Even though it's probably the original reason I went abroad, watching sports haven't been a real part of my life as a full-time expat. With the exception of a dozen odd NFL games on reply, one AM World Series game and the radio feed as the Red Sox won, I've missed over two full seasons of American sports. I meant to get into soccer, from hereon out referred to as football, as its the only sport Hong Kongers really get into, but the timing for the European league games aren't great either and I haven't found a team. But I've gotten super into this World Cup. Super into it. And I've realized how much I missed being able to talk about sports with people. Coming into work after seeing a great Pats comeback against the Broncos and not having anyone to talk to about it made me die a little inside.
So this World Cup comes and suddenly I'm in deeper than I could have foreseen. I mean, it's a great World Cup. The times here are terrible, with opening round games at 12am, 3am and 6am and half the knockout games starting at 4am. This schedule is brutal for the Asia audience (probably over a third of the global World Cup audience). But a combination of staying up late, waking up early and reverse naps and I come close to satisfying my fill.
In the daytime there are no games, and so I talk about the games. With coworkers, with friends, with taxi drivers, with the building staff. Most everyone is into it, and conversations about Brazil, Messi, Germany and Tim Howard. I dig in to the football media, listening over and over again to "The Football Ramble", a podcast suggested by my British friend Conor Quigley. It's just four dudes shooting the shit talking about football, but I can't get enough of it. I've never been this deep into football before, and to hear unfamiliar names and teams casually dropped. And I listen to American media too, and the comparative shallowness of their knowledge and the complete different conversation was very revealing.
My perspective of the World Cup here has allowed me to see an incredible example of how America is viewed abroad. People from all over the world are passionate about their nations, but no other country are as in your face about their patriotism. I'll hear citizens of the world sing their national anthems and chant their countries' names and cheer hard, but the "USA! USA! USA!" chant drowns them out. Now most of the hardcore American bravado I usually see and participate in is largely tongue-in-cheek. I think it's cute and funny when we go overboard on Americanism, and hilarious when we tie in historical events. For example:
American to a Frenchman: "Do you speak German?"
Frenchman: "No..."
American: "You're welcome."
I think that an amount of American exceptionalism is necessarily tied into this sort of behavior though. Almost three years removed from living there, it's now more apparent to me when an American blindly believes they come from the best country in the world and that their country deserves to be a leader in everything important. It seems to me that other nationalities are proud of their origins but also proud to be a piece of the puzzle. But Americans have a history of success at many world stage events, and so when they see an international event of the magnitude of the World Cup, our lack of success there becomes an issue of national security.
So I think the world is really good at football. There's no way to measure this, but I think the top level of football is better than the top level of any other sport. It's a combination of the size of the pool that actively aspire to professional levels and the lifelong commitment to training required to attain such levels. Great tennis players nearly all train hard from before the age of 6, but they tend to be limited to a wealthier segment of the population and tennis is no country's national sport. Basketball is restricted mainly to individuals of selective height and athleticism, which can override the need for longterm skill development. Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon first started playing basketball at 15, and even LeBron James was getting beat by his peers at the age of 12. Sports like running and swimming are pretty universal but still don't compare to football in terms of sheer hours needed to develop a complete skillset.
I think controlling a ball with your feet is very very difficult. We have hands for a reason and we do most activities with them. To run at full speed and stop a ball flying from 40 yards away with your feet seems to almost defy physics, and to immediately send it in another direction with power and accuracy for a one-time volley is mind-boggling to me. And the nations that have a full roster of world class players have dedicated training academies that get kids practicing these skills who knows how many hours a week. Countries as diverse as China, Saudi Arabia and Peru invest a serious effort to compete and still are far from making the World Cup. It takes both time and skilled labor to establish this sort of infrastructure, as well as a cultural acceptance that such an infrastructure is of value to society.
As readers of this blog might know, I think culture is one of the strongest forces in the globe. Why Americans aren't that good at football and why they don't care that much are two separate questions, but they can both be answered by culture. We so happen to have developed several indigenous sports that gained popularity, namely baseball, basketball and American football, and so football has always had more to compete with. Based partly on our isolated geography, we were much less influenced by what other countries played, and could reach critical mass domestically for the other sports to thrive without the need to expand. And so these other sports get popular and publicized and in turn the children have their own ambitions shaped by what they watch. So while football has spread as a game for the poor throughout most regions of the world, in the US, inner city blacktops have basketball hoops built into the ground and rural fields have basepaths cut into them. Football instead becomes a low-investment non-contact sport preferred by suburban moms, including my own. This segment of the population will tend to have other economic options outside of being a professional athlete. In times all these factors build on each other and voila, it's not so surprising that world class American soccer players are so rare.
But Americans still like to watch sports, and how many American football fans ever played serious American football? Hong Kong isn't producing any world class footballers anytime soon, but they still have world class fans. Again, competition with other sports plays a large role here. When you're already following three sports, it's hard to follow a fourth. Secondly, I really think that football is a sport that is much more fun to watch at a high level. In basketball, as long as both sides can dunk, the game can be enjoyable. In American football, if the quarterback can throw forward accurately, he can put on a show. If a batter can hit a home run, baseball gets a lot more fun. That's why these three American sports can be popular at both the collegiate and professional levels. But in football, if you can't dribble well enough to beat a defender one-on-one, if you can't shoot hard enough or accurately enough to score from outside the box, if you can't put your head on a long ball that comes your way, then it becomes awfully hard to score. And it's not fun to watch 0-0 games with bad offense. It's not a sport where the offense and defense scale evenly. Basically, this is why I don't watch MLS.
I think Americans will watch the best European leagues, particularly the English Premier League. The time zone difference is a factor now, but people will get over that. The league structure is also a setback - it is so different from what we are used to that it'll take some time for people to get a feel for how the season flows and what these midseason tournaments mean. There is certainly a vocal minority of Americans who are watching the EPL, but the vast swarm of Americans who tuned in for the World Cup are not going to join them. I really believe that this will only change when we have a superstar offensive player who does well overseas. Clint Dempsey and Landon Donavon have had their stints in England, and never really shined. Tim Howard has been great for years, but as a goalkeeper, has yet to compel Americans to tune in (this may change after his superstar celebrity World Cup performance). When we really have someone to root for, people will tune in and support that player's club. And when that happens, we'll be better able to talk sports with foreigners, even during the years in between the World Cup!
So this World Cup comes and suddenly I'm in deeper than I could have foreseen. I mean, it's a great World Cup. The times here are terrible, with opening round games at 12am, 3am and 6am and half the knockout games starting at 4am. This schedule is brutal for the Asia audience (probably over a third of the global World Cup audience). But a combination of staying up late, waking up early and reverse naps and I come close to satisfying my fill.
In the daytime there are no games, and so I talk about the games. With coworkers, with friends, with taxi drivers, with the building staff. Most everyone is into it, and conversations about Brazil, Messi, Germany and Tim Howard. I dig in to the football media, listening over and over again to "The Football Ramble", a podcast suggested by my British friend Conor Quigley. It's just four dudes shooting the shit talking about football, but I can't get enough of it. I've never been this deep into football before, and to hear unfamiliar names and teams casually dropped. And I listen to American media too, and the comparative shallowness of their knowledge and the complete different conversation was very revealing.
My perspective of the World Cup here has allowed me to see an incredible example of how America is viewed abroad. People from all over the world are passionate about their nations, but no other country are as in your face about their patriotism. I'll hear citizens of the world sing their national anthems and chant their countries' names and cheer hard, but the "USA! USA! USA!" chant drowns them out. Now most of the hardcore American bravado I usually see and participate in is largely tongue-in-cheek. I think it's cute and funny when we go overboard on Americanism, and hilarious when we tie in historical events. For example:
American to a Frenchman: "Do you speak German?"
Frenchman: "No..."
American: "You're welcome."
I think that an amount of American exceptionalism is necessarily tied into this sort of behavior though. Almost three years removed from living there, it's now more apparent to me when an American blindly believes they come from the best country in the world and that their country deserves to be a leader in everything important. It seems to me that other nationalities are proud of their origins but also proud to be a piece of the puzzle. But Americans have a history of success at many world stage events, and so when they see an international event of the magnitude of the World Cup, our lack of success there becomes an issue of national security.
So I think the world is really good at football. There's no way to measure this, but I think the top level of football is better than the top level of any other sport. It's a combination of the size of the pool that actively aspire to professional levels and the lifelong commitment to training required to attain such levels. Great tennis players nearly all train hard from before the age of 6, but they tend to be limited to a wealthier segment of the population and tennis is no country's national sport. Basketball is restricted mainly to individuals of selective height and athleticism, which can override the need for longterm skill development. Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon first started playing basketball at 15, and even LeBron James was getting beat by his peers at the age of 12. Sports like running and swimming are pretty universal but still don't compare to football in terms of sheer hours needed to develop a complete skillset.
I think controlling a ball with your feet is very very difficult. We have hands for a reason and we do most activities with them. To run at full speed and stop a ball flying from 40 yards away with your feet seems to almost defy physics, and to immediately send it in another direction with power and accuracy for a one-time volley is mind-boggling to me. And the nations that have a full roster of world class players have dedicated training academies that get kids practicing these skills who knows how many hours a week. Countries as diverse as China, Saudi Arabia and Peru invest a serious effort to compete and still are far from making the World Cup. It takes both time and skilled labor to establish this sort of infrastructure, as well as a cultural acceptance that such an infrastructure is of value to society.
As readers of this blog might know, I think culture is one of the strongest forces in the globe. Why Americans aren't that good at football and why they don't care that much are two separate questions, but they can both be answered by culture. We so happen to have developed several indigenous sports that gained popularity, namely baseball, basketball and American football, and so football has always had more to compete with. Based partly on our isolated geography, we were much less influenced by what other countries played, and could reach critical mass domestically for the other sports to thrive without the need to expand. And so these other sports get popular and publicized and in turn the children have their own ambitions shaped by what they watch. So while football has spread as a game for the poor throughout most regions of the world, in the US, inner city blacktops have basketball hoops built into the ground and rural fields have basepaths cut into them. Football instead becomes a low-investment non-contact sport preferred by suburban moms, including my own. This segment of the population will tend to have other economic options outside of being a professional athlete. In times all these factors build on each other and voila, it's not so surprising that world class American soccer players are so rare.
But Americans still like to watch sports, and how many American football fans ever played serious American football? Hong Kong isn't producing any world class footballers anytime soon, but they still have world class fans. Again, competition with other sports plays a large role here. When you're already following three sports, it's hard to follow a fourth. Secondly, I really think that football is a sport that is much more fun to watch at a high level. In basketball, as long as both sides can dunk, the game can be enjoyable. In American football, if the quarterback can throw forward accurately, he can put on a show. If a batter can hit a home run, baseball gets a lot more fun. That's why these three American sports can be popular at both the collegiate and professional levels. But in football, if you can't dribble well enough to beat a defender one-on-one, if you can't shoot hard enough or accurately enough to score from outside the box, if you can't put your head on a long ball that comes your way, then it becomes awfully hard to score. And it's not fun to watch 0-0 games with bad offense. It's not a sport where the offense and defense scale evenly. Basically, this is why I don't watch MLS.
I think Americans will watch the best European leagues, particularly the English Premier League. The time zone difference is a factor now, but people will get over that. The league structure is also a setback - it is so different from what we are used to that it'll take some time for people to get a feel for how the season flows and what these midseason tournaments mean. There is certainly a vocal minority of Americans who are watching the EPL, but the vast swarm of Americans who tuned in for the World Cup are not going to join them. I really believe that this will only change when we have a superstar offensive player who does well overseas. Clint Dempsey and Landon Donavon have had their stints in England, and never really shined. Tim Howard has been great for years, but as a goalkeeper, has yet to compel Americans to tune in (this may change after his superstar celebrity World Cup performance). When we really have someone to root for, people will tune in and support that player's club. And when that happens, we'll be better able to talk sports with foreigners, even during the years in between the World Cup!
