Comparing British and American sport

   The most dominant sport by far in the United States is ‘American’ football, the most dominant in the UK by far is ‘soccer’, only by virtue of the fact that sports like baseball, hockey and basketball get a fair bit of coverage in the States compared to rugby, cricket and boxing in the UK could I have the opinion that the dominant sport in the UK is bigger and more popular than in the States (though NFL runs from September to February and they play less than half the games compared to soccer in the UK). Though the English Premiership (top national soccer league) is the most profitable league in the world (not bad considering there are 229 international teams, each with a league of some sort), Forbes recently compiled the 50 most valuable sports teams http://blogs.forbes.com/kurtbadenhausen/2011/07/12/the-worlds-50-most-valuable-sports-teams/ where, although the former English champions were ranked no. 1 on the list ($1.86billion/£1.14billion), all 32 NFL (America’s American football league) had each of it’s 32 teams listed in the 50 compared to a total of 3 English ‘soccer’ teams and 7 ‘soccer’ clubs in total. This shows that as a sports league, the NFL is the most financially rich sports league in the world; amazing considering that about 95% of the global audience IS Americans!

   I recently went to see the Nashville Sounds baseball team, though I saw a handful of Sounds shirts, I also saw 2 Manchester United shirts (oddly, the only other English soccer team shirt I have seen is Derby County which was in a doughnut shop in Detroit), so this shows that the most valuable sports team sells merchandise all over the world, it made me smile. The most valuable NFL team is the Dallas Cowboys ($1.5billion/£0.91billion) though I can’t say I’ve ever seen someone wearing any of their merchandise.

I was lucky enough to spend a day at a county soccer tournament for children of various ages in Macon County, Tennessee and there is two huge differences between participation in the States and the UK, first is the amount of children joining in and wanting to play, in the UK at each age there would be a team, ie under 6, under 7, under 8, all the way up to under 16 or 18 and then an adult team and in most cases, there is more than one team at that age level and teams travel from across the area to play each other, at the event I went to, they have up to four teams but only at under 4, under 6, under 8, under 12 and under 18, a 13 year old would have to play against people 5 years older than them which means they can have less physical ability and lose interest. The other point is that they have mixed sex teams at all ages, I have never seen this before and an 18 year old boy tackling a 13 year old girl seems….wrong, though ultimately, the people that want to play, get the opportunity to play and that’s all that counts.

   There is a huge difference in crowds at sporting events between the two countries, at the baseball game I went to, it was a family event, husbands, wives and their children all went together, it was a pleasant atmosphere where if the home team hit a home run or caught someone out they cheered, if the opposition did, the home fans applauded. This is completely different to most sports games in the UK, go to watch a local game such as Arsenal and Tottenham Hotspur  (2 local teams from north London less than 4 miles apart) and you’ll hear every swearword you can imagine and a whole load of new ones, there will be anti-Semitic chants towards Tottenham due to links with the Jewish community and anti-French abuse aimed at Arsenal as they have a French manager and a handful of French players, last November I was in north London to attend a concert and arrived early, this was on the day of a match between these two and it was almost impossible to find a pub or bar that would let us in as we couldn’t show allegiance to either side, only ticket holders would be allowed to enter drinking establishments to avoid any confrontation and violence. Compared to a baseball game, the only confrontation would be fans wanting to buy the other fans a drink or congratulating them for their team’s performance.  This was a culture shock for me and I’d love to attend an NFL game to see if this is the same crowd that attends American football games or if It trends to a more male dominated arena (literally). The only difference I can think of is passion, though I can’t believe people could be more passionate that American fans, before any event, they play the national anthem, someone will hold the American flag and everyone stands with their left hand on their heart and sings along (I stand but feel a traitor if I was to copy the action and sing) and I have huge respect at that national pride and that shows the passion Americans have. Therefore I can’t give an excuse to the abuse heard in English football/soccer, it stems from a past of hooliganism and gangs that went purely to fight other fans, this was supposed to of been wiped out in the 90’s and I can only suggest the physical abuse has transferred to vocal abuse and still exists today. It would be interesting to take an MLS soccer fan to watch Manchester United play Liverpool (traditionally the biggest rivalry to England) and see what they made of it.

   Another American tradition is wrestling, not amateur like in the Olympics but the showmanship and spectacle like WWE/F, TNA or WCW. It seems most towns have a wrestling promotion locally as again, it’s a family tradition to go watch. The show we went to was run by SWA, a promotion based in Kentucky http://swawrestling.2ya.com/ who with roughly 75  people in attendance (mostly out back smoking or running after their children) put on a show where it was evident the grapplers in the ring where living their dreams, this has to be the epitome of the American dream (not a reference to Dusty Rhodes), working all week and on a Saturday night, they feel like kings as they wrestle. The quality of the wrestling isn’t what you’d see on TV but why would it be, these guys are amateurs and most likely not getting paid, I’d highly recommend it.