Official FIFA 2018 Russia World Cup

[Omaha 680]

Second biggest loser behind US Soccer in general after last night: Fox Sports. They paid a boat load of money to outbid ESPN for the 2018 World Cup rights in the US. Now they are going to get die hard fans only.

[BigPiney]

The problem in the US is the club system. Currently we have a "pay for play" development program. The spots where most of our pro athletes come from, inner cities, don't play soccer. They can't afford to play soccer. They don't have the environment supporting them to play soccer.

Listening to the Dan Patrick show...one guy called in from New Orleans. He has 2 kids in club/select soccer. It cost him minimum of $5,000 per year, per kid, to even be on a team. And then he put 350,000 miles on his Land Cruiser driving them to tournaments. Land Cruiser. That is an upper middle class family.

We have to have a cultural change to get more people access. College scouts and development teams don't go looking at the local AYSO to find people to develop.

I totally agree. Soccer is elitist. HS soccer is not very good, so it all comes from club teams. If you look at college recruiting, only one I have looked at is byu, they list the club they played for before the high school they played for.

Also it is the style of play that comes with club soccer. USSF is working on changing that. Having small sided games (no 11 v 11 with 6 year olds) and also encouraging play from the back of the field with the new build out line and no punts or drop kicks. New initiatives that have taken place in the last few years, that will take a long time before they filter up to the higher levels, but they have recognized that there is an issue and are trying to impediment things at the lowest levels to change things.

[Jeff Lebowski]

I'd like to join Frank and Bluek in blaming Trump for this disaster. Will the horror never end?

Might as well lump the demise of BYU football on him as well.

Poor Donald Trump!

[jay santos]

The problem in the US is the club system. Currently we have a "pay for play" development program. The spots where most of our pro athletes come from, inner cities, don't play soccer. They can't afford to play soccer. They don't have the environment supporting them to play soccer.

Listening to the Dan Patrick show...one guy called in from New Orleans. He has 2 kids in club/select soccer. It cost him minimum of $5,000 per year, per kid, to even be on a team. And then he put 350,000 miles on his Land Cruiser driving them to tournaments. Land Cruiser. That is an upper middle class family.

We have to have a cultural change to get more people access. College scouts and development teams don't go looking at the local AYSO to find people to develop.

When you look at our national team, it seems like half of them have international roots and would have become soccer players regardless of the club system. I don't see the club system developing much anything at all. All it does is force good athletes out of soccer by age 8.

Work on marketing soccer. Does anyone even know when Barcelona plays Real Madrid? Put American commentators on the game and add the graphics and replays and explanations to help the viewer along. Market the hell out of it. Americans will catch on. It's a great sport.

Build up city leagues. Build up high school programs. Get the pool of athletes where our professional athletes come from playing soccer past six years old. Then get them playing it past 12 years old. Then you'll get some players from it. Basketball also is a sport that requires a high level of skill. But we don't develop basketball players by creating a club system that costs $1,000+ per year starting at age 8 and push everyone else out of the sport. It happens organically because a lot of people love basketball.

[Color Me Badd Fan]

Second biggest loser behind US Soccer in general after last night: Fox Sports. They paid a boat load of money to outbid ESPN for the 2018 World Cup rights in the US. Now they are going to get die hard fans only.

26 million Americans watched the 2014 World Cup Final, though 9 million watched on Univision instead of whatever English language network showed it that year. I think they'll still get some ok ratings, but I think the time difference between Russia and the US poses an equally large ratings problem.

Supposedly the US/Mexico is likely getting the World Cup in 2026 and that will get huge ratings. Fox has the rights to that.

[Omaha 680]

Some chatter today about the US protesting Panama's phantom goal under an obscure CONCACAF rule. I hope they don't. That's a lot of bad publicity for something that has almost no chance of success.

[Pelado]

Pretty crazy that playing soccer in the US is so pricey. I would contend that one of the primary reasons it's so popular everywhere else is because it's so cheap. All you really need is a ball and a few rocks.

It's a lot cheaper than football or hockey. Even baseball has more equipment costs.

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[falafel]

Pretty crazy that playing soccer in the US is so pricey. I would contend that one of the primary reasons it's so popular everywhere else is because it's so cheap. All you really need is a ball and a few rocks.

It's a lot cheaper than football or hockey. Even baseball has more equipment costs.

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Its not actually that cheap. The kids who are good with the ball and the rocks are quickly discovered by the big teams and invited to join their academy programs, which then pay tons of money to train and educate them. So in other words, its still really expensive, its just the teams that are footing the bill in other countries, whereas in the US the parents are paying for it.

[The_Tick]

Its not actually that cheap. The kids who are good with the ball and the rocks are quickly discovered by the big teams and invited to join their academy programs, which then pay tons of money to train and educate them. So in other words, its still really expensive, its just the teams that are footing the bill in other countries, whereas in the US the parents are paying for it.

And it the US we can't do this, because of the NCAA and amateurism. If the kid has been "paid" to play the sport, and washes out of a club developmental program, he wouldn't qualify to play soccer in college.

[Commando]

Second biggest loser behind US Soccer in general after last night: Fox Sports. They paid a boat load of money to outbid ESPN for the 2018 World Cup rights in the US. Now they are going to get die hard fans only.

I'll probably watch. I'll admit it's like a million times more fun when your team is playing but

[falafel]

And it the US we can't do this, because of the NCAA and amateurism. If the kid has been "paid" to play the sport, and washes out of a club developmental program, he wouldn't qualify to play soccer in college.

Yep. And yet no one in this country gives a shit about men's college soccer.

[jay santos]

Its not actually that cheap. The kids who are good with the ball and the rocks are quickly discovered by the big teams and invited to join their academy programs, which then pay tons of money to train and educate them. So in other words, its still really expensive, its just the teams that are footing the bill in other countries, whereas in the US the parents are paying for it.

And yet we can develop a Chris Paul. I'm betting his parents weren't paying thousands a year to get him onto a basketball team when he was in elementary school.

[creekster]

And yet we can develop a Chris Paul. I'm betting his parents weren't paying thousands a year to get him onto a basketball team when he was in elementary school.

JAy aren't you involved in the AAU program? Around here that can be pretty competitive and people travel a long way sometimes to get their kid on a particular BB team.

[jay santos]

JAy aren't you involved in the AAU program? Around here that can be pretty competitive and people travel a long way sometimes to get their kid on a particular BB team.

Yes, and I know that can be expensive. But there are a variety of options for bb players to keep playing competitively, including no AAU at all. And the very best players are going to get identified from the free/lower cost competitive teams to join the travel teams with scholarship or reduced rate. My son played on a team that played 70 games in a year and practiced all year round and we probably paid less than $500 total. Actually it was less than $300, but that coach made a lot of extra effort to keep cost down that probably wasn't typical.

[falafel]

And yet we can develop a Chris Paul. I'm betting his parents weren't paying thousands a year to get him onto a basketball team when he was in elementary school.

JAy aren't you involved in the AAU program? Around here that can be pretty competitive and people travel a long way sometimes to get their kid on a particular BB team.

Yeah, I was going to say something similar. I don't know what teams Chris Paul played on growing up, but I don't it was just rec league ball (Junior Hornets?), high school, Wake, NBA. Who knows, maybe Nike or Adidas were paying his family along the way.