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I don't think the US is isolated from international competition, however, our main interests occur during Olympic years. That may have decreased quite a bit during the post-Soviet era. While the USSR was still a factor, the Olympics were a stage on which the Eastern Bloc nations would compete with the Western world to determine whose political system was superior. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, that became less incentive, but still the Olympics draw viewers to watch the sports in which they competed in High School, but don't want to invest a day watching live.
During the same 1980s timeframe, the rise of Cable TV into urban and suburban households in the US brought more widespread TV coverage of College Football and Basketball. Where College Football was limited to regional coverage of two or three games on Saturdays, and only on one network, many more channels* opened to bring coverage beginning at noon Eastern time and ending at 11PM Pacific, unless Hawaii was playing at home, which meant all-night football for the Eastern and Central time zones. Now the Pac-12, SEC, and Big however-many-it is have their own networks. The Pac-12 also plays Thursdays and the MAC plays Tuesday-Wednesday games. College Basketball can be found on any day, as can the NBA. Many Americans identify with a professional team in at least one sport, and also a college team in the same sport. With all that, the appetite for international events short of the Olympic games declines.
As far as soccer, there are about 4 million active youth soccer players in the US. At this point, we can probably guess that 25% or more of adult Americans have played the game on an organized level. Over 500 colleges have teams (men and women), and an estimated 800,000 play for their high school. The school programs are outside of the realm of the official body of US Soccer. Also many adult leagues play unaffiliated to save expense. They instead play on teams run by a City Parks and Recreation department. Overall, we are estimated to have about 24,000,000 active players. However, that doesn't always translate into watching the sport. Soccer, track and field, gymnastics, and swimming tend to be sports that Americans liked participating in but don't care to watch.
If the OP's question is "Why doesn't the US like international sports?", then I would argue that we have by far the largest infrastructure of domestic sports anywhere in the world. With so much overall sports and so much variety of sports in the US, why would it be surprising that the majority of Americans tend to look inward rather than outward for sports entertainment?
As for soccer, for me personally, it's the wacky-ass rules/quirks of the game that keep me away. Things like stoppage time (Which basically makes the end of the game anti-climactic. Why not just stop the timer during an injury???) - and especially the flopping/diving - are just ridiculous.
If the OP's question is "Why doesn't the US like international sports?", then I would argue that we have by far the largest infrastructure of domestic sports anywhere in the world. With so much overall sports and so much variety of sports in the US, why would it be surprising that the majority of Americans tend to look inward rather than outward for sports entertainment?
As for soccer, for me personally, it's the wacky-ass rules/quirks of the game that keep me away. Things like stoppage time (Which basically makes the end of the game anti-climactic. Why not just stop the timer during an injury???) - and especially the flopping/diving - are just ridiculous.
NBA players do far more flopping than I've ever seen in soccer
Baseball is big in the Caribbean, Korea, and it's Japan's #1 sport.
But NONE of those compare to basketball's reach.
Wrestling (Sumo and Olympic for Women) is also national sport there in Japan. Soccer is also very very popular in Japan unlike USA.
High School Baseball is more popular I would say then Nippon league.
Baseball is the most popular sport in Japan, Venezuela, Thr Dominican Republic, Cuba, and a few other Carribean nations and pretty popular in Australia, the Philippines, and Korea.
Basketball is the biggest game in the Baltics and China, Hockey in Canada, Sweden and Russia
Soccer is only the most popular sport in Western Europe and most of South America. Almost the entire former British Empire, China, Russia and the Baltics have a different most popular sport.
Most of the rest of the world seems to be so invested in soccer, which is literally the most boring sport ever invented including golf and bowling, which isn’t even a sport lol. It’s so painful to watch I don’t think anyone in America is losing sleep over not competing as much there. We all have plenty of chances to watch little kids play soccer, which is really all it’s good for. Fantastic sport... when you’re 6.
And baseball is so much more fun??
What about football?
Ten seconds of action at the most, then half a dozen reruns to explain what just happened followed by a commercial break.
Very exciting!
Hahaha that’s a good one! There’s nothing “beautiful” about it! Between the constant flopping, overacting, and aimlessly kicking the ball around, then you have actual games ending in 0-0, or 1-0 on a regular basis. Literally nothing happened for *90 minites* which is even longer than any timed sport in existence. This is a sport where the rest of the world once again hasn’t figured out what makes something dramatic or exciting, which sure isn’t NO playoffs! Why is this hard to figure out?! You don’t just play a regular season in the league then crown a champion based on that. Completely anticlimactic and lame. Doesn’t at all determine who the best team is at the time.
If I wanted to watch a bunch of guys flail around and fail to score, I’d just take my friends to the bar.
That hasn't answered my question, if football is so 'boring' then why is it BY FAR the worlds most popular sport? Simply doesn't 'add up' does it!? In fact it shows just the opposite - football is BY FAR the worlds most entertaining sport which is why it is so damn popular!
Soccer spread around the world due to community based clubs, Military teams, miners/factory workers/ textile mills working class identity. Such social identity was missing or suppressed in USA I suppose for most part of 20th century. Franchisee of Big Business just dont give that connection to public as far as Soccer is concerned.
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