So if your theory holds the MLS must be the most popular league in the world? Certainly more popular than the bundesleague la liga and the EPL |
You are silly, those are different markets so you can't compare them. I am talking about the US here and pointing out that more scoring is better for fan attendance and revenue, something soccer must gain in order to grow in this country. |
First of all, who is going to waste their time doing f-ing research on such a stupid topic that will go nowhere. |
You're right, we should all just talk without thinking. That is far more productive. |
the MLS could average 10 goals a game- Americans don't like paying major league prices for a minor league product. Soccer in the country is perfectly fine- there is huge youth participation and some adult participation. I'm guessing there are more adults participating in soccer leagues than football. The fact that we don't care about the pro game shouldn't matter- there are plenty of sports that are healthy in this country where no one cares about professionals - look at running, cycling, swimming |
| OP. My premise wasn’t that subbing on the fly would necessarily increase scoring. Hard to say how that would play out. But one of the more interesting parts of the game is when players play with pace regardless of whether they score. I’d like to see more of that and less of a tired midfielder playing horizontally or backward to conserve energy. It’s a great game to watch either way. Not knocking soccer at all or saying other sports are better. Just wondering if allowing more substitutions would increase the pace and more creative and exciting soccer. |
Yes. This sounds like a lot more fun. |
Well sure. MLS isn't as high a quality of soccer as ... well most other pro soccer leagues. That's not related to scoring, it's mostly related to average skill level. But we're talking about sub rules here affecting scoring so a more appropriate question for this discussion would be would MLS be more popular if the goals per game were higher? The evidence says yes. |
I don't think there is any doubt that more subs would lead to greater pace and more scoring. Offensive minded players tend to use more energy than defenders, so their performance drops during the game. More liberal substitution would level out offensive production through an entire game. On average of course. |
What evidence? |
Interesting. I’m a casual soccer fan so don’t have a good sense of this. But do fans generally view the fitness aspect as an essential part of the game? An analogy would be that in golf, many fans would rebel if they allowed professionals to ride carts because they view walking as an essential part of the game even though you could plainly play a round of golf in carts and that is the most popular way for weekend golfers to play. On the hand, for example, when basketball and lacrosse added the shot clock that dramatically sped up the game and there was some grumbling from traditionalists, but now the vast majority of people agree both games were improved by speeding up the pace even though it removed some tactical elements of the game, particularly in the last few minutes. Would a sub change rule strike soccer fans that a golf cart rule or like a shot clock rule? |
Over the last ten years, popular leagues like NFL, and NHL have changed rules to increase average scoring in order to make the game more interesting to spectators. Soccer (in the US) has simultaneously the lowest scoring per game amongst all popular team sports, and the lowest revenue/popularity. There are admittedly more factgrs involved than just scoring in this latter point. |
So something high scoring like Indy ball should be more popular than the MLB, the Big 12 should have better ratings than the Big 10? |
| Except for most Americans, American football and baseball are very boring sports for the majority of people around the world. Real football on the other hand is the most popular sport around the world period. |
Baseball is very boring for most Americans too. |