why I hate “soccer”

i am supposedly going to eat my words on this, but man i can't stand soccer.  dj yeti has been saying for months that he is taking me to a portland timbers game and that i will like it.  my point is that while i may like the experience, i like any experience in portland and that does not translate to me caring about soccer at all.

generally, i am a rock and roll fan, and care about sports only on a fundamental level, like amateur sports.  but the sports and the concerts i attend are of similar stature. so, i will start with some rock stories.  i once saw ratt in concert at an outdoor ampitheatre for $20 or $30 or something outrageous. they were about as good as any other hair metal band of the day. worth listening to from time to time, but never worth the time, trip and cash to see some exorbitant stage show live in concert.  a couple years later, stephen pearcy was out as singer of the band and then joined a band called arcade, who was unknown and traveled the bar circuits.  i saw arcade for free at the bottleneck in lawrence, kansas.  it was a fabulous show and then i started then to attend primarily concerts in bars.  a couple years later, when the band live was at their peak of popularity, i was treated to the worst concert i have ever seen at the omaha civic center.  i was so nauseated, i left after four songs and puked in the parking lot.  luckily, i got in for free and up near the stage because the opening band had put me on the guest list.  it was only worth going to see that opening band but the crowd hated them.  it was a notoriously miserable experience and i did not even ahve to pay to get in, but i have not been to an arena concert ever since.  i vowed to never spend more than $20 for a concert ticket again and have never really been disappointed with a concert since. funny how that works.  so, when other djs talk about expensive festivals like sasquatch and coachella, no matter how many bands i like are in the lineup, i never even think about going. there is nothing to love about an event that takes me miles from the stage and costs loads more money. i'd rather see a band like tartufi for free while sitting closer to the singer than the rest of the band and not having to worry about getting to the bathroom or standing in long lines for beer, etc.  a trip to sasquatch would be a vicious headache for me.  i'd rather save the $350 and fund my own concert.

the same concept applies to the sports industry.  i am not a fan of anything "big money" and while football, baseball, basketball and hockey are all big money sports, they do at least have minor league versions that i love, while i detest the major versions.  well, soccer is in the same boat.  they do have minor league versions, but up until recently soccer has not been popular at all in america.  you think that would make me like it, right?  wrong!

the first problem i have with "soccer" is it's definition. when i think of "soccer" i think of something that is a bastardization of "futbol".  for me, that is what is more commonly known as indoor soccer.   it's played on a short field and resembles arena football.  i love that kind of soccer, much like i love arena football way more than the worthless nfl.  outdoor soccer, as we've known forever, should actually be called "futbol"  but here in america, we call it soccer because of the confusion of american football.  i never used to have a problem with the name soccer (primarily due to not caring) but with a league like the MLS, with the S standing for "soccer", most of the teams name themselves as if they play in european "football" (dc united? real salt lake? please!)   this makes the MLS seem like they have a serious identity crisis.  is it soccer or is it football?  decide that and then i will be closer to paying attention.  but when sports are all about the money and they only care about looking cool, it creates an identity crisis. that makes it way too cool for me. 

then there are the stadiums, one of the more annoying aspects of sports for me. the portland timbers play in civic stadium (or more accurately, multnomah stadium) where the portland beavers used to play baseball.  the fact that they play in the stadium serves as a sad reminder of the fact that portland’s fair weather fans couldn’t support a baseball team that had been there since the 1800s.  but supporting the timbers is different because the timbers are new and soccer is trendy.  (i do understand there were other soccer teams going back to the 70s that called themselves the timbers, but that is not the 1800s, and does not really count since the trendy version began in 2009.)  to further throw insult onto the fire, the stadium has been renamed after some company that paid for a portion of the remodeling costs.  this happens in every city, and it serves as a reminder to me not to enter the stadium.  think safeco field?  stupidest name for a stadium ever!  well, no that argument is so ten years old.  i just found out that comiskey park is now called u.s. cellular field or some such crap.  when these kinds of abominations occur i have no respect for either the company that needs the shameless promotion or the organization that provides that promotion and cease supporting either.   i paid $35 for a ticket to a game in the opening season of safeco, the most expensive, to sit seven rows away from the mariners on deck circle such that i could have plunked a-rod in the head if i had known to hate him yet.  moreover, the mariners were an awful team and finished in last place at the end of the season, yet the stadium was full of people paying those exorbitant prices.  so big money sports, is like the big money music industry, repulsive. needless to say, i wouldn't be caught dead in that monstrous mess of $500 million scrap metal called safeco ever again. 

but dj yeti claims, "i’ve never been to a real socer game. and will love it once i do".  not true. i went to many kansas city wizards games. and they were a blast.  i loved those games.  exactly what i wish for are more sports experiences exactly like that, so to suggest that there is something bigger and better does not appeal to me.  the kansas city wizards played in arrowhead stadium, in which the fair weather kansas city fans never went because soccer wasn’t popular at all in the 1990s.  even when the wizards were winning the MLS cup, kansas city fans didn’t know about it.  the wizards would sometimes have less than 1000 people inside the 80,000 seat stadium, even when they were a good team.  the less people showed up, the more i liked it.  to me, an underrated sport is something worth watching.  for $5 from a scalper, i could get in the first five rows to see the best soccer players in america.  that was uber cool!   certainly in comparison to my next year's trip with a friend wanting me to go to safeco field.   now that i have established that i liked the old, unpopular MLS, dj yeti tells me that portland is different experience than the soccer games in kansas city.  but what i hear from the rabid soccer fans in kansas city now is exactly how i hear soccer games described in portland.  there is an entire cult of fans and rituals behind the team now known as sporting kansas city and getting tickets are impossible.  kansas city does likeevery other city and builds a separate stadium for each sports franchise.  that pisses me off more than the naming rights to the stadium.  ever since the astrodome and metrodome went away, the policy of housing multiple teams in the same building has died.  in other words, efficiency has died, wastefulness has thrived.   and for some reason, this sells way more tickets.   forgive me for not supporting that.  and, as is symbollically correct, sporting kansas city (as they’re now known) play in the suburbs.  i don’t call them sporting kansas city.  i call them sporting bonner springs.  and i’ve never once in my life supported the idea of outward expansion in the country side, so i don’t support abominations like spkc park or the nascar track across the street.  the timbers are slightly cooler to not be in the suburbs, though if they could get someone to build them a better stadium in the suburbs, i am sure they would take it.  but they still play in a stadium named after some corporation i don't care to support by even mentioning their name.  

this is the essence of why i hate big money sports.  modern american soccer takes the big money lessons and runs away with them.  i haven't even gotten into aspects like soccer players flopping for penalties.  rolling around on the ground like a monkey to try to get a penalty called on the opponent is a sad excuse of a strategy.  that is not a sport, it's a game.  real sports like rugby and hockey decide the winner as the last man standing.  that pansy acting doesn't go over well when the refs let you beat the hell out of the perpetrator.  what soccer players do was probably invented by shakespeare.  

but more to the current situation, it's not like i just decided off-handedly that soccer doesn't seem cool.  i grew up in a city that had more professional sports than the entire state of oregon has and i enjoyed them all, until they became unreasonable in their quest to be profitable.  i have a lot of experience going to soccer games and i know what i like.  indoor soccer at kemper arena, for sure!!  spkc, or whatever it's called, park, never!   i will say for the timbers, at least they name themselves like an american team, not the sporting europe clone project crap. 

as i said to begin with, i have been told that it won't matter that i don't like soccer, the experience in portland is still awesome.  i have no doubt that a portland timbers game is a better thing to do than most things in most other cities.  maybe i can get great portland beer and food at the stadium.  but i can do that all over portland.  if one were to put portland beer and food carts at the bonner springs soccer stadium, it might entice me to go.  but why go pay some rediculous price for a sport i care nothing about to pay even more for the rogue beer i could just buy at the rogue brewery or just go to the big ass sandwiches food cart after one a great free bar concert?   i do know that i would rather pay $20 to see major junior hockey winterhawks in the playoffs than i would get into a timbers game for free.  but, yeah, it's a trip to portland, so it'll be fun anyway.  doesn't mean i will come away knowing any of the players names or ever wondering when the season ends or how well the timbers do in the season overall.  i won't keep track of it because i don't care about soccer. that wouldn't change even if i got to make out with the cheerleaders, if the timbers even have any. 
i don't know how i am supposed to eat the words that i have spent 25 years conceptualizing, but go ahead and try your best to convert me timbers. 

and ps note: this concept does not apply to the women's soccer league. for obvious racist reasons it is not a big money sport, even though the talent and entertainment level is the same.