Baseball?
Posted by Commercial_Peace_328@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 135 comments
I'm Croatian and I'm curious why baseball is more popular than siccer in America? I've never played it
Posted by Commercial_Peace_328@reddit | AskAnAmerican | View on Reddit | 135 comments
I'm Croatian and I'm curious why baseball is more popular than siccer in America? I've never played it
Rhubarb-Grand@reddit
History. The history of baseball in America is very similar to that of soccer in England. They both really coalesced into something resembling the modern versions in the mid-1800s. They both displaced cricket and rugby as the popular sports of the day, though baseball did that about 30 years before soccer in England. And they both have a lot of romanticism around them for their respective countries. Although baseball has been surpassed in popularity by American football and maybe even basketball, it still occupies a high place in American culture, which means that a lot of people play it, especially as kids, even though it might not be their favorite sport.
emmasdad01@reddit
It started here long ago and established its roots.
WideGlideReddit@reddit
This brought up memories of my father sitting at our kitchen table with a beer and maybe cheese and crackers listening to games on the radio.
Dad, the game’s on TV. Yeah, so what?
lol
4Q69freak@reddit
My dad farmed and of an afternoon in the ‘70s, the tractor radio was always tuned to 720AM WGN with Vince Lloyd and Lou Boudreau “It’s a beautiful day for a ballgame today! The fans are out to get a ticket or two, from Walla Walla, Washington to Kalamazoo! it’s a beautiful day for a home run, but even a triple’s okay! We’re gonna cheer, and boo and raise a hellabaloo at the ball game todayyy!”
WideGlideReddit@reddit
Fond memories
4Q69freak@reddit
I still sing it whenever I hear someone talk about Walla Walla.
Cool-Bunch6645@reddit
This is a good point. I take in a lot of baseball over the radio when I’m doing other things because it’s great over the radio. I never do that with other sports.
seifd@reddit
I think your country has a national baseball team. I'm pretty sure I recall seeing them listed as participating in the European Cup qualifiers.
Ernigirl@reddit
I love it because, no matter what position you play, you get a chance to be just you vs the entire other team. Okay, the recent DH ruling has kinda messed that up, but still - everyone gets a chance to be the offensive hero. Very inspiring as a young kid growing up listening to games on the radio all spring and all summer long.
I freakin love baseball. 💙⚾️💙
Publius_Romanus@reddit
Also, it's the only one of the major American sports without a clock. Both teams get an equal number of chances to make something happen, and there's no way to manipulate a clock to prevent a team from get their opportunities. A friend of mine used to say that's what made it the most American sport.
Cr4nkY4nk3r@reddit
That used to be the case, but now there's a pitch clock. Not really the same as time based quarters, I know.
4Q69freak@reddit
Also one of the only sports that the defense can’t score.
Mustang-Six@reddit
Also the defense controls the ball. The offense wants to stay away from the ball. Sounds weird reading that but is true I guess.
rawbface@reddit
The DH rule makes sense in the modern game. Pitchers are throwing triple digits these days. Let them work on perfecting their placement, rather than spending time in the batting cage just to go 0-4 at the plate in the 9 hole.
Plus I don't want the guy we're paying 40 million dollars for his work on the mound, to end up on the injured list because he took a heater to the elbow.
Plus it gives another roster spot to the guys who are defensive liabilities but absolutely sluggers at the plate.
I think I'm writing all this to convince myself that the DH rule doesn't really betray the spirit of baseball.
RobotShlomo@reddit
Pitchers are also blowing their arms out because all they do is throw triple digits, and don't actually learn how to pitch.
amazingtaters@reddit
Forcing the NL to accept the DH is the best thing to happen to baseball is the best thing to happen to baseball in the last decade.
WideHuckleberry1@reddit
I was a really atrocious hitter playing little league, like Mendoza-line bad, but I still remember 20+ years later a game where we were down 3 with 2 outs in the bottom of the 9th, I hit a 2-RBI double, got knocked in to tie it, and we walked them off right after.
Keep talking that shit about how it's over, losers.
dhrisc@reddit
And everyone gets a little break to sit and watch, eat seeds and talk trash.
TheKiddIncident@reddit
It's called "America's Pastime" for a reason.
To be honest, Baseball is a very old fashioned game. It doesn't translate well to TV and it can be very slow and deliberate. In order to appreciate baseball, you really need to play it. If you don't play, at least go watch a game live. Ideally, sit close to the field. It's really hard to get what's going on from a TV broadcast or if you are sitting way up high.
When you are down low, you HEAR it. You FEEL it and you see how fast the game really is. A pitch coming in at 100 MPH is impressive as hell if you are sitting right behind home plate.
So, when people tell me they don't like baseball, I say, "go see a minor league game. Sit in the first row." If you don't like that, you don't like baseball, which is cool.
As to Soccer, while many kids in America play, it's really not an American game.
For one thing, you can have a tie.
Americans love a winner. Games with ties are not popular here.
For another, not enough scoring. While baseball seems slow, it's normal to have a 5-6 game. A sport that normally ends 1-0 or 2-1 isn't very exciting by American standards. Remember that Basketball was introduced here, and a pro game often scores over 100 points in basketball. Football is normally 20 or 30 points in a game.
So, I would say, Soccer isn't well suited to American audiences and Baseball is as much of a cultural experience as it is a game which explains it's popularity.
Ok_Ant_2930@reddit
Everyone has their own baseball team including politicians; congressional baseball game. ⚾
Many police departments have baseball team. Many firefighter departments also have their own baseball teams.
Little League baseball teams.
Baseball is everywhere you can't escape it.
Titbit: girls and women play softball 🥎 which derived from baseball ⚾.
ExitingBear@reddit
There's no such thing as running out the clock.
Yes, you are unlikely to win if you're down by a lot in the bottom of the 9th with two outs. But you could. In soccer, there can come a point where it's impossible for one of the teams to win - there's simply not enough time left in the game to score enough goals.
In baseball, as long as there's at least one out left, there's hope.
Practical-Ordinary-6@reddit
Because it's been played in the US every year since about 1869. The same can't be said of soccer.
dangleicious13@reddit
Because we've had a stable baseball league for 150 years. We didn't have a stable soccer league until \~20 years ago.
Viper_Red@reddit
Fun Facts: The U.S. is one of the four teams that played the first ever FIFA World Cup game (two games kicked off simultaneously), an American goalkeeper was the first ever to have a World Cup clean sheet and the first ever World Cup hat trick is by an American player
bus_wanker_friends@reddit
Also that was America's best world cup finish too - made it to the semi finals
NastyNate4@reddit
Plus one for mentioning soccer wars. From perspective of today it is easy to say we prefer other sports but that overlooks the roots of sport in the country. It’s not out of the realm of possibility for soccer to have grown into the cultural position of football.
Ok_Jackfruit2612@reddit
Why is a sport invented in America popular in America?
kmoonster@reddit
Baseball was (mostly) developed in the US and, perhaps more importantly, it's easy to play regardless of the field size/quality and it's easy to include anyone in the game regardless of their skill or experience.
Most sports you need at least a little experience or training/practice before you can contribute meaningfully to a team, but baseball you can play what we call "pick up" (impromptu, improvised) even with no special equipment or experience.
davdev@reddit
Sorry, soccer is significantly easier to play casually than baseball is. Baseball could be the hardest of the major sports, with the possible exception of ice hockey.
elphaba00@reddit
If you get a hit 3 times out of every 10 at-bats, you can be a Hall of Famer.
pgm123@reddit
You've never casually played wiffleball or stick ball?
Psychological-Pen953@reddit
Yes, but not easier than casually playing soccer
kmoonster@reddit
I didn't say it's easier. I said it's easier if you have mixed groups. Mixed here being anything: age, gender, size/weight, physical limitations, etc.
pgm123@reddit
Sure, but requires less than playing basketball (since you need to be near a hoop for that). You do need more than one friend, though.
4Q69freak@reddit
Nope, “Indian ball” only requires two people.
pgm123@reddit
Can't say I've ever played that. I've played with three.
Psychological-Pen953@reddit
Ok, but the original comparison was baseball to soccer. Soccer is significantly easier to play “pickup” than baseball
pgm123@reddit
I know. But the comment I was replying to was about baseball being the second-hardest sport to play casually "with the possible exception" of hockey.
I agree that soccer is very easy to play pickup. It might be the easiest (though American football is also quite easy if you play loose with rules and safety equipment). Most sports are pretty easy within certain contexts (basketball is easy to play casually if you already have access to a hoop).
ragdoll1022@reddit
Much easier to actually play baseball for someone who hasn't done so before, easier to get more people involved and imo a lot more fun.
Baseball is America's game because we grew up with it.
Gotta love the boy garden in spring.
oatmealparty@reddit
Everything you just said applies even more so to soccer except being developed in the US. In baseball you need a bat, probably gloves, and usually multiple balls. Soccer all you need is a ball.
kmoonster@reddit
You can play baseball by having the pitcher roll a (soccer) football instead of batting, all other rules remain the same.
All you need are markers for bases and a pitcher's ring/mound.
Or any battable ball and a racket or bat. Gloves help but are not hard to come by.
-
But more to my point, you don't have to be particularly gifted (or even average!) to do something productive in a game of baseball; eg endurance, accurate kicking/passing skills, don't have to get too physical in baseball (you can be smaller than average), etc.
In most team sports the team members and their opponents all need to be more-or-less physical equivalents to each other in most regards. That does not apply in baseball, which is a massive advantage for playing in mixed-groups of any sort (age, gender, size, ability, etc). It's a great game for adults and kids to be teammates which is much more difficult in basketball, hockey, either football, etc.
Lootlizard@reddit
I played hundreds of hours if baseball as a kid with a tape ball and a wooden leg from an old table we found.
oatmealparty@reddit
While interesting, that's definitely not common. And still kinda proves the point, because in soccer you don't even need the wooden leg.
HudsonMelvale2910@reddit
For much of baseball’s history, yes, it was extremely common. Children would play a form of baseball with a stick-like object and whatever they could find to serve as a ball, and you only needed 2-4 players to do it. There are accounts of children playing in empty lots, streets, fields, using a varied number of bases etc.
I don’t dispute that essentially only a ball is needed for soccer, but for baseball, you only really need a ball and bat.
4Q69freak@reddit
We used to play what Dad called “Indian ball” whiffle ball. Two guys, setup a lawn chair behind the house, if it hits the seat or back or arms of the chair it’s a strike. Hit the ball in the air and the pitcher fields it, or you hit a ground ball that doesn’t make it past the pitcher, you’re out. Hit it in the air or ground ball past the pitcher is a base hit, past a certain point is a double, almost to the fence is a triple, and out of the back yard is a home run. Of course if you pop up anywhere on the field and the pitcher catches it you’re out. We would play 9 inning games just two of us.
mittencamper@reddit
You glossed over the most important part - knowing the rules. The rules of baseball is extremely complicated. I grew up playing it and once took a German coworker to a game. He spent 9 innings asking about everything little thing that happened and I realized how insane this game is.
kmoonster@reddit
If you're playing competitively, rules help, but if you're just banging around with friends it's not a big deal beyond three strikes/three outs. You can make up the rest of the rules about stuff like flyballs, being in a pickle, determening a tie, etc.
But more importantly, you can play a casual game even if you're terrible at some aspect of the sport. If you're shit at catching, you might be a good pinch runner. Or if you can throw a long way but not accurately, you can play outfield instead of pitcher or shortstop.
If you mostly want to bunt the ball you might not get on base, but can advance a runner who is on base, or whatever.
In soccer football and American football you're straight-up screwed if you can't run decently, be well coordinated, take some bumps, and/or can't kick / catch or throw the ball very well.
Much_Job4552@reddit
That's why I love baseball more than other sports. It is more complicated and gives time to think and strategies the next play. American football is similar.
Soccer (and other "goal sports") is just getting the ball into the net, there isn't much variety for me.
terryjuicelawson@reddit
Soccer is only like that on the face of it, but it has layers of complexity for sure. Similarly a non-baseball lover could say all you have to do is hit the ball hard and run.
Much_Job4552@reddit
Oh, not discounting the skill and formations setup. Just there doesn't ever seem to be anything unusual or unique in the rules.
terryjuicelawson@reddit
Partly being so open ended is what can appeal. You can pass backwards, forwards, sideways and the players can go anywhere (putting the offside rule to one side for a moment) in any way or for as long as they want until tackled. You can do anything other than use the hands for outfield players. Yet over time systems emerged with standard positions, ways of playing, types of shot, how to manage both defence and attack without leaving yourself exposed. Just wish the stupid time wasting would stop as it seems to be the one thing that casual viewers complain about the most.
houdini31@reddit
Baseball was invented here
Mediocre-Oil-5322@reddit
Everything people have said about the prevalence of baseball fields, the maturity of the professional system, etc. is true. I also think baseball has a lot of symbolic and nostalgic value for many Americans the way soccer might for you. Baseball represents hot summer days for me, watching from the stands wearinh my glove to catch foul balls, Bomb Pops sold at the concession stand, fall playoff games watched on TV with my dad, and a bunch of other fond feelings and memories.
I grew up playing soccer as well, so that has another compartment in my heart and mind, but baseball will always be special. And soccer has gained a lot of credibility in the U.S. over the years, but when I was younger, it wasn't viewed with the sort of esteem assigned to baseball, football, and basketball. A lot of that probably had to do with the fact that there was no serious professional system at the time. MLS came along when I was 12, but it was seen as inferior to European leagues.
One thing that seems minor, but I believe continues to be a big turn off for many Americans when it comes to soccer is all the flopping in professional games. A dude gets a minor shove and falls down and rolls around as if he has a gunshot wound. Even I, though I love soccer and played it a lot, find that pathetic and annoying. When it comes down to it, most Americans want their athletes to be tough, to play through pain, and to shrug things off. The flopping continues to cause football, baseball, and hockey loving Americans to think of soccer as a sport for wimps. I realize that part doesn't explain why baseball is popular, but I think it does contribute somewhat to soccer's relative lack of popularity. I have heard it brought up multiple times by soccer haters as a reason that soccer is stupid.
4Q69freak@reddit
And not just in the US, baseball is more popular in Japan, South Korea, Cuba, the Dominican Republic and Venezuela (2026 World Baseball Champions over the US).
RobotShlomo@reddit
This going to sound strange to a European, but a lot of us in the US consider soccer to be "boring." There's a stigma soccer had with being low scoring and not enough action. The propensity for 0-0 ties and 1-0 being an insurmountable lead also doesn't help. You may say "well how can you say soccer is boring and there's no action when baseball is just as boring." Baseball is structured with sub goals, so there's always something to drive the action.
There is also a lot more money to be made playing baseball and other sports. The average MLB salary is $6 million. The average NBA salary is $11 million. The average NHL salary is $2 million. The average NFL salary is $1.1 million. The average MLS salary? $300,000. The NBA rookie salary is over $1 million. It's difficult to get a kid from the inner city to dedicate their lives to a game they will never get rich playing, which is why most kids abandon soccer at around 13 years old.
When I was a kid in the 70's I used to hear all the time "just you wait in a generation soccer will dominate the US...in the year 1985...in the year 1995... in the year 2005... in the year 2525... if Man U. is still alive..." So far the only thing that's happened is the people who say that have gone from being 20 years older than me, to being 20 years younger than me.
averagejosh@reddit
Why is soccer more popular than baseball in Croatia? 🤔
Commercial_Peace_328@reddit (OP)
1.Sport is simple 2.It is uncertain 3.There are dribbles and actions
averagejosh@reddit
Haha, sorry. I was making a joke to make a point.
Baseball is our own homegrown sport. My favorite team has been in operation since 1871. The sport has a long and storied history here, and remains a stalwart of our culture.
Soccer was not even part of the collective consciousness until like the mid-'90s.
4Q69freak@reddit
My favorite team has been in operation since 1870 and plays in the second oldest park in MLB. Go Cubbies!
averagejosh@reddit
Go, Braves! Going for the sweep tonight! 🧹
4Q69freak@reddit
There is nothing like watching a game at Wrigley. It was even better back in the ‘80s before the lights and with Harry singing the seventh inning stretch, drunk off his ass, hanging out the press box window. Or Harry doing the game from the bleachers totally hammered because all the Bleachers Bums were buying him Budweisers all game long. A One! A Two! A Three! Chip and Skip are no where as colorful as Dad/Grandpa was.
averagejosh@reddit
I loved Skip dearly. He and Pete were fixtures of my childhood. Loved when Don would get in there, too.
...never cared much for Chip, lol. Glad he finally moved on to the Cards, haha.
Commercial_Peace_328@reddit (OP)
sorry, I didn't understand your joke Croatian humor is different from American, often sarcastic without rhetorical questions
stu17@reddit
Baseball is everywhere in the US like soccer is everywhere in Europe.
It’s not just the 30 MLB teams. There are hundreds of minor league teams, so every decently sized city has one.
There are five divisions of pro baseball kind of like European soccer federations: MLB, AAA, AA, High-A, and Low-A. But instead of promotion and relegation, each MLB team has an affiliate in each division and they can move players up and down. So the MLB team can develop their prospects in the lower minor leagues, call them up to higher leagues as they improve, and eventually call them up to MLB.
Then almost every university has a baseball team too. So there are thousands of high level professional and college baseball teams across the country. Because of this, it’s almost impossible to find a person who has never been to a baseball game before. It’s a near-universal American experience.
msivoryishort@reddit
Most towns have a baseball field somewhere too, the little league system is huge
igotshadowbaned@reddit
My small town has at least 6 of them in it
theEWDSDS@reddit
Pretty much every high school in America has a baseball team
GewtNingrich@reddit
There’s also leagues like the Frontier League or summer collegiate leagues where college players can get a small taste of using a wooden bat or what professional play feels like.
4Q69freak@reddit
Prospect League in Midwest is another MLB wood bat college summer league.
4Q69freak@reddit
Plus there are MLB sponsored summer leagues for college players, such as The Prospect League with teams mostly in the Midwest (a few in TN, KY, and PA.
dangleicious13@reddit
We also have that for soccer in the US.
TheBimpo@reddit
We didn't a hundred years ago.
dangleicious13@reddit
In the 1920s, soccer pretty much had the equivalent of what baseball had at the same time.
HudsonMelvale2910@reddit
The thing is… while soccer was definitely on the upswing in the 1920s and was perhaps competing with football (though my impression is that it was second in that race), it had nowhere near the dominant cultural saturation baseball did in the United States during that era.
Aeviternus@reddit
And apart from MLS and MLS Next Pro, the system here isn’t like either MLB (where lower tier teams are affiliates of higher tier clubs) or like European soccer/football (where teams can move up and down tiers via promotion and relegation).
Commercial_Peace_328@reddit (OP)
Croats play football at the university. We don't have baseball equipment.
ENovi@reddit
he’s saying nearly every university in America has a baseball team.
flp_ndrox@reddit
OK, I know this one.
Baseball was really developed in America and got very popular during our Civil War in the early 1860s well before Soccer came over from England. When soccer came over it was mostly played by immigrants from Great Britain who were mostly concentrated in cities that didn't have a lot of green space. Nor were clubs attached to factories that popular here like they were in Europe.
When Soccer came to the colleges, they changed the rules around to make it less like soccer and more like rugby after Harvard played Canada's McGill University in 1874 under rugby-like rules. For the next few decades the game became less like soccer after Walter Camp added even more rules to make it less like rugby and more like modern football.
During the 1920s sports boom, Professional soccer clubs were established mostly by owners of baseball teams who were looking to cash in. They fought a lot with the Football Association, FIFA, and even with each other. Even a hundred years ago American soccer had a closed system and didn't really embrace the international governance. When the Great Depression hit in the 1930s it killed off professional soccer for the next couple generations when the big teams and leagues went bankrupt.
By the 1930s America had baseball and American football as well established team games and basketball was rising. With the weather in most of North America being more extreme than Europe and the populous parts of South America there wasn't really a good place for soccer to fit in an already full American sporting calendar.
The fact that the way the game is played is much less strength based than the established American sports didn't do it any favors, either.
TBH I'm surprised no other sports ever really challenged soccer's popularity in Europe.
Commercial_Peace_328@reddit (OP)
We are the second team in world cup 2018 soccer is sport for poor countries as croatia Also, it's very simple to explain everyone A lot of emotional moments,driblings,goals,... We also played basketball and handball
flp_ndrox@reddit
I'm still surprised that games like Rugby or something more homegrown like what happened other former British colonies like Canada (hockey). Croatia never developed a team sport of its own in the 19th century?
polelover44@reddit
Well soccer's boring
VentusHermetis@reddit
please understand that most americans do not care about soccer.
myOEburner@reddit
Baseball is more interesting and requires a broad multi-disciplinary skill sets across the team. It requires more equipment. Even the field needs to be set up a specific way with enough space in several directions.
Soccer requires a ball and an open space.
I find both boring but, if I had to watch one for hours, I'd watch baseball every time.
Commercial_Peace_328@reddit (OP)
Soccer had driblings, beautiful goals, emotional moments...
myOEburner@reddit
Every sport has its moments. Soccer's are just among the most boring.
Successful-Pie4237@reddit
Two main reasons, history and availability. The MLB is the oldest professional sports org. in the country. And every kid who wants to can play baseball. There's almost no financial barrier to entry and almost every town in the country has a little league team.
It doesn't matter if you live in Manhattan or Montana you live near a baseball diamond
FORLORNE_2802@reddit
Hey, a fellow Croatian. How are you?
Commercial_Peace_328@reddit (OP)
I'm fine until tourists start coming to Dubrovnik. Hahaha. How is in USA?
TsundereLoliDragon@reddit
Dubrovnik looks pretty cool.
Commercial_Peace_328@reddit (OP)
Thank you
FORLORNE_2802@reddit
I think you misunderstood me, I'm also from Croatia (Koprivnica).
Commercial_Peace_328@reddit (OP)
Do you speak croatian?
mdavis360@reddit
Soccer is a tremendously boring sport to watch. Baseball is a tremendously boring sport to watch-with occasional HOLY SHIT THIS IS THE BEST THING EVER moments.
Louisianimal09@reddit
Tenure. Baseball rose in popularity as the nation grew so its interwoven in the American fabric.
NastyNate4@reddit
A series of legal battles between FIFA and various professional leagues killed soccer in the US back in the 1910s-1920s.
People would be surprised to know the sport was decently popular here with professional leagues paying enough that they were poaching players from europe. Led to legal trouble because the US leagues were not honoring existing contracts. FIFA got involved which led to legal battles, throw in the great depression and the pro soccer leagues were in bankruptcy by the end of 1920s. Sport never recovered.
SabresBills69@reddit
ice hockey was more advanced than NFL in the 1920s In terms of pro sports.
soccer has existed as a sport but back in the 1920-1960 most people would not choose sports as a profession. they generally made more money doing other things. Television made more people see the sports and made stars with the players that drove salaries to be higher.
starting in the 1960s with more leagues forming, and free agency push began, you started seeing salaries in pro sports skyrocket.
Soccer was a pro sport in the USA , but it also was in Europe so you had completion. Thr immigration laws changing in 1924 also hurt soccer development because it blocked athletes from coming over.
the main expansion in the nhl starting in the late 1980s was due to sport growth in the USA post 1980 Olympics, and the NHL becoming the world league having agreements with euro countries around players and their rights/ de elopement. Starting in the early 90s along with the Soviet collapse, you started to get an influx of both people from Europe and USA.
prior to the late 80s, the number of euros/ Americans was small. The added jobs with the expansion from 21 to 32 teams, corresponds to the increase in USA / euro players
icyDinosaur@reddit
Kinda funny how we still had that problem with hockey in my lifetime. Thankfully there's now an agreement between the NHL and the Swiss league, but the NHL still refuses any engagement with international hockey sadly (I guess because it's the only league that has this level of independence from national governance?)
Fan_Rat@reddit
Just to build off of this, soccer was popular spectator sport in mid-sized cities in the industrial northeast during the 1920s. Places such as Bethlehem in Pennsylvania and Fall River in Massachusetts formed the core of the very strong American Soccer League of the 1920s. (I’m leaving out St. Louis’s very deep tradition in this response.) It’s not an exact match, but it is comparable with the NFL at the time. Disputes between team owners in the late 1920s, followed by ASL fighting with the national federation, and then the Great Depression ended this golden age. The ASL collapsed, and its identically named replacement soldiered on as a semi-pro operation.
SabresBills69@reddit
baseball is an American derived sport and it’s been a pro/ paid league for over 150 years.
kids play little league from tee ball, age ranges like 7-9, 10-12, 13-16 ( little league, school system JV team ), high school varsity teams , colleges.
baseball drafts players out of high school or college. the players after signing go through a minor league system. you have rookie, A, AA, AAA, major league baseball. some high prospects coming out of college can start at AA or AAA.
whennit comes to sports as a career money is the big driver. many athletes in high school are multiple sports. if you are a star player in pro in football, basketball, baseball, ice hockey you earn $1M+ in salary. soccer doesn’t pay thst. any player if they want to be great needs to go to Europe.
if USA had the top league in the world where all the great players played in you would likely see more athletes choosing soccer as the sport to go pro in. It’s not common for someone to leave the country for any job,
Danibear285@reddit
Why is baseball not as popular as soccer???
JohnMarstonSucks@reddit
It just comes down to history. It has been played more, and has more of a storied past in the U.S..
American Football is more popular than baseball though.
hawffield@reddit
Yeah, I was going to say that baseball isn’t even the most popular sport over here.
Hoosier_Jedi@reddit
Because we invented it? It evolved from a British game, but the sport as we know it originated in the US.
And you’re surprised we like stuff we invented more?
willtag70@reddit
I think it's totally a matter of what you grow up with. The sports I follow most closely are the ones I played. Soccer didn't exist in my town as a kid, and hardly at all in the US. That was many decades ago, and soccer is MUCH more prevalent now, but history favors baseball by a very wide margin. Our sports legends are primarily in baseball, football, basketball, and none in soccer. It's not a criticism of soccer, it's just the history of the society.
HudsonMelvale2910@reddit
Even when it did exist (I played both soccer and baseball as a child), because of its head-start and history, the cultural reach of baseball is greater. No one I knew growing up was a soccer fan, whereas I could talk, watch, and play baseball with people my age, as well as those older, and now, those younger. I know soccer fans now and have been to MLS games, but I’m not sure it will really capture the sports culture in the US like football or baseball anytime in the near future.
MetroBS@reddit
The appeal is baseball is that it has the best “moments” and tension of any sport. You can watch a game for an hour and a half and nothing really happens, but now suddenly it’s the bottom of the 8th, your team is down 2-0 but your best hitter is at the plate with two runners on base. Your team has 2 outs and you need a hit now.
JudgeWhoOverrules@reddit
It's also more human than other sports. There's whimsical antics and pranks on one end, and bench clearing fights on the other.
nebraskajone@reddit
Baseball has a long history here with a lot of famous players, soccer doesn't
Intrepid-Entrance460@reddit
Soccer was popular here in the mid/late 70s for a while, especially after Pele came to play for the NY Cosmos. We were all mini-Peles trying to bicycle kick at any opportunity. Then interest kind of waned for a while. International stars getting lots of press seems to help boost popularity here.
Baseball, like cricket, is kind if unique in "ball" sports. The defense controls the ball and scoring is on the players, not the ball itself. Yes, you can hit a homerun, but run isn't recorded until the batter/runner touches home plate. It's a team sport of individual accomplishment. When you're at bat, it's you against 9 players trying to get you out. Basic rules are easy, but yeah, there are a lot of nit-picky, nuanced rules for specific situations.
Crayshack@reddit
[There was a US soccer league in the '20s and '30s.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Soccer_League_(1921%E2%80%931933)) However, internal soccer politics caused it to collapse in a way that soured the American public's taste for the sport. It took decades for soccer to reestablish a foothold in the US. Meanwhile, baseball was already incredibly well established as the oldest professional sport in the US. During the decades when soccer struggled to make inroads in the country, baseball was incredibly popular. As it is now, baseball is not quite as popular as it used to be, but it has over a century of deep history in American sports culture. There's a lot of ground for soccer to make up if it wants to have the same kind of cultural relevance.
BusinessWarthog6@reddit
Baseball was invented here and is considered “Americas pastime”. It is also older than soccer and some of the country’s first sporting heros were baseball players
fourlegsfaster@reddit
Baseball is mentioned in Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen, it developed into the game of rounders in the UK and into professional sport in the US. Baseball was invented in England and developed in the USA. Playing of football (soccer) was banned by the mayor of London in 1314, so it seems to be older than baseball.
terryjuicelawson@reddit
Soccer specifically is association football, the rules were codified in the 1860s. There have been lots of footballs going back hundreds of years which is the kind that would have been banned in 1314 - some are still going today like in Atherstone. And if you look up how it is played, I am not surprised it was banned.
SlippingAwayWith@reddit
It’s not the same game as the one mentioned by Jane Austen.
Baseball is an American sport the same way Pesäpallo is a Finnish sport. It’s past time you lot learned this.
TheUnderCrab@reddit
Eeeeehhhhhh the age of invention isn’t really accurate here. “Kick a ball” type games have existed since antiquity, with soccer have similar games played in the Roman and Chinese Empires some 2000 years ago. Baseball can trace its origins back hundreds of years to 1400s England.
Like yes, you are correct that the codified modern version of soccer was established after modern baseball was invented, but I think that’s a bit of a misinterpretation of the actual history of those games.
earthdogmonster@reddit
Yeah, but he’s talking about the sport itself, not “kick a ball type games” compared to “hit and throw a ball type games”. When I am thinking of a sport, I am thinking about that sport, not that sport’s distant ancestors.
TheUnderCrab@reddit
I get that, but when we’re talking about the popularity of the active, saying “baseball came before soccer” is erroneous. Both modern versions came about around the same time and both had hundreds of years of people playing their predecessors.
I think baseball got more popular in the US because it was codified here and was easy to play in city streets; unlike soccer that needs a field and goals base just needs a bat and bases. A baseball diamonds foot print is just smaller and easier for kids to create on their own. It’s an urban game that was well loved in growing American cities.
Psychological-Pen953@reddit
Football(aka soccer) is played in the streets all over the world. It only requires a ball
FreeKevinBrown@reddit
While the rules for baseball were created before soccer, the informal roots of soccer are way older than those of most bat and ball sports, including baseball.
TheBimpo@reddit
It was invented here and gained massive popularity before soccer ever came to our shores.
No-Lunch4249@reddit
To add to this, soccer as we know it today began forming in the 1860s, and the English association-style rules didn't make it over to the US for a few years
Baseball got the drop on Soccer by a few decades, the "Knickerbocker Rules" which formalized the modern base length and general field shape were written in the 1840s
cyvaquero@reddit
This needs to be stressed. American football and soccer are roughly the same age with the same roots, developed a wind driven ship voyage across the Atlantic from where soccer was beginning. American football was already established before soccer hit the shores here.
This also answers the question”why” we call our sport football (with the added mention that before the forward pass rugby like punts were very common) and association football soccer.
Responsible-View-804@reddit
It’s way different of a game type, closer to cricket.
My favorite sport, but it’s also the 3rd most popular sport in the US behind American football and basketball.
Why is American football more popular than soccer? To make a long story short, Europe colonized everyone before footballs rules were unified, and each colony had their own way to playing. Rules for “association football” (soccer) were created in the 1800s but countries like South Africa, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand all had different ways of playing unique to their country, and we call the modern versions of those sports mostly American football and rugby
Angry_GorillaBS@reddit
Well because it's entertaining and enjoyable for one. I think others have got the rest covered
Ok-Race-1677@reddit
Soccer is like a theater show where people fall to the ground for the cameras, not a real sport.
r2k398@reddit
I’m guessing because soccer is even more boring than baseball.
DigTheDunes@reddit
Soccer is a recent phenomenon here in the US (since the 80's)
pikkdogs@reddit
It’s not hard to be more popular than soccer.
Ernigirl@reddit
Listen to George Carlin’s bit Baseball vs Football. Hilariously true. Still holds up today.
FreeKevinBrown@reddit
Baseball
ZevVeli@reddit
It's honestly just that we're more exposed to it.
Part of it probably has to do with media. Since Baseball is a game with a lot more lulls between plays thwn most pther games, in shows and movies it's easier to have characters have dialogue and interactions between plays at a game, rather than soccer or American football where the main game itself has extended and intense plays.
AggressiveAd5592@reddit
It's television commercials (used to be radio). Baseball has a ton built in. Nine innings, two breaks per inning.
In basketball and American football the teams taking timeouts add a bunch. Four quarters plus six or seven timeouts. Plus in American football there are TV timeouts and (not to be dark) there are more serious injuries.
European soccer is two halves, not much time for commercials.
MasonStonewall@reddit
At least for me, exposure was based on my Dad and listening to San Francisco Giants games on the radio 📻 growing up, and weekend games occasionally on TV 📺, and playing Little League since the age of 8 or so.
The pace of life was slower then; no cell phone, no internet, and the pace of baseball felt alright - maybe not like back in the day before even the telephone though. 😁
One_Recover_673@reddit
Earlier this year the economist did a poll and it showed Soccer is the favorite sport of 10% of Americans and baseball is at 9%.
If you measure by attendance at pro games, baseball will have greater viewership than MLS.
More kids play soccer 26% than baseball 23%.
And total players, including adults? Soccer dwarfs baseball.
Keep in mind you only need a ball for soccer. It’s much easier to get started, cheaper for sure. Baseballs costs have skyrocketed…a lot of that driven by elite travel teams and unecessary accessories with promises of scholarships and glory
Dio_Yuji@reddit
It’s not. Not anymore
https://www.foxsports.com/articles/soccer/soccer-reportedly-overtakes-baseball-in-the-u-s-as-americas-third-favorite-sport