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Originally Posted by SuchFriendsAreDangerous
That is very interesting. That is how the NFL and particularly the NBA operates, its part of the national psyche, it sneaks into national broadcasts like TV news and newspapers, even people who don't follow basketball know who several of the biggest names are in the NBA and can recognize their faces. With NFL football people know about the biggest teams and their recent big games or big losses.
However, this is also in part because again, there are national games broadcasted every week. It surprises me that its not the case in the UK with futbol... There USED to even be all the road Laker games on over-the-air TV until two years ago, it was a Los Angeles staple, whenever there was a Laker road game you could walk into any corner store, restaurant, laundry mat, office waiting room, and see the game on. Its kind of how it became part of LA culture.. Its like that in the major markets across the country. With the NFL there are 4 over-the-air broadcast games on national TV every week, but mostly on Sunday. Also, on Saturdays ABC airs something from ESPN, be it golf, or X-Games, or futbol if there is a good match (they've been experimenting with some English Premier League games on Saturday mornings on ABC)... In other words.. sports aren't just restricted to a cable package, they are part and parcel of American TV..
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Unless you're actually attending games or watching it on Sky or at the pub, you only get a weekly highlights show and live coverage of the WC as well as some big games from other tournaments. Part of why the Prem has got so rich is that it's not free to air anywhere in the world. And because it relies so heavily on foreign players it has far broader international appeal than any of the other big leagues. But there's never been a lot of free football on English tv, although in the past that didn't matter because going to a game was once a relatively cheap option. To put it into context now, I have Sky so for about £50 a month I get pretty much all the football anyone could ask for, both domestically and from other foreign leagues, plus F1 and loads of other sports. That same £50 wouldn't get me into one actual West Ham game. So for those who can't afford Sky the only option is the pub - and even that's assuming you can afford British pub prices at the moment.
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I didn't you know you fancied auto-racing. Very interesting..
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Yeah massively into it. But I like most sports really. I've never really worked out why. It contradicts a lot of my own personality. I'm not a competitive person at all and find things like blind loyalty impossible. But I honestly think that in terms of pure drama, it's up there with anything anywhere. I don't think I've watched a film, or heard a record or seen a piece of art this year that I thought came close to rivaling this last WC. It had everything: beauty (Van Persie's header) outrage (Suarez) heroism (Mascherano), iconoclasm (Spain and Brazil), humility (Luiz consoling Rodriguez) brutality (Honduras), tragedy (Neymar) politics (the whole backdrop of national protests). And that's just football, in one month.