England Footy

[hopeless]

Its great the way them little Vodafone and 02 logos dont hold up play by 10 hours

[lampard10]

"No,. Since this is a British dominated website,

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And there was me thinking this was a British dominated World

[DrJohn]

, it is hard for one team to just buy the best players and repeat as champions year in, year out, a la Chelsea.

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Chelsea have been champions for how long!??

we will have to wait and see

[DrJohn]

[(At least we haven't resorted to putting the advertisers names on the jerseys,

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I think there would be enough room, the size of some of them. Bottom right hand corner, just after the complete works of Shakespeare.

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yes, they do seem rather puffed up

[lomatopo]

Well, America has had its moments in the Global football arena. They won one game in the 1950 FIFA World Cup. Now who did they beat?

I do realize Chelsea has only won the single Barclay's Premier League championship one year running. (I do confess by being confused by all the 'championships', league, FA, Carling, UEFA, European, etc., but I am trying to learn.) I was merely echoing the laments I hear daily on the broadcasts about Chelsea's purchasing power being the ruin of the game, and comparing that to relative parity in our own National Football League. (Note that we don't call it the "Coca-Cola National Football League, yet.)

I also realize the NFL players are big, and getting bigger. Are Rugby players staying the same size? Getting smaller? Some of those guys I saw in the recent England v. Australia match looked pretty massive? (Yes, I do realize they do not wear helmets or have padding.) One thing that is truly amazing is that while NFL players are big, they are amazingly fast. One key measurement when evaluationg talent is the speed at which a player can run 40 yards, and they are maximums above which any player would be hard pressed to make a team.

I agree that some forms of sponsorhip are more appropriate for a given sport based on the flow of that particluar sport. The end-to-end, nearly non-stop (except when players take a dive, fake an injury and then are up running again at full speed in 60 seconds) of football clearly requires a different form of advertising and sponsorship. Uniforms, on-fields projections, scrolling banners all generate revenue in a less obtrusive manner than would a stoppage for TV advertising. I am not sure about the other professional sports leagues in the U.K. so cannot comment on their methods of gaining additional revenue? One of our professional sports, ice hockey, is similar in flow to football. Three periods of 20 minutes each with the same type of nearly non-stop flow (substitutes take place on the fly, frequently). As such it has had to grapple how to incorporate advertising, and packaging the game for TV, which it has found challenging. Of course the National Hockey League has other issues to deal with, lack of a large TV contract, labor issues and a general decline in popularity. Our other major professional sports, baseball and basketball lend themsleves to TV advertising with frequent breaks. Now if you want to see something nearly interminable, try watching the end of a close NBA game, with timeout after timeout.

Soccer has always been popular in America, although maybe confined to certain regions. There is no doubt that it is growing in popularity, but more as a particpatory sport than a professional one. I may be wrong but I am pretty sure more people play soccer than football in America? Further I have no doubt that there will be more quality American players on the world stage. Recent immigrants and first-generation Americans have brought ther passion for the game with them, assuring a pool of quality players to complement the exisitng one. However, without a vibrant and successful native professional league, which arguably the MSL is not, players will have to play in professional leagues in Europe and elsewhere to gain the necessary experience to succeed in the World Cup.

[redrus]

One question, instead of trying to change the name of the rest of the worlds game, Football, why couldn't the septics have just called their own game by their own made up name ...?! eg: American Soccer.

redrus

[lomatopo]

One question, instead of trying to change the name of the rest of the worlds game, Football, why couldn't the septics have just called their own game by their own made up name ...?!  eg: American Soccer.

redrus

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Are you calling me a septic?

Point understood...

I have no desire to change the name of the "rest of the worlds game". In any of those rare discussions involving both American Football and Football (footy) I should use those terms, but many may get confused when I talk about footy being played in America so I default to soccer, a word which everyone, including yourself, seems to understand. "American soccer" is a good suggestion if only a bit redundant?