I agree Thunderman, schools spend way too much on sports. However, playing a sport teaches a lot of valuable lessons. I wouldn't get rid of them, I would tie sports funding to standardized test performance, attendance, and college admission rates. If you get the learning down you can have a better gym.
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Besides its position wasn't the US highly isolationistic before WWI and remained very much so until after WWII when the US didn't really have much of a choice? Also during this time European countries became bored and decided that Africa and Asia would look better in European colours. And European culture and sports etc influenced all the area conquered like Africa and most of Asia and areas colonized like South America of course kept their European culture to most part. That is a reason why Europe might seem to be more "international", kinda hard not to be international when you shaped the modern world in your image.Originally Posted by nate
Do you mean that for example people care more about the NHL then the olympics and the world cup? If that's the case then I'm suprised, that's seems really strange to me. I can understand that people feel loyalty and pride for their club/city/region, we got it here to, hell fights after fotball/soccer games are very common. However in the eyes of 99% of the people international competitions are more important then national competitions.
Handball isn't such a big sport, it seems to be mostly played in Europe and areas close to it such as north africa and the middle east, atleast it's from Europe the best players and teams are. Aside from that it's great fun to watch imo, at top level it just seems more... active and more fun to watch then for example football (notice when I say fotball I mean "soccer" xD), fotball is a sport I think is incredible boring to watch even at top level.
Your exercise seems to be alot like mine, except I run on a track close by instead of cycling and attend to the sporting even each Friday in school. The sporting even is usually some kind of team sport like football, handball or volleyball. Did I mention it's students vs teachers? Great fun!
The West Indies, since when was that a country? Or are they just competing together because they wouldn't stand a chance one on one? =P
Well, the NHL might be a bad example as it isn't nearly as popular today as it was twenty years ago. I'd guess that 90% of US sports fans don't watch Hockey at all any more, and most of those that do watch hockey live in the far northern areas. Right now the two biggies are (American) Football and Baseball. We just held the second World Baseball Classic (or WBC, which is basically the world cup of baseball) last month, and in the US nobody really cared; seats for the games went unsold and TV ratings were poor. In Japan however as many as 60% of the population watched the championship game on TV. The funny thing is, when Major League Baseball or "club matches" start up on Sunday you're going to see 50 to 60 thousand fans at many of the 12 or 13 games held that day. Some of the more popular clubs have sold every available seat for every game several years running, and a Major League baseball season is 162 games long.
You're on the right track about US attitudes. Isolationism is still a popular cause over here and most Americans would prefer it if we didn't have any major entanglements with the outside world. Also, you've got to understand that Americans are raised to believe that the US is an exceptional country, that is, more exceptional than any other country by far. When you think of the rest of the world as being somewhat primitive you tend not to care when you encounter them on the playing field. I'd say that overall the Olympics are fairly popular in the US, but World Cup soccer isn't even on the radar. Nobody cares about it at all over here.
This year the US tied for third place in the World Baseball Classic, finishing behind Japan and Korea IN THE GAME WE INVENTED! Hopefully this is a wakeup call for those that don't take the rest of the world seriously, cause Japan absolutely destroyed us.
Pictures in your sig are f#@&!ng annoying.
I can see why some Americans would prefer to remain isolated in sports. Participating in sports where many other countries play would only endanger the "WE 'R #1!" mentality.
I've noticed this during the 2008 Olympics, but would it be fair to say that Americans have a fear of not being ranked #1? I remember a lot of fuss being generated by some Americans in some events because Chinese participants were under aged or some such and went on to win gold, thus beating out the US. Furthermore, the US media seemed to rearrange the medal table to reflect on the number of medals won, rather than rank them by gold. It just strikes me of a mentality that is so used to being #1 and that anything less the opposition must have cheated, and/or the US media has to come up with reasons to justify why the US is really #1. Surely if you participate in sporting events you'd have to expect that losing is an inevitable outcome, but I just don't understand what makes defeat so unpalatable for some Americans.
Over here, the reactions of some Americans didn't at all put your country in favourable light.
The WI is not a country, but the Carribean islands are too small to effectively compete in cricket internationally. So what happens is that the best players from those islands play together in the WI team to represent the Carribean.
In fairness to my country I think the Chinese gymnasts were under age, several South Korea and Japanese investigators turned up evidence to support that. However, that doesn't mean Americans wouldn't have come up with some other excuse for failure if the age question weren't right there in the open. Americans simply have an inscrutable faith that we're always right and we've never lost fair and square. There are people wandering around in the rural areas that still believe America has never lost a war, and they'll continue to believe that even if you confront them with obvious losses like the War of 1812 and Vietnam.
In answer to your point, I don't think it's a fear of losing that drives American's away from international sports. That would require them to actually believe failure was possible. Many American's really do have "faith" in American superiority. And as for why we get so upset about failure... if you believe your sports team is undefeated you tend to get pretty upset when they finally lose a game, even if it is just one game.
That's another thing, Americans don't care about their reputation around the world. Who cares what "the great unwashed" thinks anyway?
Now that I've thoroughly trashed my own country I feel I should defend it where it deserves defending. First of all, there are two Americas, one urban and one rural. The urban population is generally well educated, better exposed to the outside world, and therefore more liberal/European/internationalist in it's outlook. Folks from other industrialized nations would feel right at home in an American city. Then there is rural America, which is poor, relatively poorly educated, and 98% white Anglo-Saxon. What the world hates about America mostly comes out of the rural areas. Just remember folks that America is a sp:):):):)ly populated place, as our population increases and the rural areas are urbanized the ignorance will be snuffed out. Its just a matter of bursting the bubble half the country lives in.
Pictures in your sig are f#@&!ng annoying.
I live in Canada so I am naturally a hockey boy. I play it (I'm a goalie) and I watch it (big Leafs fan). I also like lacross, I am a fan of the Toronto Rock. And I like football, my fav NFL team is the titans and my fav CFL team is the Argos.
I wouldn't say "hate", but I most certainly despise the way sports can overshadow other activities.
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