Old habits die hard.
When I read in the Sun-Times that Joe Mansueto has agreed to personally finance construction of a 22,000-seat soccer stadium in the South Loop, my immediate response was to smile at another rich man's folly. Soccer? Really? Who wants to watch a soccer game?
But then a certain mustachioed coach wandered into mind.
"Be curious," Ted Lasso said, in that folksy Kansas twang. "Not judgmental."
Yes, Ted claimed to be quoting Walt Whitman, which is ridiculous. "Judgmental" is a 20th century word.
It wasn't even coined until 1873, which happens to be the year Whitman had a stroke — I'm assuming the two events are unrelated — and he spent the rest of his life molesting his 1855 "Leaves of Grass."
"Judgmental" isn't even an entry in my 1978 Oxford English Dictionary. Suggesting Whitman used the word "judgmental" is like claiming Lincoln said, "Transgender rights are human rights."
But I digress, a folk illness among those with a fondness for words.
"Be curious; not judgmental" is still good advice, even if coined by Jason Sudeikis, who along with Brendan Hunt — cast as the dark, deep-watered Coach Beard — are the masterminds behind Apple TV hit "Ted Lasso." The pair developed the show to reflect their own growing soccer interest as improv comedians at Boom Chicago, a Second City clone in Amsterdam.
I became curious, learning that Mansueto is sinking one-tenth of his personal fortune into this project. Mansueto is worth $6.9 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index. Building this stadium — taking the $650 million price tag at face value and ignoring the inevitable cost overruns — means he'll only have $6.2 billion left. Bold.
My curiosity centered around this question: Did "Ted Lasso," which lent much-needed humanity to the first, awful COVID year, also boost the popularity of soccer?
In ancient times, when I was growing up, American kids played soccer, informally, but it wasn't a sport we followed professionally. Nobody traded soccer cards. Soccer, like the metric system, was something happening far away, in Europe and South America.
As recently as 2014, only 4% of American adults answered the question, "How closely do you follow Major League Soccer?" with "very" or "somewhat closely" while 80% said "Not at all."
When "Ted Lasso" — a show about a small-time American college football coach improbably brought over to England to lead a fictional, hapless soccer team, AFC Richmond. — debuted in August 2020, the proportion of American soccer fans had soared to 5% while only 70%, like me, completely ignored the sport. I'd heard of Pelé, but wouldn't recognize him if he kicked me in the shin.
As "Ted Lasso's" popularity grew, so did soccer's. Today, 12% of Americans — triple the number 10 years ago — follow soccer, while only two-thirds ignore it.
But to credit "Ted Lasso" for the change is an post hoc, ergo propter hoc (after this, therefore because of this) error. Twelve percent of Americans is 40 million U.S. soccer fans.
The Season 3 opening episode of "Ted Lasso" drew 870,000 households. If an average household has about two viewers, that means the United States has over 20 times the number of soccer fans as it does "Ted Lasso" viewers. If anything, soccer boosted "Lasso," not the other way around.
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As far as I'm concerned, soccer's sole attribute is that it's not as boring as golf!
ReplyDeleteWe call it soccer, which came from "association football." Which morphed into "assoc" and then became "soccer". Learned that as a kid, when I had to write a theme about the sport. The rest of the world calls it "football"...for obvious reasons...and they call our sport "American football." Boring? There's nothing as riveting on the small screen as a high-scoring 2-1 football match [derisive snort].
DeleteSome people whine about the length of the baseball season. Pro golf seems to have no beginning and no end. One season blends into another. Even during the college and NFL seasons, network news is preempted on Saturdays and Sundays by a contest at some lush country club in the Sun Belt, played by contestants who all look alike...the shirts, the hats, the pants, the short hair, the same smooth young faces, My father played in a few amateur golf tournaments. in his 20s and 30s. But I never got the bug. My golf is the miniature kind...a putz and his putts.
So pro golf turns me off, and soccer is a bore. Worst of all is tennis, a sport for the idle rich and the patrician privileged class. Bob Greene was a high school letterman in his affluent Columbus suburb. He excelled at tennis. So he was, of course, one of the netmen--as the teen-age sports scribes called them. Not to be confused with the diamondmen, the linksmen, and the cindermen. Or the gridders, the harriers, the cagers, and the grapplers--also known as the matmen. I wrote the headlines. Can you tell?
Most sports are interesting once you understand the skills and nuances and develop some sort of emotional attachment. Soccer wouldn't be the most popular sport in the world without all three. The world beyond one's nose is where most of the magic occurs. It's ok to not be interested in sports beside your favorites, but demeaning sports outside of your comfort zone, especially one with hundreds of millions of participants just suggests a lack of scrutiny and critical thinking.
DeleteHey, I don't mind you gents making fun of golf and soccer, especially watching them on TV, though I've played my share of golf. Not a lot, but a number of times a year for quite a while.
DeleteBut tennis is not just a sport for the idle rich, and hasn't been for decades. I started playing in the '60s, with beat-up wooden rackets found in our basement, and balls that should have been thrown out long before. On public courts a mile away. Cost: $0.00.
Even after buying a good racket and keeping up with new cans of balls, it's a far cheaper sport than golf and several others, and I've spent less playing tennis for decades than it's cost to attend a handful of Cubs games the last few years, Grizz. I refuse to be tarnished by an implied comparison to Bob Greene! 🙂
Dennis, there aren't any apparent skills in soccer except running around & kicking the ball! Boring!
DeleteNo, I would never, ever compare you to Bob Greene. And I guess he had to achieve some degree of proficiency at the game in order to become one of the varsity netmen at Bexley High. Then he had to have a decent win-loss record in order to earn a letter So I'm not knocking his accomplishments...or yours. .Just the game itself. For me, it's a snoozer.
DeleteAnd it's not exactly a sport that people play on the cheap, in their backyards...like, say, croquet. Worked for a publisher who had tennis courts on his property. With night lights. Surrounded by wooded acreage. And his kids traveled on the tennis circuit. He drove to watch them play. In his Bentley. Poor? No. That's the kind of guy I've always associated with the sport. Even more than golf. Anybody can play golf. Or a least try. Tennis...not so much.
This is pretty far afield from the topic of the post, but in for a dime...
DeleteI'm not denying that there are plenty of rich folks who like to play tennis and that it has had a long-standing reputation for snootiness. I'm just trying to point out that there's much more to it than that.
Yes, you can have a lighted court on your property or even "settle" for joining an indoor tennis club for big bucks. But you can also play on free public courts and never spend a dime for the court, which is what my friends and I have done ever since I was a yute.
Funny you should mention playing tennis "in their backyards." I actually used to practice by just hitting a ball against the back of our cement garage, standing in our yard. "Lawn tennis" at its best, it was not, but trying to track down the odd bounces was a good challenge...
Gotta say, I respectfully disagree with your conclusion. One thing that's for sure is that you have to pay money to visit a golf course, sometimes quite a bit. Or a driving range to practice. And the equipment is more expensive. And one very seldom loses a tennis ball!
As for "anybody can play," I found it much harder to become an adequate golfer than a run-of-the-mill tennis player. The idea that "anybody can play golf," but not tennis makes no sense to me. Expenses aside, both are good sports when it comes to being able to continue to play as one gets older.
Neil - your shins are safe as Pele is dead
ReplyDeleteHope Mansueto locks down the naming rights in perpetuity for putting up his own money. For neary three quarters of a billion of his own money, the stadium should bear his name forever. No more stadiums named for some business with $5m leftover in the advertising budget.
ReplyDeleteEven if the complete cost of the stadium is privately financed how much money will Chicago and the state need to put up for infrastructure? Sewer, water, and roads still costs money. I'm not against the project but if Chicago doesn't have any extra money where will it come from?
ReplyDeleteI think the city would have to put in sidewalks, sewer pipes, etc. but if the result is a 22,000 world class stadium for the cost of the infrastructure, I'd suggest it may be worth it. Despite obligating myself to see a soccer game there.
DeleteThere's no need for the city to put in any streets or sidewalks. Clark St. is on the east side of the property & Wells St. is on the west side of the property. It's up to Mansueto to build the parking lots & their associated driveways & also to build any necessary sidewalks into the property. Property developers are always required to pay for & install needed sidewalks when the city requires them. He can also pay for the sewers & water lines for it, as there are sewers & water lines under the adjoining streets he needs to connect into. Any needed fire hydrants on his property are also his responsibility, plus he'll have to buy them from the city, as Chicago uses a proprietary hydrant design from 1937 & then must repaint them a light green to indicate they are privately owned.
DeleteSo there are no infrastructure costs for the city, except possibly some extra traffic lights on Roosevelt Road & even then, the city can demand he pay for them & the state required traffic studies before the traffic lights can be upgraded.
I’m so surprised that Ted Lasso is continuing for a fourth season. The last episode of season three wrapped everything up so neatly that was clear that the series was done. Why in the world are they starting up the narrative again?
ReplyDeleteMoney.
DeleteYeah, I understand that it would be awfully hard to leave all that money on the table, and that both the creators and many viewers may well be itching for more, but I'm kinda disappointed that "Ted Lasso" will be coming back. It's a rare thing in American entertainment these days for folks to leave well enough alone.
DeleteI'm a huge "Seinfeld" fan, but as far as quality is concerned, I'm of the unpopular opinion that they could have very well called it quits when Larry David left after Season 7. (Uh, Jerry, NBC and millions of viewers heartily disagree with that notion, needless to say.)
If the "78" is gonna be turned into ANYTHING other than a garbage-strewn wilderness in the heart of the city, sewers, water, roads and a lot more are going to need to be put in, regardless. It seems like a refreshing turn of events to have a billionaire at least say he's going to pay for his own fricking stadium.
With regard to your funny fake Lincoln citation, my favorite remark of his is: "The problem with quotes on the internet is that you can't always be sure of their authenticity." 😉
I think this is great. I'd love to see one small change made, but other than that, i say go for it!
ReplyDeleteMLS is an okay metric for gauging U.S. interest in soccer but the explosive growth has been the increase in viewership of English Premier League games in the United States on NBC (way above MLS). Most weekends only average 500,000 to 600,00 viewers on Saturday and Sunday mornings but big games will clear 2 million viewers.
ReplyDeleteAs far as T.V. shows are concerned, you might want to check out Welcome to Wrexham on FX. It follows the course of a lower level English club that was bought by Ryan Reynolds and Rob McElhenney as it strives to eventually get promoted to the Premier League. Big U.S. following for a minor league club. It's also reflective of the growing U.S. interest in investing in English Soccer from Tom Brady (Birmingham FC) to J.J. Watt (Burnley FC) to the the American billionaires who already own Liverpool FC, Arsenal FC and Manchester United.
Finally, given your preferences for checking things out on the ground; probably the best thing you can do is checkout what actual fans of the sport are saying at one or two of the myriad of pubs in Chicago that show Premier League games like The Globe Pub in North Center or Cleo's in Ukrainian Village.
I agree the Premier League has 'caught on' with fans. My husband gets up early on weekends just to watch his teams. But soccer has always been a huge deal among Latin American and European immigrants, and their enthusiasm and team spirit during World Cup championships is infectious. I ended up cheering on Wales vs my husband's England during the last world cup. Fun times!
Deleteactually, my immediate thought upon reading the news is that he may be taking a bigger risk than one would think. a large number of msl game attendees in this country are from Latin America. kind of wonder where that fan base is going. to be when mein fuhrer is done with them.
DeleteGood point pgw. The new soccer stadium may become the new Home Depot.
DeleteJust a smirky grammatical observation: "My curiosity centered around..."?
ReplyDeleteIf Ted Lasso created a widespread love of soccer, we'd see an outpouring of Yellowstone fans watching professional rodeo.
ReplyDeleteI’ve tried to get into soccer the last couple years but I’ve given up on it. I can’t stand the constant flopping. A player barely touches an opposing player and they throw themselves on the ground and writhe in pain or twitch like they are having a seizure in order to draw a foul. Then they jump up and continue playing. Its annoying.
ReplyDeleteI did enjoy watching the USA woman’s team win the Olympic gold last summer. They played with style and grace.