why don't you discuss football games?

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Those are not the same thing.

No offense, but I'm going to take the WSJ's analysis results over your assertion, unless you produce some similar evidence :)

In case you're not a subscriber, here's a more general report on various sports.
So you're saying that part of the 60 minutes of actual game time with the clock counting down isn't action? I guess I can agree. I have a hard time believing it's only 12 minutes of action for the game, though.

Either way, that doesn't change the rest of what I said. The way they strategize is really fun to watch. It's like watching old battle formations.
 
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I guess I should have made clear I was talking for myself—ie 3 hours is too much time for me to invest for 12 minutes of action, so for me it's completely true.

Good to see you have a passion for the game and obviously get a lot out of it—long may that last for you and the many millions who share your enthusiasm :)
Look, I get that you seem to think EVERY sport out there should have non stop action with no stopped time, or time outs, and not even any water breaks, despite having to add time at the end of the game for having to cart poor lads that cramp off the field because of it, but that would simply not work in American Football. Clearly you do not understand that being a sport that requires a decent amount of padding, and the clothing to pack it in, due to the aforementioned high speed impacts, AND the fact that they're evading and getting hit by very large men, you tend to sweat buckets. There's no way you could play a sport like that non stop. Few can even play a game of NBA basketball without rest, and the fact that soccer CAN be played that way by pretty much everyone on the team, shows it's not nearly as demanding. The ONLY reason in fact soccer takes so much stamina is that it's played in a non stop fashion with no substitutions, which again, is ludicrous.

Again though, and I can't stress this enough, I'd much rather have an hour's worth of play time, even with stopped time in between plays, time outs, and half time, vs laboring through over 2 hrs of guys mostly just running up and down the field getting most goal attempts, the few that have a chance anyway, thwarted. It's just far too much back and forth, and the fact that it's mostly non stop back and forth with constant pass steals, misplaced passes, and no goals being made, is a big part of what makes it tedious to watch. I mean hell, if you get bored and take a bathroom break, like many of us American Football fans do, you could very well miss the only goal in a whole 30 minutes of play. That is unacceptable.

And you're also kidding yourself (and obviously going by a lame estimation you found online), if you think there's only an average of 12 min actual play time in the allotted 60 min of play. That's probably the most absurd thing you've said. At any rate, US Football is quality over quantity, and I'm sure any soccer player that thinks they could easily handle 60 min of it would learn otherwise, despite not being non stop.
 
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Those are not the same thing.

No offense, but I'm going to take the WSJ's analysis results over your assertion, unless you produce some similar evidence :)

In case you're not a subscriber, here's a more general report on various sports.
Get over yourself dude, American Football is not a nerd "look what I found online, I know all about the game now!" sport. The only books that matter in American Football are the rule book and play book, player wise anyway, but you have to know a LOT more than that to assess what you're watching, and you obviously don't. It seems to me the sport with only 12 min of interesting action is soccer, in fact most games probably have less time than that spent actually making goals. The rest is, oh right, he tried to pass again and missed his guy, got "tackled" (well soccer tackled anyway), or failed a goal attempt. If American Football offensive drives were mostly failed attempts, no one would want to watch it. In fact if American Football played out the same way, most offensive drives wouldn't even involve a possible goal attempt. Why soccer fans put up with it, yet still think their sport is the best, is beyond me. Maybe they're too sloshed to notice the difference. :LOL:
 
Get over yourself dude, American Football is not a nerd "look what I found online, I know all about the game now!" sport. The only books that matter in American Football are the rule book and play book. It seems to me the sport with only 12 min of interesting action is soccer, in fact most games probably have less time than that spent actually making goals. The rest is, oh right, he tried to pass again and missed his guy, got "tackled" (well soccer tackled anyway), or failed a goal attempt. If American Football offensive drives were mostly failed attempts, no one would want to watch it. In fact if American Football played out the same way, most offensive drives wouldn't even involve a possible goal attempt. Why soccer fans put up with it, yet still think their sport is the best, is beyond me. Maybe they're too sloshed to notice the difference. :LOL:
Even though I mostly agree, and I know you're slightly exaggerating, I'll have to admit there are some pro soccer moves every once in a while that are insane. One time I saw a guy kick the ball from one end of the field about 2/3 of the way down to a guy there. Without the ball bouncing or touching the ground at all (one big arc from the kick), the guy 2/3 of the way down jumped and kicked the ball with the back of his heel the other 1/3 of the way down the field and made a goal. That was crazy.

But usually, it's like you say, and it's just a bunch of guys running up and down the field.
 
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Even though I mostly agree, and I know you're slightly exaggerating, I'll have to admit there are some pro soccer moves every once in a while that are insane. One time I saw a guy kick the ball from one end of the field about 2/3 of the way down to a guy there. Without the ball bouncing or touching the ground at all (one big arc from the kick), the guy 2/3 of the way down jumped and kicked the ball with the back of his heel the other 1/3 of the way down the field and made a goal. That was crazy.

But usually, it's like you say, and it's just a bunch of guys running up and down the field.
Yeah, Like I said, I know full well there are some pretty talented players that can make plays most others can't in soccer, but they don't happen very often. That's also why when players like that appear in soccer leagues, they are paid such extremely high salaries. And don't kid yourself, there's probably lots of soccer fans that leave a game very disappointed when they don't see such players make those huge plays. God forbid they should talk about it and have millions of fans hating them for it though. My NFL team, the Seahawks, have a huge following in the UK, well for American Football in a soccer dominated area anyway. Can you imagine all the hate they must get from soccer fans over there?

The fact is though, US Football is continuing to grow as a spectator sport in England, which is why anymore there's usually at least one preseason NFL game played there. And those fans know a good US style football game when they see one, and react accordingly with loud cheers. There's also a growing number of people over there that want a British NFL team to become a reality. To me it wouldn't be the NATIONAL Football League anymore though, but rather International, and the logistics of it expense wise and more would be hard to rationalize. Not to mention a huge potential for vandalism from soccer fans. Then again, MLB has technically been international for a long time.

I don't mean to paint soccer fans as terrorists by any means, they're just often overly passionate about their sport, and will defend it and their teams by any means they see necessary.
 
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I have a hard time believing it's only 12 minutes of action for the game, though.
That's an increase on the only source I can find now, a 2010 analysis by the WSJ which says 11 minutes. If you don't have a sub, here's a broader report, tho I can't vouch for that place's general credibility.

you seem to think EVERY sport out there should have non stop action with no stopped time, or time outs, and not even any water breaks
Oh gosh no, obviously I'm not explaining myself well, sorry about that. A couple of sports I played at a fairly high level as a kid:
Athletics—almost all hanging around prepping and waiting my turn, quite like gridiron in that respect;
Irish Handball—similar to tennis with the interval between each rally.
Also played squash at a low level, same deal.

The other sports I played also have plenty of short rests, eg prep for set pieces or when the action is at the other end of the pitch.

As you can see in the ball-in-play times I quoted, there's at least as much downtime as play time in many major field sports—and with that, not every player is going full tilt during the in-play passages, there's plenty of 'easy time' for everyone.

soccer … it's played in a non stop fashion
See above.

the fact that it's mostly non stop back and forth with constant pass steals, misplaced passes, and no goals being made, is a big part of what makes it tedious to watch
Oh sure, if plenty of scores are what you want, then you're absolutely right. But obviously soccer isn't primarily about that, nor are many other sports. I had a peek at yesterday's games of America's national sport—I see 2 of them ended 1-0, taking 2 hours and 3 hours respectively.

To each their own :)

a lame estimation you found online
Ooh, the Wall Street Journal will be miffed :D

soccer fans trying to reel us into believing their sport is better than ours
Who is it? Let's gang up on 'em! Your passion and my charm, we'll bury 'em :D

I can't remember last time I saw a soccer match, certainly not this year, maybe 2021. I do like to pick up a couple of the best World Cup or Euro games if they end up on YouTube, so probably in 5-6 months.

Get over yourself dude
Brian tries handstand. Ouch! Out of practice. Hmm, cushion and wall… oh hey, look at that!!
Ok, over myself :D

If American Football offensive drives were mostly failed attempts, no one would want to watch it
How do you reckon? Soccer is the most watched field sport in the world, by a huge margin—can ~3.5 billion all be wrong?
USA's national sport baseball has higher viewership than gridiron as far as I know, despite many scorelines which mirror soccer scores, while taking longer to play out.

It would likely just be a different audience than the current one, probably people less interested in scores. It might even be a bigger audience.

US Football is continuing to grow as a spectator sport in England
That is true. Do you know it's played in an organized way in 120 countries?

I don't mean to paint soccer fans as terrorists
In some countries, they're not too far off it—in other countries they're great. Soccer suffers from being the big dog, the obvious outlet for anyone who wants to get noticed—bit like Windows being the fav target of hackers.

One time I saw a guy…
As you say, "one time". That's not remotely what the sport is about, anymore than a quarterback throwing a ball to bounce off the goalpost into a waiting receiver's hands :)
 
I think how popular a sport is has a lot to do with how expensive a sport is to play. Soccer and baseball are cheap sports to get into. Played outside, and you don't need a lot of equipment to get started.

I've played soccer(organized) for 17 years, but I don't care to watch it anymore. Too much money involved, and the big clubs get all the best players. There's also a bunch of theatrics going on and players falling way too easily.
 
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I think how popular a sport is has a lot to do with how expensive a sport is to play. Soccer and baseball are cheap sports to get into. Played outside, and you don't need a lot of equipment to get started.
Absolutely right. Soccer has a very level playing field, so to speak—all you need is a ball, no other gear and not a big space either. That's how South America has done so well, kids playing barefoot in the street picking up the skills—the mythical 10,000 hours for expertise not a problem.
 
Regarding popularity, as was said, much has to do with how accessible a sport is financially, and today, even the availability of the gear needed. Soccer was also invented way back in 1863 in England, well before American Football was in 1920 in the US. There's also the fact that American Football is a far more injury prone sport, with many concerns from parents and schools about children's safety. So naturally children are going to grow up more likely being offered a soccer ball, shin guards, and a simple outfit to play a much more easily facilitated game, with little to no worries of accruing traumatic injuries that can affect them for the rest of their lives.

In fact American Football faced even more criticism after it was discovered that the concussions many got from playing it resulted in extreme pain, loss of cognizance and motor function to a degree, and even suicide. It was studied by a doctor from Africa whom moved to America, and he called the disease CTE (Chronic traumatic encephalopathy}. This resulted in a mass lawsuit against the NFL by wives of players whom died from such trauma, and was made into a movie called Concussion (very good film). This is also why the NFL was forced to change it's gameplay rules drastically to protect players from such injuries, but they can still happen regardless, just not as much.

So, in summary, while events like the World Cup, Super Bowl, and Tour de France, are all massive spectator sports watched all over the world, they differed quite a lot in how many schools carry them, the criticism they face safety wise, and the expense and logistics involved. Even your average racing bicycle anymore is very expensive, with most frames being made out of monocoque (one piece molded) carbon fiber. They also have disc brakes, and many electric or air driven shifters. Hell, even consumer mt. bikes these days are largely made of monocoque carbon fiber, with rear sprocket cassettes that can cost well over $200, vs under $50 when I was doing it.

Don't think for a minute things like this don't heavily skew the popularity of a sport, especially with inflation rocketing sky high. "Mommy, can I play American Style football, our school has it now?", "Wouldn't you rather have a nice pair of running shoes and just get on the track team dear?" Because she's not just thinking of equipment fees the schools charge for such sports, but the possible doctor bills, not to mention the trauma to her beloved son. I used mom instead of dad, because they are the ones fighting most for safer sports, which also cost less. Mom is usually the voice of reason in most households, mine certainly was, but unfortunately she died when I was very young. :(

When I was very young I clearly remember the day my mom took away my old steel wheeled skate board when she found out we were riding them down a nearby steep street, risking cars running into us at the intersection at the bottom. It certainly didn't help when we told her we had scouts looking out for traffic at the bottom, and were diving into neighbor's trash cans as an emergency brake. I'd literally give up my most valued possessions just to have a mom that cared that much back again. How differently we look at life when we are older and wiser.

As far as soccer having a fair bit of "rest" time, to me, it's more like basketball, you ALWAYS have to be ready for the unexpected, so no real time outs. And it's still one of the sports known most for cramping due to all the running with no water breaks. As far as baseball being our "national" sport, it's another sport that was invented long before American Football, like in 1876. It's almost as old as soccer. It's also more corrupt financially, with no salary caps and even mob influence back when the American Mafia families were at their peak. To many, American Football is the true national sport anymore.

At the end of the day, most true sports fans want a level playing field and no corruption in their sport. American Football certainly isn't void of those problems, but it has a lot less of it than baseball. The Super Bowl gets far more viewers in America than the World Series. It's also hard to justify Soccer getting more viewership than American Football when they are compared on a global scale, because obviously soccer is played in far more countries. I'd really like to see a study done of Soccer's home country viewership where it was invented, England viewership of their biggest soccer game, vs American viewership of the Super Bowl. Or even the country with the most viewers for one soccer game, vs American viewership of the Super bowl. THAT is the only fair way to compare on a national level.
 
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Those are not the same thing.

No offense, but I'm going to take the WSJ's analysis results over your assertion, unless you produce some similar evidence :)

In case you're not a subscriber, here's a more general report on various sports.
It's a pretty dumb statistic. How much of Civilization is action? You really play an entire civ game for very little action. When you play an open world game, what percentage of it is action? It would, on paper, look abysmal, yet it's very fun. Consider American football a strategy game, as that is what it really is. In American football, in the pause between plays, you consider what just happened and what might happen next. Players coming on and off the field for substitutions--that's fun to see if you know what you are looking for. Lining up, that tells you a lot. Players going in motion, defenders looking like they are going to blitz then backing off. Defenders switching their man. It's all great stuff, and it's all action/strategy. When a linebacker charges up to the line of scrimmage while the snap count is going, that's both action and strategy. Watching how the QB responds to that is interesting. Before the snap, when the receiver fakes going in motion, that's action and strategy. It's just really dumb to boil the game down to only the time during plays. That's like judging Civilization on nothing but its combat.
 
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I've been trying to find a good injury rate worldwide comparison for years—please share your source, thanks :)
This is from 2017, but it's a good article with a good, simple chart in the beginning of it.

 
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Have you ever been injured watching American football? If the players are okay with it, then that's all we need to know.
Uh, I'm tempted to not even comment on that, given the way you get your so called proof, and the obvious need for FAR more padding in US football, not to mention the aforementioned multiple lawsuits aimed at the NFL, forcing them to go to much safer rules. Did soccer face anything like that, of COURSE NOT! Get a clue dude!

I suppose your idea of a comprehensive comparative injury study is to merely count the number of injuries incurred/reported, vs a full on study showing the severity of injuries. :rolleyes:

I'm sorry, that was a bit harsh, I'm admittedly in a bad mood today. Why you ask? Of all things it was my damn reusable grocery bags getting stolen, all 5 of them. I left them in a small cart that had a bad, loudly clacking wheel, and when I realized I left my bags in it, it was too late. The really annoying part was I found only one other person in the store using a small cart like that, and when I asked her if she saw some bags in the back tray of it, she said a man gave her the cart after taking his bags out of it. I then looked in both parking lots, including the underground one. There was a guy acting mental talking to himself, and just lurking around the underground lot, then left. I had a sneaking suspicion he wasn't really homeless or crazy, but just acting so to catch people off guard and steal unattended items. For all I know he had a car in one of the lots where he stashed such stuff. People do just about any crazy thing to get by these days. I had some pretty good bags too and managed to get them all free, including a nice insulated one, which was a customer gift from my insurance company. They were all given away one way or the other. I spent a fair bit of time on Amazon trying to match them for style and features, but eventually settled on some that I figured were close enough. I just hope they're sturdy and not a fuss to use and carry around.

Come to think of it, that whole paragraph must have sounded mental, my apologies. Maybe it's not just having gotten my bags stolen, but the heat wave we're going through as well. :cool:
 
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