There is one simple reason that soccer is not popular in the United States: No time for commercial breaks.
The media would be cramming soccer down our throats, telling us that everybody else is watching it, having parties around it, spawning gangwear, and cetera if it sold advertising. Soccer doesn't even have the good grace to have a liberal sprinkling of timeouts like basketball, much less the interminable silences of golf, bowling, and baseball.
It's no wonder that American Football is so much more popular. They stop all the time. And anytime they haven't stopped enough, the referees will call a "T.V. time out." This is much friendlier to the public consciousness creators. Banner ads and stadium advertising simply can't compete with full-screen sportus interruptus.
Posted to Interior Life at July 11, 2005 1:21 PM