Americans and Sports


I remember being in a bar in midtown Manhattan in Oct 2001..Yankees v Mariners ALCS game 4 on the telly..the bar was canny full..loads of young’uns in..the Yankees won in the 9th innings..we were expecting the place to go up..nowt..the odd high five here and there..we were looking at each other saying ‘they did win didn’t they’..would’ve been bedlam over here.
Different sport but I was in a New York sports bar the day New York red bulls were playing New York City. Was expecting a git class atmosphere but no one was even watching it. Too busy watching the ball game.
 
So there’s no element of young bairns getting the bug for it and wanting to grow up to be their favourite player and play for “their” team?
There’ll be young’uns wanting to be like their favourite player but the draft system dictates where and who players play for.
 
I remember being in a bar in midtown Manhattan in Oct 2001..Yankees v Mariners ALCS game 4 on the telly..the bar was canny full..loads of young’uns in..the Yankees won in the 9th innings..we were expecting the place to go up..nowt..the odd high five here and there..we were looking at each other saying ‘they did win didn’t they’..would’ve been bedlam over here.
I was in a bar in NY one night - I can't remember what 'football' team it was but they had the badge outside to sort of designate the bar for the evening, and there was quite a few in upstairs all in colours (a burgundy colour, so it wasn't the Giants or owt). Game was on - fuckers barely seemed interested. Ower busy eating wings n nachos n that. Shite.
 
the way people get excited about march madness college basketball is similar to us when the euros or wc is on. a month of college basketball, multiple games every day, office sweepstakes etc.
 
Can any of our US friends discuss the issue of season tickets. Are they common over there? Are prices so prohibitive that you only go once a season, make a day of it with a tailgate party and obviously splash out at the mega store?
 
You can understand given these responses so far how some Americans would buy our clubs, just not get it all and happily go down the Super League route without a second thought.

(I think Ellis Short and his young son did get it mind so I don't want to over generalise.)

But you would think Abramovich, the Spanish and Italians would have more feeling.

I think its a case of the Americans thinking its a perfectly normal progression and the Europeans being a mixture of desperation, greed and probably corruption.
 
I couldn't even contemplate wearing another club or country's top. Why would ya?

The only other sports team I own something for is a couple of Yankees caps.

Aye - I was meaning more that kind of thing than Juve n Milan fans dotted about. :lol:

I went to a couple of bars in Little Italy and I can't remember now if I saw much football paraphernalia about or not.

It's just a top, I think I've got Werder, St Pauli and Napoli. I don’t want to embarass myself in a Sunderland top :oops:
 
American here. I agree that college football is the closest thing you'll find. Particularly in the South where schools like LSU (Louisiana State) and Georgia are significantly more popular than the Saints and Falcons. Alabama/Auburn are in a world of their own. I'd reckon if the stadium was large enough, they could have 200,000+ fans at every game. The people there are often not even alums of the school, but through family bonds or simple local tribalism live their entire sporting lives through the fortunes of their football team. In those parts, the schools have been around far longer than the NFL. Other than MLB which has a well established history as old as English football, college sports have been around much longer than the pro sports. Basketball has the same pull in Indiana, Kentucky and North Carolina but not really anywhere else. The NBA has won that battle since 1980.
One big reason it makes sense is that the players actively chose to attend the school. Leaving aside all of the sleaze that comes with recruiting 14-17 year old kids, it's reasonable to believe the guys you are cheering for want to be attending and representing your school. In American pro sports, you go where you are told via the draft until you qualify to be a free agent and even then the vast majority go to whoever offers the most money. Young players can get traded and have no say in the decision. Does some star athlete from Miami or LA really want to live in Detroit or Kansas City?
I'm well in to my 40s now so I can't speak for the current crop of kids, but I can definitely have any day of the week ruined by the baseball team I've supported my entire life (my day was in the shitter by noon yesterday, stupid early game) and most of my weekends since 1997 have been ruined by a club in a country I've only traveled to once in my life. But I know I'm a rare breed.
Who's that then?
It's just a top, I think I've got Werder, St Pauli and Napoli. I don’t want to embarass myself in a Sunderland top :oops:
Bizarre.
 
Can any of our US friends discuss the issue of season tickets. Are they common over there? Are prices so prohibitive that you only go once a season, make a day of it with a tailgate party and obviously splash out at the mega store?
They are very common. They are all but mandatory for the NFL and the better teams in the other sports. The better teams might hold back a handful of tickets for general sale, but they will be at the top of the stadium and still cost a fortune. I know in the Michael Jordan era, the Bulls season ticket waiting list was two to three times the actual capacity of the arena. Then he left and within a year the arena was lucky to be two-thirds full.

Now plenty of season tickets are gobbled up by corporations and ticket brokers, so it's often easy to find tickets on secondary markets, but it could cost you a fortune.
 
You can understand given these responses so far how some Americans would buy our clubs, just not get it all and happily go down the Super League route without a second thought.

(I think Ellis Short and his young son did get it mind so I don't want to over generalise.)

But you would think Abramovich, the Spanish and Italians would have more feeling.

I think its a case of the Americans thinking its a perfectly normal progression and the Europeans being a mixture of desperation, greed and probably corruption.
Yep. Pretty much the way I was expecting it to go, albeit with a few notable exceptions.

The whole thing's just not the same, but it's evident what they're driving at with a European 'NFL'.
 
Can any of our US friends discuss the issue of season tickets. Are they common over there? Are prices so prohibitive that you only go once a season, make a day of it with a tailgate party and obviously splash out at the mega store?
I don't know, but I think you're talking in the $1000s - face value for pre-season at Giants stadium a few years back was $100, so if you extrapolate that out across the season (presuming competitive games are more), I'd think you wouldn't be far off with 6 or 7 grand as an average (I'm sure the expensive ones are much higher)
 
Can any of our US friends discuss the issue of season tickets. Are they common over there? Are prices so prohibitive that you only go once a season, make a day of it with a tailgate party and obviously splash out at the mega store?
I looked at season ticket prices for NHL..... was rather shocked and that was around 1996
Around $3k up I think now
 
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Who's that then?
Chicago White Sox. I grew up in the small part of the Chicago area considered to be White Sox territory and not Cubs territory. There are a lot of similarities both on and off the field between Newcastle-Sunderland and Cubs-White Sox (north side-south side). Or at least there were until the Cubs finally won the World Series in 2016. I hate them.
 
I looked at season ticket prices for NHL..... was rather shocked and that was around 1996
Around $3k up I think now
To be fair they play 40 home games a season in the NHL! Would imagine it would be hard to attend them all so people probably share a ticket.
 
Is it still a thing that a legacy (ie a close relative of an alumnus) will get automatic entry to that college?
No, or certainly not at the more competitive schools. My ex brother-in-law and his wife (and my ex missus) all went to the same school, a very popular one, and they gave a lot of financial "gifts" over the years, which is strongly encouraged and seen as a way to increase the likelihood of getting your kids in. He also was heavily involved in the networking side, giving graduates a leg up, again which is strongly encouraged. They have 3 boys and the first one didn't get in a couple of years ago.
 

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