Christina Stalteri article in Macleans: Playing and cheering for Canada abroad

[red card]

I think the same way, madmonte. We're at an inflection point. Recent stat that has me thinking this way is that the Italy/England match on Sunday was the most watched Euro match in Cdn tv history and even more significant, the most watched tv program in Canada last week.

For CMNT to catch the wave and see a mini explosion, making the HEX is the next step.

[madmonte]

In a way, it's very cyclical isn't it? To get better players, you have to get youth interested in soccer. To get youth interested in soccer, having a strong national team definitely helps. To have a strong national team, you need solid players. Etc...

Making the World Cup would be one of the ways to feed growth for future years too, hopefully, although I'll put more stock into successful MLS teams feeding that future horizon with their promising youth development systems that they are integrating.

[Free kick]

In a way, it's very cyclical isn't it? To get better players, you have to get youth interested in soccer. To get youth interested in soccer, having a strong national team definitely helps. To have a strong national team, you need solid players. Etc...

Yes. This pretty much sums up the vicious circle. That why the 6-8 defections or non committals have hurt so much.

[An Old Fullback]

In today's globe,

USUAL SUSPECTS

Is the beautiful game finally ready to conquer North America?
BRUCE DOWBIGGIN

The Globe and Mail

Published Wednesday, Jun. 27 2012, 10:04 AM EDT

Last updated Wednesday, Jun. 27 2012, 10:04 AM EDT

For many years, soccer zealots have predicted their sport would finally conquer North America. They might finally be right. TSN’s rating for the Italy/ England Euro 2012 elimination game on Sunday was 2.058-million viewers. In case you’ve forgotten, TSN averaged 774,000 per game for its coverage of Round 2 of the Stanley Cup playoffs. There were extenuating circumstances, of course. The NHL games were in the West, there was overlap from earlier games going to overtime (on CBC) and there were no Canadian teams involved.

Still. When soccer games outdraw the NHL playoffs on a Canadian sports specialty channel it is worth noting. In case you think the England/ Italy game was one-off, consider that the quarterfinal phase of the Euro on TSN averaged 1.27-million a game. Spain vs. France drew 1.13-million viewers on Saturday. (These are all record numbers.)

Ratings for North American soccer haven’t seen anything like this increase. One reason why European soccer is becoming so popular was advanced this weekend by NHL COO John Collins. “There was a lot of hope for American soccer,” he told Usual Suspects. “It’s the No. 1 sport in world, why doesn’t it take effect in North America? But now you’re seeing major sponsors and FOX and ESPN getting into European soccer or the World Cup instead. They’re starting to get interesting (ratings) numbers. Big numbers.

“They’re starting to understand the event nature of soccer. They’re doing a better job of getting the casual sports fan to pay attention to the Euro or the World Cup, even if you’re not a hardcore Manchester United fan. That’s what we’ve been talking about in the NHL. Creating event programming.”

The NHL’s playoff problem is that, unlike the Euro or World Cup, its playoffs can’t be shoehorned into three or four weeks, which seems the optimal time frame for sustaining peak interest in an event.

[madmonte]

^Nice to see numbers confirming what we've been saying on this forum. As though watching the majority of the fans for the Honduras game in Toronto ACTUALLY BEING CANADA FANS wasn't telling enough!

The World Stage of soccer, I think, is what's going to bring the interest to Canada soccer more than the MLS. They will go from watching Euros/World Cup to watching Canada team, THEN become fans of the players on that team, THEN become MLS fans because that's where they can watch many of those players.

Then again, as I said, cyclical. If Canada doesn't make that hex/World Cup, people will forget we have a team.

[ditty]

I agree that making the hex would bring unprecedented attention to the CMNT and that would be telling it itself because when we were making the hex in the 90s, it barely registered on the sports radar in Canada. That was one reason I was so disappointed we didn't beat Honduras a few weeks ago as I think even that would have upped the spotlight for the September games. We need to be/should be in what I call the 2nd tier of CONCACAF after Mexico and the US (Honduras, Costa Rica, Jamaica, now Panama, earlier T&T).

[beachesl]

The Globe and Mail, which is supposed to be Canada´s "National Newspaper" is a perfect example of the problem.

They have not had an article on our national teams for a month, and the soccer page is entirely fixated on what is happening in Europe, with a few lines thrown off about the MLS. Now, you can argue that is what the majority of football fans in Canada want to read, but for a paper that evangelizes on things national in areas like politics, the economy and the arts, that would be a bad excuse....in fact no excuse at all.

They have an obligation to talk about our National teams, whether people want to read the words or not. Otherwise, lose the tag.

[1996]

Yes the TV ratings for the Euro have been amazing here in Canada and in the USA also. If Canada was to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil the support for Canada will be like nothing you have ever seen for soccer in Canada. I'm also starting to think that the powers that be in the media are starting to figure out that they need to start hiring writers, TV sports people and radio personel that know about soccer. The people in all types of media that are not soccer savy are starting to stick out like sore thumbs and if you have a job in the sports media you better start brushing up on your soccer knowledge or risk being left behind.