AHC: Make Soccer the most popular sport in the USA

NFL and NBA are the only sports that rely on colleges to produce players. They even relax academic standards for athletes, sometimes feeding answers to exams to them so they can get passing scores. While it produces money-making, marketable teams, it compromises the true educational role of the university.

I noticed that on Last chance U
 
That’s the OTL solution, but most of the world plays from September to May. I guess one answer is to develop more indoor soccer stadiums or soccer-capable stadiums that can retract their roofs. Given that retractable roofs weren’t really a thing until SkyDome in 1989, I think indoor soccer-capable stadiums are the solution, at least as second homes during the winter.

Have the game made popular by Irish immigrants - the Republic's league is played from February to October (to fit in with the GAA seasons which run through the "traditional" football months). There's your summer football season for the US.
 
The trouble was that Philadelphia, Boston and St. Louis really could support only one team. . .
With St. Louis being both the western most and southern most team in baseball, with a spread out fan base, I tend to think it had potential for two teams, but I guess things didn’t work out that way.

The Giants and Dodgers were not franchises in trouble, but rather leaving for greener pastures.

Plus, Dodger owner Walter O’Malley and NY guy public works guy Robert Moses had a big disagreement regarding possible new stadium.
 
That's because it is a kids' sport in many places. It doesn't require elaborate protective gear. The injury potential is low. . .
Man, I hate to tell you this, but they’re finding out the biggest cause of CTE brain damage is cumulative lesser blows, like heading the ball in soccer,

or the day-in, day-out pounding offensive linemen take in American tackle football, all without diagnosed concussions,

I’m not making this stuff up. These are the real medical facts.

While not resting enough days after a concussion (including cognitive rest) is one risk factor, another equal or greater is the steady diet of lesser hits.
 

Driftless

Donor
Man, I hate to tell you this, but they’re finding out the biggest cause of CTE brain damage is cumulative lesser blows, like heading the ball in soccer,

or the day-in, day-out pounding offensive linemen take in American tackle football, all without diagnosed concussions,

I’m not making this stuff up. These are the real medical facts.

While not resting enough days after a concussion (including cognitive rest) is one risk factor, another equal or greater is the steady diet of lesser hits.

Earlier in the 20th Century, being aware of the cumulative impact(no pun intended) of all those hits probably wouldn't be apparent in public consciousness(again no pun intended)

A bit of a tangent, but think of where we're headed particularly with gridiron football as the size and speed of players have increased dramatically in the last couple of decades. 300+ lb lineman routinely running the 40 yard dash in under 5 seconds, along with the emphasis on the quick twitch burst of speed at the start of a play. It's mighty hard to beat Sir Isaac.... Force=mass x acceleration. More force at contact is going to generate more injury, even with the rules mediation that they're trying to implement.
 

MatthewB

Banned
That's mainly because American and Canadian Football are derivatives of rugby.
The legal liabilities of concussions and their decades long coverup by the NFL and the subsequent dramatic decline in American football amongst non-blacks may see rugby make a resurgence.

The White Flight From Football
Parents know that football comes with a risk of brain damage. But many black families feel that the sport is still the best option for their kids.
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/02/football-white-flight-racial-divide/581623/
 
Man, I hate to tell you this, but they’re finding out the biggest cause of CTE brain damage is cumulative lesser blows, like heading the ball in soccer, or the day-in, day-out pounding offensive linemen take in American tackle football
You can change soccer by replacing heading the ball by an elbow move (later with a padded, shielded guard) and still preserve the sport. It adds to the dexterity factor. You can not do the same with American football. And such a change in soccer would only be happening now, long after the sport was established.
 
You can change soccer by replacing heading the ball by an elbow move (later with a padded, shielded guard) and still preserve the sport.
But that undermines the fundamental rule of soccer, and that is that no part of your arms can touch the ball.
 
But that undermines the fundamental rule of soccer, and that is that no part of your arms can touch the ball.
The rule change would be investigated now. Games would be played, experimentally, with specially designed elbow guards and rules about ball contact. And at some point, the rules could change. If you allow head contact now, you can later allow conditional elbow contact.
 
The rule change would be investigated now. Games would be played, experimentally, with specially designed elbow guards and rules about ball contact. And at some point, the rules could change. If you allow head contact now, you can later allow conditional elbow contact.
But even back during the Han Dynasty, the rules were that your arms couldn't make contact with the ball. After 2,000 years, why would they change how the sport is played?
 
But even back during the Han Dynasty, the rules were that your arms couldn't make contact with the ball. After 2,000 years, why would they change how the sport is played?
Maybe they can’t. To reduce the potential for concussion, there was a suggestion to eliminate the kickoff from American football to reduce the issue of head-on running collisions. But to do so would take away the on-side kick, an important piece of play strategy. Can you replace “heading” in soccer with a less damaging move without seriously impacting the strategy of the sport? I don’t know, I was only making a suggestion.
 
I have not watched that much soccer, but one thing I noticed was the lack of commercial breaks - only the half time break. Given US football has commercials every few plays, this would mean the soccer might not be as financially rewarding for the networks as our current football.
 
Maybe they can’t. To reduce the potential for concussion, there was a suggestion to eliminate the kickoff from American football to reduce the issue of head-on running collisions. But to do so would take away the on-side kick, an important piece of play strategy. Can you replace “heading” in soccer with a less damaging move without seriously impacting the strategy of the sport? I don’t know, I was only making a suggestion.

Heading the ball has become a lot less common than it was. At one time a centre forward would almost be picked on his skill with the head, tactics plus changes in rules mean referees don't like players climbing on each other to get to the ball. Things changed such that you might go 90 minutes and not see a header.
 
I have not watched that much soccer, but one thing I noticed was the lack of commercial breaks - only the half time break. Given US football has commercials every few plays, this would mean the soccer might not be as financially rewarding for the networks as our current football.
In that case, American soccer would have more frequent time outs. Also, note there is another thread out there about eliminating football.
 
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You can change soccer by replacing heading the ball by an elbow move (later with a padded, shielded guard) and still preserve the sport. It adds to the dexterity factor. . .
. . . tactics plus changes in rules mean referees don't like players climbing on each other to get to the ball. . .
Do the amount of collisions and quasi-collisions in soccer significantly increase the risk factor for CTE?

I know I sound like a kill-joy, but to me that’s a real question. The day of reckoning is coming pretty much for every sport, maybe a little sooner, maybe a little later. It can be delayed, but not avoided entirely.

Without the padding, too big a chance a flying elbow will catch another player in the head.
 
https://madison.com/ct/sports/footb...cle_b98299b3-aad4-5e36-bae0-3e6bcb71440d.html

Borland said. "And the number they came up with was three out of 10. So if I turn on a game and a third of the guys will have brain damage in life, I just — I can't really support that. . . ”
This is Chris Borland.

And he’s right. If 30% of guys later have real problems, that’s completely unacceptable. And at one point he said he was stepping away from the game, not just out of concern for himself and his family, but also for the punishment he was doling out to other players.

If the risk was more like 5%, then we can talk about it.
 
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I believe soccer is the most popular sport in the USA. More kids play organized soccer than baseball, basketball and football.
You mean the most popular amateur sport. After all these years that still doesn't translate to a sizable fanbase. Consider the greater Philadelphia area: with all of the soccer programs in / around Philadelphia, the local MLS team plays in a stadium that seats perhaps 20,000 tops, and is located in the shadow of one of the bridges across the Delaware--that is, the Commodore John Barry bridge in Chester, PA, about 15 miles or so from the heart of Philadelphia. The stadium rarely sells out for soccer; indeed, often the largest crowd in a given year comes when Delaware plays Villanova in football at that stadium.
 
Keep the origianl American Soccer leauge viable without fighting with the federation about the national challenge cup which they boycotted and the league split over it and the new federation backed leauge and the fifa "outlaw" leauge both fail. If they avoid the collapse then maybe they can expand past the Northeast maybe starting with Chicago Sparta who dominated the city league after having briefly joined the Saint Louis Soccer League who could concievably be another target for expansion. If they survive the depreession they could get in on the tv money and large markets before the NFL gets there it could be more popular though I think it most likely ends up without promotion and relegation.
 
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