So where have |Zach| and all the Soccer fans gone?

[Deberg_1990]

These guys were out in force last year.

I thought Sporting had surpassed the Royals in popularity?


Dissscustt please......

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by Rausch

To me baseball is 10x more boring than soccer but since this is probably my only chance to see KC win a championship in my lifetime I'm going to watch...

This x E11eventy billion

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by -King-

You don't have to understand the league to understand brands and marketing. If you want to create a brand that people will gravitate to, you don't have a logo that changes because that defeats the whole purpose. There's a reason the NFL, NBA, and MLB doesn't color their logo differently for each team in the league and doesn't allow them to do that. Because it's really stupid as a business to do that when you're trying to spread brand recognition.

NFL and MLB have been around forever...this is a league that is making its money by attracting young people...and it is doing that really well...gathering up the cord cutter generation and the cord never generation. Going away from that hacky 90s logo was a must. Each iteration of that logog still represented MLS the entity just fine.

People laughed at the SKC rebrand in the same exact way...and it has been a monumental success.

[|Zach|]

Originally Posted by BIG_DADDY

All I know is since you and your little pirate posse took off it doesn't feel like the Daily Gay here anymore and for that I am grateful.

You can't go 5 posts without talking gay stuff.

Weird.

[SPATCH]

Originally Posted by -King-

You don't have to understand the league to understand brands and marketing. If you want to create a brand that people will gravitate to, you don't have a logo that changes because that defeats the whole purpose. There's a reason the NFL, NBA, and MLB doesn't color their logo differently for each team in the league and doesn't allow them to do that. Because it's really stupid as a business to do that when you're trying to spread brand recognition.

Are you saying that people won't recognize a logo when it appears in a different color? I'm not sure you are giving enough credit to the human mind to be able recognize a symbol/pattern.

And the MLB already does this. Every hat and jersey has the MLB logo customized with the team's colors.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by Deberg_1990

In NASCAR does the car get an award when it wins?

Do they give the horse a trophy in horse racing when it wins?

Probably the dumbest post in this thread.

And yes, they would get awards, I'd the rednecks and short guys would stop stealing them.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by WhawhaWhat

NASCAR isn't a sport though. Driving a car is by no means athletic either.

My 94 year old neighbor is a pretty avid athlete for her age.

[|Zach|]

Lets all take a moment though to reflect at how awful and not in line with reality this thread was from the start.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by -King-

Thats actually a terrible idea in terms of brand recognition and helping the MLS grow. Looks like the idea for a pee wee soccer league.

Why all the hate on business decisions for the fastest growing sports league in the US and possibly the world? I'd say they're doing alright.

New teams coming, and cities around the US SCREAMING for their own.

[DaFace]

Originally Posted by -King-

You don't have to understand the league to understand brands and marketing. If you want to create a brand that people will gravitate to, you don't have a logo that changes because that defeats the whole purpose. There's a reason the NFL, NBA, and MLB doesn't color their logo differently for each team in the league and doesn't allow them to do that. Because it's really stupid as a business to do that when you're trying to spread brand recognition.

I think you're taking the "rules" of branding as way more black and white than they are. It's certainly more common to use a consistent color scheme, but that doesn't mean that not doing so is going to result in epic failure.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

If a kid can't play any defense at all in basketball, he is going to be picked on mercilessly. If he can't dribble, they will descend upon him like a swarm of locusts. If a kid can't cover, that's where the ball is going over and over. If he can't tackle or if he isn't big enough to stand up to a blocker, that's the side they're running to, over and again, even at the youngest levels. Same thing obviously happens in soccer, but not at its youngest levels.

I think you're giving 6 year old in football and basketball too much credit...

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by CoMoChief

Oh bullshit Hamas.

In youth soccer there's usually 1-2 players on the team that's far and away better than everyone else. Guess who always has the ball and guess who's the one who's always scoring the goals? In youth soccer everyone is chasing the ball on the field and there's hardly any structured actual play...same w/ any youth sport really at a young age. But in youth soccer, everyone's usually chasing the 1-2 really good players that have the ball all the time, the ones that actually understand the game and are fundamentally sound/better than anyone else on the field.

That's the way it was when I played youth soccer and that's the way it is now.

Actually, the best kid at the 6yr age group in America is usually just the fastest guy. Kicks the ball well ahead of himself, gets there before the slow guy, repeat.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

Again, you're conflating elite-level soccer with entry level participation, and you're claiming that he's speaking dispositively for me about what sports should be.Furthermore, your butthurt over the issue has blinded you, again, to the extensive troll job he pulls in this piece. Do you think that he really thinks soccer is the equivalent of the Khmer Rouge, or is he yanking the chain of people like you for effect? In your breathy defense you don't even realize that you've been 'Penzed.

Ultimately, a cursory look at the math of the situation supports his point.

You mention that in late childhood is when competitiveness ramps up. Well it just so happens that Soccer is the #1 youth participation sport overall, yet fewer people play soccer once they are adolescents



So, if other sports have rising participation rates during ages of greatest competitiveness and soccer has a declining participation rate during the same period, who is leaving soccer?

Maybe they're just kids who moved exclusively from soccer to football, but the growth curve of football is too sharp to justify that alone.And again, I feel the need to add this disclaimer because you can't seem to differentiate between the two worlds he's talking about:

I'm saying nothing about the comparative competitiveness and desire of your 13 year old soccer peers. What I am saying, and Klosterman is as well, is that there is a higher likelihood that your seven year old soccer peers were playing the game because it was the least objectionable alternative, and once they grew to an age where non-participation was more acceptable, they dropped out.

The rate at which kids leave the sport probably has more to do with the age at which they become sports fans themselves.

Soccer obviously has an uphill battle for respect in the US. It also has an uphill battle for heroes. B/c of the popularity of other sports, soccer gets less pure athletes in America. Even more so due to the potential for career and the money to be made.

[aturnis]

Originally Posted by Baby Lee

Maybe I just grew up in a better community. Eyerolls, sure, muttering, certainly. Open criticism and belittling of players we knew we'd be playing an entire season with regardless, not so much.

Maybe he grew up in one of the many small baseball towns that LIVED to watch 9 yr olds play in tourneys.

I'll never understand the big deal some people make of kids playing baseball.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by aturnis

The rate at which kids leave the sport probably has more to do with the age at which they become sports fans themselves.

Soccer obviously has an uphill battle for respect in the US. It also has an uphill battle for heroes. B/c of the popularity of other sports, soccer gets less pure athletes in America. Even more so due to the potential for career and the money to be made.

The pro league has been increasing its profile pretty steadily. In the early days of MLS they tried pretty hard to Americanize soccer with the counting-down clock and the shootouts, team names, etc... but they have found more success in letting soccer be what it is. Once they got that right, they've been fine.

I think it's a legitimate point that to get more youth players you need to have heroes that kids aspire to be like, they need to see the game on TV and want to emulate that.

You don't need to look any further than how those participation rates would split up across racial lines. White kids grow up idolizing baseball and football players and so they play those sports. Black kids grow up idolizing basketball players more so they play basketball more. There are other factors of course, like the cost of participating and that there are fewer places to play baseball than basketball especially in the urban core, but someone has to want to be something before they will try.

It seems like soccer has long existed in America as an introductory sport for younger children who then move on to other sports. I think in the next decade that will probably continue to change but the league needs to increase its profile on television more than anything else.

[Eleazar]

Originally Posted by Pasta Giant Meatball

Don't care and they can take that gay ass believe will win chant with em.

Yeah, that chant is awful.