Thursday, June 24, 2010

Why are American Sporting-Teams so Fucking Useless?


Why is it, that by-in-large American sports-fans are so insular?

Why don’t American sporting teams take pride in representing their country – is it because no one back home gives a rats-arse even if they do well?

More importantly why are American sports teams, with their vast financial resources, so fucking useless?

Whilst most of the planet is embracing The (one true) Football World-Cup, the whole scope of tournament has typically escaped vast tracts of America.

The easy, glib answer to this is of course ‘Football (ooops ‘soccer’) is not a big sport in ‘the states’ even though in reality there’s 18 million players, and it’s the largest participant sport for kids.

By the way neither is football it a ‘big sport’ in New Zealand, but yet the whole country still gets behind its team.

Now go & ask yourself - "what are the ‘big team sports’ in America?"

Well there’s basketball, which it has to be said is a global sport, and with all those NBA players, billions of bucks floating around, surely the U.S should clean-up at every international tournament they turn-up at?

Boy, have I got news for you - the current world-champions are Spain and the tournament before that it was Yugoslavia. The U.S hasn’t been World Champs at basketball for 18 years!

Ice-Hockey, now that’s a popular team-sport in North America.

It goes without saying The U.S must be competitive at The World Ice Hockey Tournament - right?

No, they have performed abysmally and last made a final fifty years ago!

What say Volleyball, another global sport, popular in American schools and colleges?

In the sixty years, no American team (men’s or women’s) has even made the finals at a World Champs.

So what other global team sports do Americans play to any great degree?

Sorry I can’t for the life of me think of any?

Baseball does have a World Championships – but it’s similar to running a so-called World Series - played amongst such a small gene-pool to be unworthy of the mantle ‘World’.

Don’t even suggest American Football – probably one of the worlds least played sport when it comes to countries who participate. Is there even a American Football team as such?

So the only conclusion one can make is Americans don’t care about World Championships and their athletes, teams aren’t interested in succeeding on the world sporting stage at events every-other country takes seriously

They are too interested playing amongst themselves.

What do you call playing with yourself again?

PS: From Saturday on I’m taking a sabbatical for 10 days to catch-up on some things on the home-front. Comments will be cleared when I get other projects finished.



10 comments:

DeoVacuus said...

It's not half sad that you get so worked up about something like sports.

Canterbury Atheists said...

As strange as it sounds, I also get excited about sex and beer.

It's called being a male.

May I suggest a testosterone boast?

Cheers.

Paul.

DeoVacuus said...

I'm just curious why a Kiwi would care so deeply that Americans are not supportive enough of their sports teams according to you. That and apparently you think the US teams suck anyway. I could sort of understand if you were upset that your own countrymen were not being supportive of their teams but another country? Well, I better be off to inject some testosterone so I can be a big strong man like you ;)

Canterbury Atheists said...

Straw-man arguement there my friend.

Can’t a guy who's into sport be inquisitive these-days without having to explain his motives all the time?

See ya.

Paul.

DeoVacuus said...

LOL Check your definition of Straw-man again. I said you thought Americans didn't support their teams up to your standard...you did. I said you thought other US teams sucked (were fucking useless)...you did. You told me you were a manly man who liked sports, sex and beer and that presumably I wasn't and should get a testosterone injection to boost my manliness. I see no Straw-men in anything I wrote. BTW this discussion has gone on far longer than the subject warrants, so I'll let you have the last word if you so choose. Take care.

mikespeir said...

Wow! We really lit a fuse with our kidding the other day, didn't we? Yes, the World Cup is the biggest sporting enterprise on the planet. See? I had no trouble admitting it. It remains that, by and large, Americans just aren't that into soccer. What's more, we don't have to be. Why does it matter so much to you?

Tory Ninja said...

Just for the record: American hockey teams have made it to the finals in the world championships, Canada Cup/World Cup, and Olympics several times in the last fifty years, even winning quite a few times. But of course, I only know this because I'm Canadian :p

So what world tournament are you talking about????

Canterbury Atheists said...

Hi there, my post was about World Championships and U.S Teams dismal performances at these events.

Yes, the U.S does actually turn-up at The Olympics and try and win – but I contend this is not the case with World Championships, if performance is any guage.

Ice Hockey and Basketball are two prime examples as to the Americans psyche when it comes to World Champs. The last time the U.S won a stand-alone Ice-Hockey World Championship was in 1960 and Basketballers was in 1994. Yugoslavia have just as many Basketball titles as the U.S!

Why is it not part of the American sporting psyche to recognise World Championships?

Ta.

Paul

Tory Ninja said...

Well, the Americans won the Canada Cup/World Cup of Hockey in 1996. They also placed 2nd in the Olympics in 2002 and 2010, and won 1st most recently in 1980.

Also, the championship that was won in 1960 by the Americans was an Olympic championship.

The Americans also just won the World Junior Championship against the Canadians.

Anyway, I'm no fan of the Americans, but I am a big fan of Hockey so I just wanted to correct your statements concerning that.

johnecab said...

This article is pointless. Americans grow up watching and playing American football, basketball and baseball more than any other sports. That being said it's no wonder we couldn't give a rat's azz about futbol. Honestly it's incredibly boring and simple plus the players fake injuries to receive a free kick, a cowardly move. The only reason any American children play futbol is that there are tens of millions of American mothers who won't let their children play American football. Americans don't watch national team sports, because those sports don't matter. If the US wanted to win every basketball game, it could. We don't really care that much. NBA players don't even seem to think much of playing in the Olympics much less the world championships. The real finals happen stateside every year. The NBA is the highest standard of the sport on the world stage, so we don't care about your leagues or teams. Honestly you can keep your soft European players out of the league. And as for Spain I'm still waiting for Ricky Rubio to come and take over the league like every Spaniard claims he will. Volleyball is for women. Go watch darts on Eurosport and spend your time thinking up some other asinine question to pose from your ignorant little frame of mind. Peace.