10-22-2015, 11:35 AM
(10-17-2015, 12:14 PM)mano de dios Wrote: (I didn't really know where to put this thread. Feel free to move it if it fits somewhere else)
First off: I know I hardly ever posted around here and there is something like the 50-post-rule, but I didn't want to post random chatter and on the other hand I'm a frequent reader to this and the old board. Furthermore I already wanted to start this series of threads during the offseason, but never got to it. So I hope it's ok to discuss this:
Being myself from Germany I think there are a lot of differences for Europeans in their approach to loving football. How they get to know it, how they find their team, how they follow what happens. I think that my experiences are somewhat typical for Football lovers outside the US.
What I want to discuss is how the guys from this side of the pond experience this difference and what the Americans think about this.
With that said, hey ho, let's go:
Being a fan - the European perspective. Part I: Getting to know and love the game
Being a kid of the eighties my first contact with this sports came through a sundays weekly sports show which - from time to time - had a little feature about americans sports, presented by a guy with the interesting name of Ben Wett and a thick american accent. So I heard about a guy called Joe Montana who threw a strange-looking Ball through the Californian winter sun. As everybody I was - and still am of course - into soccer, so I didn't care much, but was really intrigued by the stadiums and the crowds.
Everything changed for me with the invention of the World League (WLOF) in 1991 and the TV-coverage of it. But still it was a very small niche and that's my point here:
Growing up here was - and still is - in an environment without hardly any mainstream media coverage of the sport. You only find something if You're already interested in it. If You were or are a 12-year-old kid You don't know and learn anything about it.
So football has for me some kind of exotic mysticism. Even so I watch my Bengals and the Redzone Channel every sunday, follow online media every day, I still feel some kind of fairytale fascination towards it (well, especially this season so far, but that's something different), because it's something out of the world I live in. I am pretty sure, that kind of feeling doesn't aply for people growing up in the US.
What derives from this fascination ist that I really like to watch almost every game, even it's one between really boring teams with no Bengals-implications i.e. Titans vs. Jags or whatever. I am home at night and have access to Akron vs. Iowa? Put it on! This is different for me with soccer: I love that game, but soccer is everywhere around me. I don't watch a 2nd league matchup between boring teams.
This leads me to some kind of a thesis - and correct me, if I am wrong:
I think people with a background like this (and I am sure I am more the rule than an exception for European football fans) appreciate the GAME more than the American fans, because we're not surrounded by it 24/7.
But maybe I am pompous and after all the game of Football is just more interesting than soccer...
loving football is much more than just loving your team... if we could have it year round we probly would but its to much on the players.
Btw welcome to the Bengals Nation... What led you to pick the bengals as your team?
I can watch all the games i dont feel a need to but i generally will check out the scores of games even if i have no interest in them... Fantasy football though changes how you care about every team imo. you have to learn so much about every team its players and how they are trending to be successful to the point you are watching the draft looking for potential sleepers lol.
But i think in the States sports like Soccer (futbol) dont get enough media coverage Heck i even have hard times finding hockey games on TV. And baseball our national pasttime so they say is usually on par with golf for putting me to sleep.
