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Oh my gosh! Some South American soccer and/or rugby team won something in the fog and/or rain !?!?
That’s exciting and relevant!
For other exciting and relevant bits of information, you can use this new web site called “Google”.
By putting words and phrases together (like: Boca South America) it allows you to avoid the crutch of “and/or”, and thus not sound so ignorant when leaving witty comments on others’ blogs.
doug, we should make this thread a caption contest. here’s my take on the fruity photo (translated into english):
middle dude: “did you finally tell your parents?”
dude with fist: “yeah!”
md: “holy cucuta, what did they say?”
dwf: “they said its okay to be gay!”
all three, in unison: “yay!”
My entry for the caption contest:
“Yea for Doug’s witty rejoinders!”
By the way, I “googled” Boca South America. Apparently “Boca Juniors manager Miguel Angel Russo is confident that his side can qualify for the Copa Libertadores final, despite a 3-1 defeat against Cucuta in the first leg of the semi finals in Colombia on Thursday.” (complements of goal.com)
Strangely absent was the declaration as to whether or not those three gentleman (notice, I didn’t use ‘players and/or lovers’ so as to avoid sounding “so ignorant”)were playing in the rain or fog or, possibly, both.
Although it did seem to have something to do with soccer . . . and/or mouth juniors.
Travis,
I will excuse your insults to Boca Juniors, if only because they can be attributed to your jealousy that there were more people in the fog and rain at the soccer stadium watching Boca than there were tuned into the Outdoor Life Network watching the Flying V win the Stanley Cup.
Mike,
Bravo!
Yes, Boca lost 3-1 to Cucuta in Columbia. Boca then beat Cucuta 3-0 at home in Buenos Aires yesterday, and so they advance to the Libertadores final.
Oh, touché!
actually, NBC. ever heard of that network? maybe you should google it.
several million people worldwide watched the final game of the stanley cup finals, including 2 - 3 million in the US alone. i was unaware the argentines were building soccer stadiums of such tremendous capacities. maybe i should’ve googled it.
in fact, because i never use google, i was also unaware that the mouths were even playing. they must be quite unpopular, though, if they can’t even get on the outdoor life network or NBC, like the ducks.
please. that picture looks like it was taken in the steam room at a gay gym and you know it.
NBC? Oh yeah, that’s right! They show NHL games for free. NHL doesn’t get a cent upfront. Ouch.
The NHL’s new motto:
So, I apologize for forgetting that only the first two games of the Stanley Cup Finals were on the Outdoor Life Network. The others were on NBC.
Funny, Argentine TV wasn’t able to convince Boca to a similar deal. But that’s probably because more than “2-3 million” people in a country 1/6 the size of the US watch Boca games.
Go figure…
Yes. You’re right.
The first thing I think of when I see three guys in athletic uniforms, holding a soccer ball, and screaming at each other during inclement weather is:
wow! a gay gym!
doug, don’t compare apples and oranges. soccer is popular in argentina. hockey is popular in canada. neither commands as much support in the US. yet you want to compare argentina’s TV market for soccer with the USA’s TV market for hockey.
if you want to compare the TV deals in their respective countries, i’d wager that the NHL’s $68 million dollar deal with CBC (canada) dwarfs whatever deal argentina has with whatever league the mouths are in.
it sure makes it easier to watch sports when you are unemployed, which argentines are at a rate more than double that of americans. add to that the fact that each of the stanley cup finals games started at 5 pm on the west coast, from which time zone one of the competing teams hails. many potential viewers had to watch from bars, listen on the radio, or settle for the post-game highlights since they were still working or stuck in traffic during part of the game.
it also makes it easier to watch when there aren’t other major sports competing for your attention. remind me again, is there a thriving baseball or football league in argentina?
finally, i should note how odd of you to bring up hockey’s popularity at all in this argument. far from the information being relevant (or even exciting), the two sports actually share many of the same struggles for popularity in this country — ones they have long since overcome abroad, especially in europe. what i am saying is, i know how much you love to talk about the NHL’s television ratings. that’s great, and i am really happy to ever hear you say anything you didn’t first read on the drudge report. but don’t bring up how unpopular hockey is in the US when the sport you are defending is soccer. that should be easy enough to understand. has the MLS ever had a sell out crowd? i watched their final last fall, and there were whole sections of the stadium that were empty. i think i even saw a tumbleweed blowing through, up at about row NN. the ducks sold out every single playoff game.
Oh no you di’int!
People, people, people, lest talk about numbers first… so no body is “mistaken” as “ignorantâ€
Boca Junior:
Boca holds the international record of 16 international titles alongside with A.C. Milan, including five Copa Libertadores and three World Club crowns (Intercontinental Cup).
The club has also won 22 Argentine professional championships.
Boca Juniors finished in joint 12th place in the list of the FIFA Clubs of the 20th Century
2006 survey placed Boca as the most popular sport team in Argentina (40%), second in Latin America, and fifth in the world.
The Boca-River Superclásico rivalry is one of the most thrilling derbies in the world. (wikipedia)
Argentina
Population: 36,260,130 (The National Institute of Statistics and Census of Argentina 2001)
Unemployment rate: 8.7% (CIA Fact book 2006 est.)
United States
Population: 301,139,947 (CIA Fact Book July est.)
Unemployment: 6.0% (2006 est.)
Soccer
Soccer, futbol, or Football is now the most widely-viewed and followed sporting event in the world, exceeding even the Olympic Games.
The 2006 World Cup stands as the most watched event in television history garnering an estimated 28.29 billion non-unique viewers, compiled over the course of the tournament.
715.1 million Individuals watched the final match of this tournament in 2006 (a ninth of the entire population of the planet).
Again, the tournament’s final phase, often called the World Cup Finals, is the most widely-viewed sporting event in the world, with an estimated 715.1 million people watching the 2006 tournament final.
Money talks (WWCup final)
715,000,000,000 worldwide television audience
$200,000,000: Estimated cost of voice and data network deployed by Avaya
3,500,000: RFID embedded tickets (sold out 6 months before the tournament)
$10 to 40 million: The 20 Best-Paid Soccer Player
Money talks (SuperBawlXL)
1,000,000,000 worldwide television audience
$15 to 42 million: The Highest-Paid Football Players
Hockey: No player may be eligible to contract for or receive in excess of 20% of the Club’s upper limit in total annual compensation (NHL salary plus signing, roster, reporting and all performance bonuses). In 2005-06, no player will be permitted to contract for total compensation in excess of $5.8 million in any year of his contract.
one easy way to get US and argentine unemployment stats is via google:
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&complete=1&hl=en&safe=off&q=argentina+unemployment+rate&btnG=Search
(argentina 10.2% unemployment in 2006)
http://www.google.com/search?num=100&complete=1&hl=en&safe=off&q=usa+unemployment+rate&btnG=Search
(usa 4.8% unemployment in 2006)
despite boca juniors’ incredible successes and the excitement of their games, few americans even know about them, let alone root for them. same goes for NHL teams.
americans, for all their brilliance, just don’t like soccer or hockey that much.
but…they also have jobs, so i forgive them.
It’s funny that you say that… when I am being offered to volunteer to help unemployed people here in Alabama… South Carolina, Mississippi, Georgia and Louisiana… you know… the south.
You know what would be a great idea? To build a tall, huge wall around this area so Americans won’t have to feel bad about themselves…
Ignoring the south is not an isolated matter, look hockey, soccer, tennis, black people, Latinos, Chinese, Iraq, discrimination, education system… all of it, ignored. But the best one is the obesity… common thing here… but it’s kind of offensive to point that out…so let’s pretend it not really happening. Let’s…ignore it.
But it’s ok, stupid Argentines keep playing soccer. Those ignorants!
BTW: Hernan was correct in this one https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/fields/2129.html
actually, john, i fault americans for not liking soccer. it is a great sport, i enjoy playing it, and i enjoy watching it. maybe you didn’t understand what i wrote.
and hispanic immigrants to the US have an obesity rate much higher than the national average.
i guess the argentines who immigrate here just don’t know what to do when the economy actually works and they get to eat three meals a day!
my numbers, obtained via the aforementioned google, say 4.8 and 10.2. hernan’s numbers say 4.8 and 8.7. either way, it’s about double.
when your country stops asking for millions of dollars of aid funded by american taxpayers, then you might have a little credibility when you insult us.
Travis,
Your cleverness knows no ends.
Nice.
Just to remind you: the NHL is based in New York City (in the US, last time I checked…unless “New York” is English for “Montreal”). Twenty-four out of the thirty teams are based in the US. The NHL is a US league, and yet so unpopular here that they show the first two games of their final playoff series on a network that most people have never heard of.
I think that my original comment was right-on, although to be fair, I should have changed “jealousy” to “outright grumpiness”:
To recap…
Doug: Boca is awesome!
Travis: Boca is gay!
Doug: It’s alright Travis, you’re probably grumpy because the NHL didn’t get much coverage.
Travis: What the &*$%# are you talking about!?!? The NHL is sooo popular! They were on NBC! Ever heard of it? Boca couldn’t even get on the Outdoor Life Network! Ha! (and, soccer players in the fog make me think of gay dudes at the gym)
Doug: My bad, the NHL was on NBC…for free, under a similar deal that arena football has. Funny, in their home country, Boca didn’t have to agree to a similar deal. (and you’re right, nothing quite as homo erotic as three soccer players cheering in the fog)
Travis: Now, wait a minute. You’re not playing fair! You don’t understand that hockey is sooo popular in Canada. I know it’s really unpopular here in the US. Ignore what I said about NBC before. Ignore what I said about the Ducks and OLN. Well, maybe not really unpopular. Ignore that I just said hockey was unpopular in the US. I mean, seriously, more people would have watched the Stanley Cup if the TV schedule was different, the unemployment rate was higher, etc etc. So, please, stop comparing the popularity of an Argentine soccer team in Argentina to US hockey league in the the US. It’s just not fair!
I agree. It is not fair. And frankly, I don’t really care that the Stanley Cup is watched by less than 1% of Americans or that Boca is spectacularly popular in Argentina.
Obviously, as I noted before, you do care.
As do thousands of hockey fans.
You look at forums where someone mentions that hockey is unpopular and it’s as though dozens of folks have conniption fits; simultaneously feeling the need to assert hockey’s popularity, argue that it is superior, and lament its unpopularity.
So, you are not alone.
doug, compare hockey in the USA to soccer in the USA. that’s all i’m asking. don’t compare hockey in the USA to soccer in argentina. one variable per experiment, please. i bet any scientist, even steve the nut case from indiana, would back me up on this.
Travis,
I never brought up soccer in the US, you did.
The picture above is from an Argentine newspaper. The title of the blog post is in Spanish. The linked article is from Argentina. No one is trying to say that Boca is wildly popular here in the US.
If you want to compare apples to apples…
Boca Juniors is a soccer club from Argentina. Hence, I would expect them to have some modicum of popularity in Argentina, not here.
The NHL is a hockey league based in the US. Likewise, it stands to reason that they would have some popularity here in the US, not Argentina.
Apparently the fact that the latter isn’t true bothers American hockey fans.
Why it bothers hockey fans so much, I have no idea.
and you extrapolate from this that hockey is unpopular everywhere “south of the arctic circle.” this annoys me. how about i compare the popularity of, say, basketball in argentina to football here in the US?
if you compare per game viewership, per game salary, or yearly television contract money, you will surely find that basketball is “wildly” unpopular in argentina. then i will conclude that basketball is wildly unpopular outside of only one country on earth, the USA (which country, apparently should feel bad about itself for everything).
i am bothered by your constant ridiculing of hockey’s popularity problems. you have claimed so often: “hockey is unpopular” that i would not be surprised if you asked to have it engraved on your tombstone. you say you do this in response to my claims that hockey is exciting to watch and requires more skill to play than other sports. yet denouncing hockey has become an obsession for you. you throw it out in somewhat offhand comments with the consistency of a six year-old asking “are we there yet?” from the back seat of the family minivan, but when i respond with justifiable frustration, you accuse me of overreacting.
No, I extrapolate that you get grumpy about hockey’s unpopularity.
And I think you’ve proven that point rather effectively.
yes, let’s hearken back to my angst filled response to one of doug and richard’s most recent attacks on the game i love, back at the end of april:
note a few things about that response: no frothing at the mouth, no rabidness or anger, and frankly, i didn’t even dispute that hockey had not gained in popularity in two years time. i also let the tired phrase, “south of the arctic circle” slide.
so i think i am pretty mellow about it. nevertheless, i resent your constant harping on an issue that isn’t even relevant to a discussion of hockey’s merits, let alone relevant in the other threads where you’ve brought it up (i’m thinking of the spurs-suns post, where i talked about a foul i didn’t like, and you pointed out how the NHL playoffs are unpopular or the post where i pointed out hockey players are tough as nails while baseball players seem about as tough as shuffleboard-playing retirees, and you pointed out how…..surprise: the NHL playoffs are unpopular!).
funny that like every league that has a lockout-marred season, they NHL lost fans after 2004 or whenever they were locked out. just like baseball in the early 90s, just like basketball in the late 90s, etc.
and, interestingly, the NBA has seen a ratings drop in recent years, too. despite a lack of lockouts. their first 38 playoff games this year averaged only about a million more viewers apiece than did the NHL’s stanley cup finals games this year.
you want to talk about the NHL because it is based in the USA, just like boca is based in argentina. great. i would like to talk about the MLS, which is also based in the USA, and compare it the NHL, which, as we have already established, in based in the USA.
would you and richard enjoy chiding me about the unpopularity of the MLS for awhile? if so, i will welcome the switch. maybe you could agree to alternate — one week you make fun of MLS ratings, one week NHL ratings. then maybe we can all join together and make fun of the NBA’s nielsen ratings struggles, or eurodisney’s paltry gate receipts.
Travis,
As you know (and as do the three or four other people who actually have read this blog since it started), we’ve had this “sports disagreement” for years. I think at this point our respective positions are…
Your position: Hockey is the best sport EVER! (variants include: hockey players are tougher, hockey is harder to play, hockey players are smarter, hockey players don’t go to jail, etc.)
My position: One sport isn’t better than another, it’s a question of preference.
As for the two posts you mention in your recent comment:
Look, when you posted in April of this year asserting that “hockey is a real mans sport”, I tried not to take the bait and just chided you about hockey being unpopular. A couple weeks later, you posted about Robert Horry’s hockey-like bodycheck. Before commenting on the fact that Horry’s foul wasn’t that dirty, I mentioned it was good to see you blogging about a sport other than hockey.
I apologize if you find this annoying.
When I find something annoying, like your incessant need to seek validation that hockey is superior, I just try to respond with “witty rejoinders” (as Mike would say). For me, pointing out hockey is not popular is easy, effortless, and apparently stirs the pot more than trying to argue silly points about which sport is “better” (or harder, more manly, less criminal, etc).
Unfortunately, it has obviously stirred the pot way too much and upset you more than I ever expected.
I will stop. I will not comment about the NHL any more.
Again, my apologies.
i would be happy to hear your opinions on the NHL if you actually watched it. i know you don’t have cable, but you can watch clips on youtube or versus.com/nhl. and during the second half of the season, you can watch games on saturday afternoons on NBC.
i feel like i can criticize basketball, soccer, football, or baseball because i am a fan of these sports. you know i watch all their championships. i often blog about them positively, as in these posts:
because i say nice things about these sports, too, i feel like i can critique them fairly when such criticism is warranted. what was the last time you posted anything good about hockey?