Opinion Since 2008 ........... July is the month Port fans turn to sport in the northern hemisphere

[RossFC]

Sport is awful and should be banned.

When Ken Hinkley and Steve Bruce coach/manage your football clubs, I don't blame you.

 

[El_Scorcho]

How does Steve Bruce s**t the bed at Villa despite resources that were basically unparalleled in the history of 2nd tier football, and THEN get another Premier League gig.

Imagine Mike Ashley and David Koch helming your two favourite football clubs.

 

[RossFC]

Imagine Mike Ashley and David Koch helming your two favourite football clubs.

 

[Interstater]

Two more Australian wins over the last 2 nights of cycling

 

[Tredz]

That's because you don't understand American institutions and Americans.

The overwhelming majority of Americans who go to college/uni, go away from home - then college becomes an important institution in their coming of age years - as they don't live with their folks, those 4 years become special as does the institution and people they become friends with.

A significant percentage of Americans grow up in 1/3rd of the country, go to college in another 1/3rd and then start their career and spend a big chunk of their life if not the rest of it in the other 1/3rd of the country. The Australian experience is at the other end of the spectrum, stay in your home city, live with the folks, go to a uni down the road or across town, not in a country town or another state and find work in the same city/state.

The US don't have a strong history of amateur sports, even semi-professional sports. High school football and basketball in particular is huge because they don't have a local team down the road to go play for in the u/12, then u/14, u/16 like you do in Oz sports once you hit high school. That playing/following your high school only, gets transferred when they travel across the country to attend college.

Plus their Alumni's become important institutions especially for careers. The annual home coming games, for the different sports, become a big thing and an opportunity to catch up with people who have moved all over the country, once a year.

A lot of Americans can't get interested in a team that is owned by an individual or family, who is there to make money, takes money out of the club, is happy to have a "500" winning season and not win the lot. And they can't buy season tickets in many instances.

My Canadian mate used to be an ice hockey nut. He said once he left college moved to Toronto from Thunder Bay, and saw it was a just business, he just lost interest as a passionate fan. He stopped going to Maple Leaf games. His late brother was a well known high school hockey coach in Toronto, so he used to spend a lot of time watching his teams play. Canada has a lot stronger history of amateur sports, similar to Oz, than the USA.

Do you like Koch and the way he has guided Port? Imagine if Koch 100% owned Port Adelaide. Would you have the same attachment if for 20 years he ran Port like the way he has guided us and the last 5 years have turned out, or would you go and watch your amateur club that you knew the people and knew their kids playing thru the grades? College teams becomes the local club down the road for many Americans.

Parents Australian but grew up in a small country town in western US where high school football was the pride of the town. Every home game the bleachers would be packed (2~3K supporters) not just with students but families and old timers and the local radio station broadcast the game for those that couldn’t attend. Games played under lights on a Friday night - great atmosphere, great memories.

Graduated High School back in 1980 and moved to Australia several years later - still follow my HS football team and take great pride when they do well.

 

[Schulzenfest]

How does Steve Bruce s**t the bed at Villa despite resources that were basically unparalleled in the history of 2nd tier football, and THEN get another Premier League gig.

Imagine Mike Ashley and David Koch helming your two favourite football clubs.

Trewth has Mike Ashley, David Koch, and James Dolan. RIP Trewth.

 

[RussellEbertHandball]

Parents Australian but grew up in a small country town in western US where high school football was the pride of the town. Every home game the bleachers would be packed (2~3K supporters) not just with students but families and old timers and the local radio station broadcast the game for those that couldn’t attend. Games played under lights on a Friday night - great atmosphere, great memories.

Graduated High School back in 1980 and moved to Australia several years later - still follow my HS football team and take great pride when they do well.

People in Oz don't understand how big high school football is in the US, especially in smaller towns.

Federal Broadcasting Act prevents NFL from playing Friday night because its legislated that they can't broadcast games on Friday night, because its reserved for the broadcasting of high school football. And Saturday is reserved for College football broadcasts, and only Saturday night games are played in play-off period when college football is finished. That's why they invented Monday Night football to get around this and not have all 12 games on a Sunday arvo clash apart from time zone differences back in the 1970's. Same with Thursday night football being invented 13 years ago once the NFL got its own TV network.

TV stations pay TV rights for high school football. Some schools spend between $20m-$50m on their football stadium. Small towns don't have an amateur gridiron team.

In the USA a small town like Wallaroo, 5,000 people, isn't represented by an open age and couple of junior footy teams from 1 or 2 clubs, they are represented by their high school football team of 17-19 year olds. Most Australians don't understand that, given how our amateur sports is set up here.

That great NBC TV series Friday Night Lights that rated average in US but was critically acclaimed, and rated poorly on the ABC2 here, gave an excellent portrait of how big and important high school football is, especially in small towns in the US.

 

[Eric Blair]

American football talk aside, on the other side of the pond my beloved Torino FC are playing for the first time in several years a Europa league qualifier tomorrow morning against some Hungarian team and serie a is starting in 4 weeks time so my winter of discontent is almost over!

Side note - we only got into Europa league because AC Milan pulled out due to financial dodginess on their part

FVCG

 

[Trewth]

Trewth has Mike Ashley, David Koch, and James Dolan. RIP Trewth.

If anyone has a team they’d like to see fail, I can start following them for a reasonable fee

 

[Eric Blair]

If anyone has a team they’d like to see fail, I can start following them for a reasonable fee

Can you please start supporting Juventus if you have not done so already? I have no money but can offer two healthy kidneys in lieu
Thanks

 

[Trewth]

Can you please start supporting Juventus if you have not done so already? I have no money but can offer two healthy kidneys in lieu
Thanks

I don’t have an Italian allegiance yet so why not? Those kidneys will go well with some fava beans

 

[charcolechaddy]

Nfl starts in September, preseason soon..
Cowboys are legit...

Cowboys legit..lol and the raiders will make playoffs!

 

[Duck Farmer]

We invented Cry July.