USA NT 2012

  • Wow! Thanks very much for this :drink:

    No prob :drink:


    Quote


    I smiled at the "bikini" part and then I started thinking...They like hockey because the players are tough, play rough and fight often. They like basketball, baseball and American football partly because the players are great athletes and have big, muscular bodies. American audience at least to me is comparable to the audience in Ancient Rome(at least the way they describe this audience in books, films and documentaries).

    Very well put. I've always had an impression that sports in America is all about spectacle. That's one of the reasons why football will never make it big in the U.S. People claim it's tedious because there's too little scoring. What's more, fouled players supposedly cry like little girls. And Americans like their men tough. So there you go ^^
    But there's another thing I've been thinking about. American audience doesn't give a damn about what's happening on other continents. I mean sports-wise. They don't need too, since they are lucky enough to have such powerful local leagues in various sports that they can dominate the whole discipline. And yet in volleyball, just like in football (I'm not gonna use the "s" word, no way), they wouldn't have a final saying. There already are better leagues out there, and people who make all the important decisions are outside of America as well. So why bother? And I'm not saying it wouldn't be possible to build a league stong enough to compete with others, more prestigious ones. It would just take way too long to keep the audience interested. That's why, even though their MLS is getting more and more attractive, I believe it will remain more of a local curiosity rather than become anything truly influential. Yes, I know that there's much less competition involved in volleyball and much smaller sums of money are concerned. But still, everything important to the sport happens mainly in Europe and Asia. And that's not likely to change anytime soon.

  • Lloyd is his own man. He could have played college basketball at one of the best basketball schools, Indiana, but instead choose volleyball and playing for his dad.


    The game is popular (nowhere near as popular as our big 4 sports, football, baseball, basketball and hockey) in schools with girls for participation in the USA. Boys do play it in physical education classes. You have to remember that only in the last 30 years has there been a growth in television channels for sports. The only time that volleyball may have gotten on television was during an Olympics year.


    All non-major sports are fighting with all other sports for newspaper and television time. I can remember that when I saw volleyball on TV in a non-Olympic year, it was a shock. Now in the US, I have already seen a number of college women's matches and BYUTV having all of the home men's matches.


    The game is progressing in the states.


    American sports fans have this mentality that we have the best sports leagues. For our 4 major sports, the answer is yes. But if you are a soccer or volleyball player without a doubt those leagues are in Europe. In the past when you heard that Karch and Timmons went to Italy for like $1 million to play with Il Messagero, you would go cool, but never see them again. Now with live streaming through our sources (to remain name) we can still follow them at odd hours of the day on the internet.

  • I wasn't sure where to post this, but is there any news regarding Sean Rooney? Last time I checked he was injured and wasn't going to participate in the current season (the Italian one if I'm not mistaken), but I feel like I haven't heard anything in ages.