It's hard to believe that I started this blog over a year ago (June 17th, 2013). This will be my 43rd and final post. Let me begin by saying THANK YOU for reading and giving me encouragement along the way.
I've lost count at this point, but I believe as of the time I'm writing this post I have watched at least: 30 full Premier League matches, 15 World Cup matches, and 1 Major League Soccer match. Perhaps to my non-American readers these statistics are underwhelming, however it's worth noting that when I came up with the idea to write Dragon and Bluebird, I had never watched a single match in its entirety.
But to merely watch a full soccer match was not the purpose of this blog. The purpose was to determine if an average American sports fan could actually enjoy "the beautiful game". Those of you who have been reading my posts all year will know that by mid-season I already answered the question with a resounding "yes!" Although, I don't think any portion of the Bluebirds season could be described as "beautiful".
Before anyone questions my sanity or patriotism, let me say for the record that American football is still my favorite sport to watch. But like most Americans, I follow more than one sport and soccer has grown to be my second favorite.
I don't intend to use this blog to convince anyone to love the sport. But perhaps by reading about my year with Cardiff City and now sharing what I've found enjoyable I might convince you to give it an honest chance and then you can form your own opinion.
If I had to sum up what I like about soccer in three words they would be: tension, Saturdays, and community.
Tension - Soccer is a low-scoring sport. This was actually one of the reasons I (and most Americans) never bothered to watch it. I am so accustomed to watching American football where your team will rack up anywhere from 15.4 to 36.4 points per game on average (2013 NFL stats). In contrast, the average soccer match will see a club scoring between 0.74 to 2.68 goals per match (2013 Premer League stats). But the interesting side effect of a low-scoring sport is that a single scoring play is far more likely to determine the outcome of the entire event. And in the larger narrative, there is always the threat of relegation looming. So every goal really does have meaning in the Premier League. This made the sport more exciting to me, in it's own way, than American football.
Saturdays - I live on the American east coast, so Premier League matches are typically aired at 10am on Saturdays in my time zone. I was pleasantly suprised by how much I enjoyed my Premier League routine. I would eat breakfast and watch pre-match coverage. Coffee and blogging during the match. And then done by noon with a whole day ahead of me. If I wanted to, I probably could have gone into Boston to watch matches at one of the soccer pubs. But at 33 I'm far too old for morning boozefests.
Community - The one aspect of soccer that had the greatest impact on changing my feelings was the community surrounding the club. I am not Welsh, I do not live in Wales, and I never attended a single match. Yet when I chose Cardiff City as my Premier League club, I was welcomed by their supporters immediately. I immersed myself in Twitter, blogs, podcasts, fantasy sites, and YouTube shows. After a while, I started to feel less like I was a fan of team and more like I was a part of the club community. In some sense, I was reminded of the feeling I have at Villanova Basketball games (my undergraduate college). It's a far more engrossing sensation than I have when watching the Philadelphia Eagles (my NFL team) for instance.
In the interest of journalistic integrity, I can't rightly tell you what I've come to like about soccer without acknowledging a few things that I still think are bad about the sport. If I had to sum up the bad aspects of soccer in three words they would be: stoppage, flopping, and draws.
Stoppage - This is maddening. The underlying theme of soccer is flow. The clock never stops, the ball is almost always in motion. Offense becomes defense, defense becomes offense. That's all well and good but a side effect of this philosophy is that events that would stop the clock in any other sport do not stop the clock in soccer. Instead, the head referee adds a completely subjective amount of time to the end of each half to account for time wasted, injuries, etc. The amount of stoppage time is a complete shock to everyone and honestly I started to develop some paranoia about whether or not the matches were being tinkered with.
Flopping - There are a LOT of shenanigans that take place on the field during a soccer match. Pushing, shoving, tripping, and worst of all flopping. I cannot tell you how many times I saw a player get gently brushed by the shoulder of another player and then collapse in pain as if he had received a gunshot wound to the stomach. This is almost always followed by 30 seconds of over-dramatized writhing and then a quick one-eyed peek to see if the ref is buying your performance. It's disgusting, and distracts from players who are legitimately injured. There's allegedly a post-match review by FIFA to try to catch the worst offenders, but I rarely saw justice served.
Draws - You knew this was coming. There is no reason on Earth for a competition to end in a draw. Fans contribute time and money to see a winner and a loser. Nobody wants to sit for 90+ minutes only to end in two teams saying "ah well we both did our best and let's call it a day". Ridiculous. I want a result dammit! And no, after a year of watching soccer I am especially still not ok with 0-0 draws.
But the positives far outweigh the negatives. I found that this sport was worth taking for a spin, and I wasn't alone. Premier League viewership DOUBLED in America between the 2012/13 and 2013/14 seasons. This was almost exclusively due to NBC taking a leap of faith and heavily investing themselves in promoting the sport. To give you some context, here are the average regular season TV viewership stats in the US last season:
- NFL: 17.6M
- MLB: 2.4M
- NBA: 2.0M
- NHL: 0.5M
- PL: 0.44M
You can spin these numbers however you like, but don't be shocked if this time next year Premier League surpasses NHL in TV viewership.
By the way, the single most-viewed match in America of the 2013/14 Premier League season was...you guessed it: Cardiff City's victory over Swansea City on February 8th (1.24M viewers).
So I like the Premier League, and almost as many Americans like Premier League as like the NHL. But do American's like soccer now? Let's look at some World Cup US TV viewership stats:
US-Ghana (Monday, June 16th, 6pm EST)
- 16.4M viewers = 11.1M (ESPN) + 4.8M (Univision) + 0.5M (WatchESPN app)
- Third most-viewed World Cup match on ESPN of all time
US-Portugal (Sunday, June 22nd, 6pm EST)
- 26M viewers = 18.2M (ESPN) + 6.5M (Univision) + 1.3M (WatchESPN app)
- Most-viewed soccer match on any US network of all time
US-Germany (Thursday, June 26th, 12pm EST)
- 15.9M viewers = 10.8M (ESPN) + 3.4M (Univision) + 1.7M (WatchESPN app)
- Fourth most-viewed World Cup match on ESPN of all time
US-Belgium (Tuesday, July 1st, 4pm EST)
- 25.1M viewers = 16.5M (ESPN) + 5.1M (Univision) + 3.5M (WatchESPN app)
- Second most-viewed World Cup match on ESPN of all time
Fine, fine. So Americans like to watch Americans in the World Cup, but do we like the World Cup in general? Yes. Over the first 60 matches of the World Cup, US average TV viewership on ESPN increased 42% over the 2010 World Cup (does not include WatchESPN app stats).
And on Univision, over the first 60 matches of the World Cup, US average TV viewership increased 38% over the 2010 World Cup.
Again for context, here are the average 2013/14 post-season TV viewership stats in America:
- NFL playoffs: 111.5M
- US-Portugal match: 26M
- US-Belgium match: 25.1M
- US-Ghana match: 16.4M
- US-Germany match: 15.9M
- NBA playoffs: 15.5M
- MLB playoffs: 14.9M
- NHL playoffs: 5.0M
So Americans like the Premier League and their national team, but what about their domestic league? Ehhhhh, not so much. MLS regular season attendance figures are on par with those of NBA and NHL, but MLS regular season viewership is pretty bad...
- 0.22M ESPN/ESPN2
- 0.13M NBCSports
Why is viewership of MLS so low, when Premier League and World Cup viewership is so high? The answer is pretty obvious. MLB, NBA, NFL, and NHL are inarguably the highest-quality leagues in the world in their respective sports. MLS however is a popular, but unfortunately inferior product.
Ranking domestic soccer leagues is a contentious topic, but Sounder at Heart blogger Dave Clark (@bedirthan) attempted to do just that. According to Clark's rating system, this is how MLS stacks up against the leagues of the world:
So Americans will happily watch soccer, but it's a tall order to ask them to love the 12th best league in the world. If you want to read more about Clark's rating system, you can find his full article here...
http://www.sounderatheart.com/2014/6/5/5782894/mls-gains-ground-in-league-rankings
My prediction is that the explosive increase in World Cup viewership will lead to another season of significant increase in US Premier League viewership. MLS I suspect will only receive a marginal bump.
If you're still reading at this point, you're either already a Bluebirds fan or perhaps curious to find a club of your own to support in the upcoming Premier League season. It's a daunting task, but you have until mid-August to decide. Here are the 2014/15 Premier League clubs:
- Arsenal
- Aston Villa
- Burnley
- Chelsea
- Crystal Palace
- Everton
- Hull City
- Leicester City
- Liverpool
- Manchester City
- Manchester United
- Newcastle United
- Queens Park Rangers
- Southampton
- Stoke City
- Sunderland
- Swansea City
- Tottenham Hotspur
- West Bromwich Albion
- West Ham United
If Cardiff City were still in the Premier League, I'd whole-heartedly recommend you join me in supporting them. Alas, they've been relegated. So who should you pick for your club? Let's see if I can help.
You had/have family or have friends in England or Wales
Look up where each club is based and see if you have some prior allegiance to that city.
You really want to visit London some day
The London clubs are: Arsenal, Chelsea, Crystal Palace, Queens Park Rangers, Tottenham Hotspur, and West Ham United.
You only care about offense
Pick Liverpool or Manchester City.
You don't want anyone to accuse you of being a bandwagon jumper
Avoid Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Chelsea, and probably Arsenal.
You want a club that actually could win the championship
Pick one of the clubs in the potential bandwagon jumper category.
You want a club that has never been relegated
Pick Arsenal, Aston Villa, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, Manchester United, Stoke City (this is 7th season), Swansea City (this is 4th season), or Tottenham Hotspur.
You want a newly-promoted club
The three freshmen in the League are Burnley (this is 2nd season in EPL), Leicester City (9th season in EPL), QPR (7th season in EPL).
You must have a jersey that's actually wearable
Go with either Manchester City or Tottenham Hotspur. I actually spent some time looking into this question. Here is my opinion on all the jerseys for 2014/15 season:
- Best: Manchester City and Tottenham Hotspur
- Boring but wearable: Chelsea, Liverpool, Newcastle United, Arsenal, Everton, Leicester City, and Southampton
- Not wearable: Stoke City, Crystal Palace, Aston Villa, Burnley, Hull City, Manchester United, Queens Park Rangers, Swansea City, Sunderland, West Bromwich Albion, West Ham United
You want a club with at least one American player
The obvious choice here would be to pick Everton (Tim Howard). But there are a few other clubs to choose from as well...
- Aston Villa (Guzan)
- Stoke City (Cameron, Edu, Shea),
- Sunderland (Altidore)
- Tottenham Hotspur (Friedel)
You're still stuck and just want a recommendation
When I was picking a club, I went with one of the new promotees. Even though Cardiff City got relegated, I don't regret that decision. So if I were you, I would go with Leicester City. No one will call you a bandwagon jumper, they have the best odds of survival of the three freshmen clubs, they have a good nickname (Foxes), a wearable jersey, and a good badge...
Regardless of which club you pick, try to get some friends to watch Premier League with you. Find your club's podcast and participate in club social media. Give a shot at Fantasy Premier League. But most importantly, keep an open mind. Watching soccer is an adjustment for most American sports fans and it might take a few matches for you to warm up to the game.
I hope you've enjoyed this blog. In some small way, I feel like I've contributed to the momentum the sport is gaining in this country. If nothing else, I've connected some US Bluebirds fans to each other and to the larger Cardiff City community.
Many people have asked if I'll continue to support Cardiff City now that this blog is done. Yes, I will. I've joined the Cardiff City Supporters Trust and I'll watch the matches as often as is practical. When the Bluebirds make it back into the Premier League, there will be an American fan base to cheer for them...and I'll be there too.
Thanks for reading. Go Bluebirds!
