I wouldn't mind the country being big into rugby

Yeah they should get into rugby.

By sport, you mean "sports," right?

That sentence is America in a nutshell. Rugby, European football, and other European things will never take hold.

Baseball hasn't been hurt by strikes. Its actually the *least* labor contentious sport over the past two decades. Steroids, as much as they hurt the integrity of the game, still boosted ratings and popularity. Baseball's problem is that its viewers are getting older - the average age for World Series viewers has steadily increased since the strike. Eventually it will become the sport of old men.

Football is a bubble just waiting to burst. Between raping cities for tax benefits and free money to build stadiums, the inherent dangers of the sport, and the ever present threat of moving every franchise to Los Angeles, football's popularity will inevitably peak, probably around the same time that Sportscenter ratings start to drop (which they are) and ESPN loses its monopoly on sports news.

DYK ESPN could have paid for and broadcast the next decade of the EPL for what it costs to show one MNF game. True story.

Basketball and soccer are the future of American sports, whether you like it or not. Watch an MLS game between Seattle and Portland and tell me that people do not care about soccer in the US. Basketball is already becoming nearly as globalized as soccer and ten times as popular and lucrative.

Football's reign as most popular will end soon.

Rugby is still better than all of these things, give it a try.

Yes, it is, but good luck changing a culture.

No I don't mean sports, I mean sport.

That's a Avery interesting point about the premier league tgat I did not know. Interesting.

This is a classic example of American sportS********

http://puu.sh/4Yib0.png

Football really isn't a great spectator sport. There's actually less action n in a game than even baseball.

Why judge a sport like that? You don't have to like every sport, but obviously there are people that like every sport, including golf and curling and triathlon and whatever boring-as-hell events there are. Just accept that and stop arguing about which is better.

I recently started playing rugby and I played American football for a number of years as a child and as a young adult.

Rugby is really a purer form of American football if you think about it. In fact, 15-man rugby is closer to turn-of-the-century American football than modern American football is. Pads, initially intended to increase the safety of football, have become so advanced that they now make the sport dangerous. There are no negative consequences for leading with the head in American football. In rugby, there are negative consequences for leading with your unprotected head.

I hope rugby and MMA displace American football as the king sport, and I think they have the potential. I view MMA as the spiritual successor to 1920s-1950s era boxing (the number one American sport during that time period). Boxing got ruined by corruption and by overrated loudmouth thugs like Cassius Clay. The final blow to pro boxing was the reduction of fights from 15 rounds to 12 rounds, for TV of all things! I'm sorry, but if you're a champion boxer, you better be able to fight for *at least* 15 rounds.

Basketball is a fucking stupid pansy sport for talentless thugs and soccer is a fucking stupid pansy sport for pansies and I pray that neither sport catches on in America.

Football isn't a great spectator sport? lol Wow...the things people say. I'm going to take that comment as a confession by Lando that he really doesn't understand What is going on on the field, and can’t watch/understand how a play develops, etc….just a big mix of people, probably, thus no fun to watch. For not being a great spectator sport, sure as hell get’s a lot of viewers.

"Football is a bubble just waiting to burst. Between raping cities for tax benefits and free money to build stadiums, the inherent dangers of the sport, and the ever present threat of moving every franchise to Los Angeles, football's popularity will inevitably peak,"

Absurd comment more focused on the Liberal media agenda than anything to do with the fan base. Pathetic...

@GF Why do you say that soccer is a pansy sport for talentless thugs? Go watch some European soccer and tell me that. I actually prefer soccer to football myself, but I think that's because people played it more where I grew up.

American football will be fine.

Re: health risks -- Richard Sherman has the take I do, but it's a lot more convincing because it's coming from someone who's directly putting himself at risk. http://mmqb.si.com/2013/10/23/richard-sherman-seahawks-concussions-in-the-nfl/

Football is the *worst* to watch live. Kickoff...commercial...incompletion...run...run...punt...injury...commercial...challenge...timeout...hey a touchdown!...lets have some more commercials...

Watching a live football game is basically watching grass grow, since the majority of the time you're just watching players stand around waiting for commercials to finish.

Agreed. It's getting really obnoxious to go to the games now, which is a damn shame because gamedays at LSU are typically crazy fun.

I've tailgated Vandy games a few times this year and its awesome. But the game itself is such a waste of time. Same with NFL games. Redzone is where its at.

Agreed completely.

It's true that TV is partly ruining the enjoyment of attendance, but football is still a great sport to watch live. There's so many different things going on that the TV just can't show you: how the offensive line is doing against the defense, how defensive backs are lining up, how the defense is reacting to shifts in the offense, etc etc. This doesn't even mention the enjoyment of tailgating etc. TV is a problem, but (especially for college sports) it's more a symptom of the commercialization of sports that is best exemplified by constantly raising ticket prices, parking costs, etc etc.

Despite its considerable problems, football remains and likely will remain America's most popular sport. It's got something for everybody: high-level strategy, back-and-forth action, extreme violence, a combination of team and individual performance, enough breaks to go to the bathroom.

Gunfighter, saying that Muhammad Ali is overrated is going on my list of things you say that make no sense, like calling yourself a libertarian but speaking admiringly of people like James Polk or Vladimir Putin.

@ Celticfox

Actually, I said basketball is a pansy sport for talentless thugs. I said soccer is "fucking stupid pansy sport for pansies". Soccer players are neither thugs nor talentless but they are in fact pansies. The amount of flopping in every soccer league every is proof of this. Hell, a moderate breeze crosses the pitch and everyone collapses in agony. I know that's hyperbole, but it's not far from the truth.

Full contact sports are the only real sports. Soccer is not even close to as tough as rugby, MMA, boxing (either amateur or pro), or ice hockey.

@ ckroberts

"Gunfighter, saying that Muhammad Ali is overrated is going on my list of things you say that make no sense, like calling yourself a libertarian but speaking admiringly of people like James Polk or Vladimir Putin."

I admire James K. Polk because he led the most effective, most rewarding, and most well-executed war in American history, and he did it in response to a direct attack on American soil. That's not incompatible with a libertarian-sympathetic political stance. Ron Paul, Gary Johnson, and Jesse Ventura would have marched straight to Mexico City too if they had been president in 1846.

I admire Putin's badass personality and his willingness to stand up to America's child emperor (Obama). I'm not a huge fan of Putin's internal policies, for the record.

As for Cassius Clay, he is indeed the most overrated fighter ever. Any champion from any other previous era would kick Clay's ass. Real champions like Gene Tunney, Jack Dempsey, James Braddock, Max Baer, Joe Louis, and Rocky Marciano all would have floored Clay easily. Clay is an arrogant felon and an overrated thug. I have no sympathy for him; he deserves to live with a mush brain after pulling his idiotic "rope-a-dope" stunts.

Toughness doesn't make anything a sport, nor does lack thereof make it a non-sporting event.

"Actually, I said basketball is a pansy sport for talentless thugs."

Wtf? Pro basketball is a fucking children's choir compared to pro football, and elite talent is elite talent

Call it pansy if you want (I disagree, though the modern NBA needs to crack down on flopping), but a sport for talentless thugs = fucking lol

Gunfighter's favorite game is hunting man.

Basketball is a fun game to play, but as a spectator sport it is pretty dire. Most American sports share this quality, now that I think about it. American football is watchable, but only in the same sense as test match cricket. You wouldn't want to just watch a game as there are far too many periods where sod all is happening, but as a backdrop to catching up with a group of mates it works rather well.

Woahwoahwoah 2WL, use your commas correctly.
(unless Gunfighter really does like to hunt humans)
Also, I feel that many people don't really root for basketball teams, they root more for the individual players (I know a ton of former Cavs fans who now are really into the Heat, b/c of Lebron)
Also on the note of flopping soccer pansies, I may have already posted this, but I feel it's worth the risk of a repost:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=of50I4M5Fh0

He meant to leave that comma out...

My punctuation is always correct;

Must be blankflag's multi #2.

(Jmo, it's called sarcasm.)

Not funny

@ bo_sox48

If it's not a full contact sport, it's not a sport. At that point, it's merely a game, a contest, or an amusement. I'm sorry, but you simply can't put basketball or soccer in the same group as rugby or ice hockey.

@ PE

American football is also for thugs, but at least they aren't talentless or pansies.

Lol Gunfighter... sorry, no.

I wouldn't say football is a "bubble" ready yo burst, but I do think it's very probably unsustainable. Like I've said elsewhere, all it would take to smother the sport is for concussion lawsuits to make high schools cut the programs. That's not such a crazy scenario. Without the base of new athletes football would steadily dry up and disappear as we currently know it.

I really, really hope this doesn't happen. But, you know, this concussion thing is a real issue for football. It's not impossible that lawyers will make it too hard to keep things going.

I've played a lot of hockey in my time, a lot less basketball. However, to say that basketball is not a contact sport is to misrepresent it entirely. It is not "full contact" but neither is hockey or rugby. Hockey disallows hits from behind, while rugby disallows hitting the shoulders or above.

A saying that I've heard with respect to rugby/soccer - Soccer is a bunch of thugs playing a gentleman's sport while rugby is a bunch of gentleman playing a thug's sport.

Rugby remains the best sport. Freestyle wrestling is a close second.

I'm just going to leave this Zlatan goal here:

http://img.gawkerassets.com/img/1944eo0iu6y1xgif/original.gif

Fuck you its not a "sport". I feel sorry for Gunfighter's adolescent attitudes towards what constitutes a sport. The last time I heard soccer called a game for pansies, I was in elementary school. Most people outgrow it around high school.

I agree, although there is fair criticism in the overly "floppy" way the game is played.

Football, basketball, soccer, and even on occasion hockey have flops (though hockey is certainly much less common than the rest). Not quite sure how one could flop in baseball.

gunfighter your definitions seem excessively arbitrary and/or outside of conventional understanding of the meaning of 'sport,' so I'm not really sure how anyone is supposed to evaluate your claim

Gunfighter06 - "Clay is an arrogant felon and an overrated thug."

Arrogant - he definitely was in his day. He may still be, but I'd bet Parkinson's has humbled him a bit.

Overrated - that is subjective.

Felon and thug - can you show me that Ali was ever in a gang, ever committed violence against anyone outside a boxing ring, was ever engaged in any criminal activity outside of being a conscientious objector? Because most reasonable people would view that "crime" somewhat differently than assault, robbery, rape, murder, etc.

If you can not, I must assume that what you really meant is that he was/is an uppity negro. Just like the President, amirite?

Gunfighter's personal politics are clearly affecting his view of Ali. Ali was a conscientious objector but hardly a "felon" and "thug".

@ Hazel-Rah

"Overrated" is not subjective. Watch a fight film of Gene Tunney, Rocky Marciano, or Jack Dempsey and tell me that Clay could beat any of those three, assuming all fighters are in their prime.

Tunney vs. Clay - Both fighters are traditional "out" fighters aka boxers, so the advantage will go to the fighter who is more technically skilled and "smarter" in the ring. Tunney was undefeated as a heavyweight and was never knocked out (and only knocked down once) during his entire career (which was during the toughest era of boxing, no less). Tunney was a smart, thinking fighter who could avoid blows and counterpunch like no one else. It would probably go the distance but Tunney dominates Clay to a UD in any realistic scenario.

Marciano vs. Clay - Marciano swarms Clay and hits him harder than anyone Clay ever fought. Clay struggles to keep Marciano at bay, negating Clay's reach advantage. Marciano wins by KO or TKO in an early round.

Dempsey vs. Clay - Dempsey overwhelms Clay with sheer power in the first round, resulting in a knockout. If Clay attempts his "rope-a-dope" the fight will go on for much longer but Clay won't be able to keep up with Dempsey's conditioning in the later rounds. People say that Tyson had bricks for fists, but Dempsey had goddamned anvils for fists.

"conscientious objector? Because most reasonable people would view that "crime" somewhat differently than assault, robbery, rape, murder, etc."

Conscientious objector my ass. He didn't go because he thought he was too good for the military. It's a travesty of justice that he was never seriously prosecuted for draft evasion or treason. They went way too easy on him by just stripping his title.

After all, Tunney went. Dempsey went (albeit a little late lol). Marciano went.

There's a big difference between an arrogant douchebag like Clay and a person with a legitimate religious objection to war like a Quaker

I think once the football bubble bursts, nothing will really take its place. Because the TV bubble will also burst, much like newspapers. People get all their shows from things like netflix and are watching less regular tv. Without regular tv everybody will branch out into their respective niches with nothing being dominant, much like how the death of the newspaper and network news has led to everybody getting their news from different sources.

Spectator sports as big business has a bleak future.

Dempsey was 190 lbs at his peak. Ali had at least 25 lbs on him. It wouldn't be fair - Ali would run circles around him without breaking a sweat.

http://sports.espn.go.com/sports/boxing/news/story?id=3535766

While MLS is doing well, I kind of hope that football (never soccer, you actually kick the ball with your foot) never gets to the same level of popularity as the NBA, NHL, MLB or NFL - because if the US starts taking it seriously, they'll get really good.

Gunfighter, being an arrogant douchebag and having a legitimate religious objection to war are not necessarily mutually exclusive positions.

And sadly, I can only take your refuting all my points but the "thug" remark as tacit confirmation that you were indeed using it as code word for "nigger."

@ Hazel_Rah

Oh, yeah. I suppose *I'm* the racist for my harsh critique of Clay's career just because Clay is black. For the record, I think Joe Louis would clobber Clay too. I think Louis is one of the greatest boxers of all time. I would pay good money to see a fight between Louis and any of the champions that I listed above. Go play the race card somewhere else after you do your own research about Clay.

@ 2WL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XN8I4UVO-I

Dempsey could take on bigger fighters. Granted, Jess Willard is very technically deficient compared to Clay, but I don't think Dempsey would be at much of a disadvantage due to weight.

@ Putin33

"Spectator sports as big business has a bleak future."

Your assessment is correct in my opinion. I only hope that real issues fill the hole of America's profound obsession with professional sports. Our dependence on sports is making us dumb and uninformed.