Central and South America had just under 4 billion, Africa had just under 5 billion, and the Middle East which isn’t even a continent but is broken out for statistic purposes had 847 million. The numbers themselves show how little attention is truly paid to soccer in the U.S.
Many will argue that soccer is growing and that bringing over big named players and allowing people a chance to watch will increase viewership and this may be true to a point. But whether soccer lovers want to admit it or not, soccer is not fast enough for American viewers, the stretches of play are too long without a stoppage, and the sport suffers from an identity problem.
The speed of play in soccer is actually quite amazing. When watching a fast paced soccer game there are few sports in the world that rival it (possibly only ice hockey or badminton). The problem for America isn’t necessarily how fast the players are with the ball, it’s the fact that the scoring and scoring chances aren’t frenzied enough and defensive games are normally not played in front of one team’s goal. In any of America’s favorite sports scoring can and does typically come in bunches. That’s the first reason why Americans don’t enjoy soccer.
Along with there not being enough scoring or the speed of play not being fast enough is the fact that halves are too long for most American viewers. Every major sport that we have has commercial breaks built into it. You can get up and go to the bathroom, grab a drink, look outside and still only have missed a Viagra commercial, a truck commercial, and a trailer for a movie. Soccer isn’t like that. You are sitting for 45 minutes without a break. Could you imagine if an inning of baseball lasted 45 minutes straight. Baseball, Football, Basketball, Ice Hockey all have natural built in breaks and commercial breaks so they are easier for people to watch.
The last reason and maybe one of the best reasons that soccer will not matter in the U.S. is because it suffers from an identity problem. Most soccer fans are the guys who didn’t play American football. In our macho man America those Football players woud never be caught dead watching a soccer game, it’s just “not manly enough”. The reason it isn’t manly enough is because every little kid plays soccer. So it’s a little kids game, not a game played by men. While David Beckham brought lots of little girls out to games, he didn’t fit the image of a guy you want to follow or a guy you would necessarily want to hang out with. Imagine if Tom Brady played soccer. If he played soccer and were marketed the way he is with football, that would bring in more men to the sport and would also get it covered a bit more. Until soccer is seen as a sport that men play, it will continue to not matter, at least in America.
