Wherein I compare Olympic soccer to the Oscar Mayer Wienermobile
Jul 27, 2012, 10:25 AM EDT
Getty Images Women’s soccer and the Olympics? Yes, please.
In fact, can we have seconds? Especially after that highly entertaining crackerjack of a match Wednesday, a U.S. win replete with drama, burgeoning superstars (Alex Morgan will soon rule the world) and plenty of quality soccer.
But men’s soccer is always an oddity, falling squarely into that gray area squarely between “meaningful event” and “useless gimmick.”
I suppose it’s a little like that goofy Oscar Mayer Wienermobile that way; the old staple of Americana is clearly a commercial device, but if you strip it down to the core, you could call it dependable transportation that does take a fellow where he needs to be.
And like the Wienerrmobile, Olympic men’s soccer just doesn’t look right as it rolls down the thoroughfare.
That’s because it’s a clear second fiddle to World Cup soccer. Most soccer supporters know so and more or less dismiss Olympic men’s soccer.
But if you’re a little new to the peculiar nuance of Olympic soccer, the New York Times story this morning is a great place to get caught up quickly.
It’s also a good catch-up on the oddity of Team Great Britain and what a difficult, complicated marriage of convenience that thing has been.
(More: “Injured” Gareth Bale pulled out of Olympics, then made stunning recovery)
The NYT piece ends in the oddest of places, where FIFA boss-man Sepp Blatter and I actually agree on something – a truly jaw-dropping turn. In the World Cup and the European Championships, the UK nations (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland) compete as separate nations, of course. But the IOC recognizes the UK countries as one.
From Jere Longman’s story in the Times:
However these Games turn out, they might be Britain’s last Olympic soccer appearance for the immediate future. There is some appetite to compete at the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janeiro, but qualification would be required. And many, including Sepp Blatter, FIFA’s president, doubt whether the four constituent countries could muster sufficient and collective enthusiasm to do so.
Then he quotes Blatter as saying “I don’t think that’s likely.”
Gee, Sepp, ya think?
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- wesbadia - Jul 27, 2012 at 11:29 AM
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With the rise of professional sports in the last 50 years (and especially in the last 20 or 30), the Olympics have become largely antiquated. When the Olympics first returned at the turn of the 20th century, professionalism was hardly anywhere to be found. But as sports garnered more enthusiasm from the fans, which in turn pushed sports to whole new levels of competition, the Olympics have slowly become a relic. And in the soccer world, that was especially true when the World Cup was formed in 1930, marking a huge diverge from Olympic soccer. Most don’t realize that the WC was born out of the soccer world protesting the Olympics. Unfortunately for the IOC, FIFA has taken the Olympic torch from them and now bear it in the name of fan-supported world soccer.
You can see this in other sports: baseball is non-existent in Olympics now; basketball has devolved into a good ol’ boys club, especially since the US Dream Team from the 90′s; hockey is still largely popular, but nowhere near as popular as the NHL. I would suppose that if other sports like curling or bad mitten or cross country skiing were to get huge fan attention through a separate world organized tournament and/or leagues, that Olympic attention for those sports would wane as well.
I think further proof of this is in the fact that you alluded to in the article: women’s soccer is really the only soccer to watch in the Olympics. I could go into how Title IX has created false demand for women’s sports, but I’ll just say that the market has been unwilling to fully support women’s soccer leagues like their male counter-parts. This lends the women’s game to more attention during the Olympics. The World Cup is not enough to solve all the issues in the women’s game; a legitimate league in the US is necessary.
Anyhow, the correlation between the quality of professional sport (both in league and world tournament play) and the level of enthusiasm for the Olympic version of it is undeniable. In the case, I believe correlation DOES prove causation. Professionalism is the downfall of world-wide “amateur” sport.
