Could U.S. Soccer Eclipse Basketball and Hockey? $200M Adidas Pact Suggests Yes

CBS News ^ | September 2, 2010 | Jim Edwards

[Ax]

I’ve been away for quite a few decades now. Don’t know who Heysel is.

[Crapgame]

The question is obviously more rhetorical than anything. That works for gamblers who have access to casinos and sportsbooks, but what of the millions of Americans who like to make a wager on a winner, like the millions who make the weekly bets in college and NFL football. The vast majority of them are straight up bets.

[dfwgator]

Heysel Stadium Disaster

[dfwgator]

You know what’s socialist....spreading revenues evenly across all NFL clubs no matter how bad a team sucks.

In the EPL, if you suck, you get relegated. Good teams get promoted....and the difference between being in the Premier League and the Championship (2nd Division) is huge.

Probably the richest sporting event in the world is actually the playoffs to determine which teams get promoted to The Premier League, in terms of impact to a team’s bottom line.

[bramps]

Just for chuckles I went to 2 search engines and typed in, “who's better, Messi or..

that's as far I as got because both engines volunteered between 4 and 8 possible opponents. Cryuff wasn't one of them. And they all (Ronaldo, Maradona, Rooney, Pele, etc. were given 2nd fiddle to Messi when you checked the articles.

I then did the same thing using Cryuff instead of Messi.
I was able to type in the entire question and still no suggestions were given even after I hit search.

Normally I take pride in walking to the beat of my own drummer but this time, based on seeing most Barca games over the past few years, I'm comfortable falling in line.
Messi almost always does something exciting every time he touches the ball. You can see the panic in his opponents eyes as they try to deal with him.

[Ax]

I saw Maradona playing for Argentina against Peru in the Liberator’s Cup at River Plate Stadium in Buenos Aires in the late 80s. It was 88 minutes of blah and about two minutes of pure Maradona magic.

[Rembrandt]

“The only sport more boring than basketball is soccer.”

You’ve obviously never seen a cricket match.

[Crapgame]

couldn’t agree more but you’re confusing the action on the field with the action in the boardrooms. I was referring strictly to soccer as a sport. There is no doubt in my mind that lib’ruls embrace it because it promotes that mythical equality of outcome bullstuff whever a game ends in a tie.

[dfwgator]

I don’t think there are as many good players today as in the 90s.

Bergkamp and Cantona were just flat out amazing players to watch.

Still the most amazing goal I ever saw (and the greatest homer call) as well.

Bergkamp scores against Argentina in the 1998 World Cup
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsZkCFoqSBs

[editor-surveyor]

Real Americans pay zero attention to the organized crime owned game called soccer.

Its a gang centered “sport.”
.

[Dr. Sivana]

The vast majority of them are straight up bets.

I doubt that. As a 14 year old kid I made bets with my best friends, and of course we used point spreads. How else could you have bet on a game like Oakland (13-1 record) against Philadelphia (3-11)? $2 tickets where you pick four winners against the spread were pretty standard. There was only one office pool without point spreads, and it was based on picking the most straight up winners, which mainly meant picking upsets. That pool was run by girls.

And of course, you can have ties even with the point spread. I remember there was a Dallas-Pittsburgh Super Bowl where the Steelers won 35-31 with a four point spread. I was convinced that at least that game wasn't rigged, as even the vig is returned with a tie.

The reason football needs point spreads is because there are so many blowouts. A top NFL team can goes 13-3, and a crappy one goes 3-13. It is not like baseball where even the best teams don't do much better than 6 out of 10.

[dfwgator]

You know what’s dumb is that a team gets the same amount of points for an overtime win than a win in regulation. But at least a tie in soccer causes you to drop 2 points.....it takes 3 ties just to equal 1 win.

An example is happening this year in the Italian Serie A....Juventus may not win the title, even though they haven’t lost a game all season, but they have so many ties.

The NHL needs to alter their points system so that a win in regulation is more than a win in overtime....it should be as follows

3 points - regulation win
2 points - OT win
1 point - OT loss
0 points - regulation loss

The NFL should do something of the same thing, an Overtime Win should not be rewarded the same as a regulation win during the regular season.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Is soccer boring?” <<

.
Yes, very.
.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “Why is soccer continuosly pushed on us?” <<

.
Because it works by Marxist principles, and it is owned by organized crime, world wide. The ideal Democrap game.
.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “I see a lot of people even here in Dallas wearing Real Madrid, Barcelona, and Manchester United jerseys now.” <<

.
Yea, but we were talking about the US, not Mexico.

[dfwgator]

[editor-surveyor]

Wide screen HD is killing TV!

The distortion horizontally is absolutely unbearable; everyone looks like a dwarf.

[Waryone]

Could US Soccer Eclipse Basketball and Hockey?

Only if Vuvuzela becomes our National Anthem.

[editor-surveyor]

>> “I do not know anyone who actually WATCHED a soccer game on TV or in person (except for childrens games)” <<

.
God has blessed you greatly!
.

[dfwgator]

Outside of Africa, if anyone tried to bring a vuvuzela into a stadium, they’d get the crap beat out of them.