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Apple, Other Tech Companies Give $2 Million Each to Cover Taxpayer Costs of Super Bowl 50
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I'm sorry to say that, but this is one of the reasons why others think Americans are shallow and dumb. You need to see lots of scoring to get excited. This diminishes everything else that's going on in the game. You don't see the skill that goes into defending, or breaking that solid defense. You don't see the philosophy and tactics that teams have in their DNAs. You miss all the excitement and disappointment a single goal causes, or the fear or hope that a goal may happen. You have scores and scores and more scores that is kind of boring for almost anyone outside of US. At the end, one team scores more than the other to win the game. It's almost guaranteed that there won't be any kind of excitement that is comparable to a single goal in a real football game. A football fan remembers a crucial save by a goalkeeper 30-50 years after it happened because a single save maybe really, really important. All you will remember will be statistics made by faceless athletes.
It's also disturbing to see families let their sons do this "sport" knowing that it will make them heavy (I'm trying to be polite here) and cause them a brain damage. I find American football one of the reasons why Americans get large and heavy instead of getting fit, strong and nimble. In real football you don't see any overweight players and they are certainly not allowed to hit each other on the head.
And I don't understand why Silicon Valley companies that need a smart generation of Americans to design and use their smart devices promote something that makes young men stupid.
Also...
Good for them. I remember when the owner of Real Salt Lake said that the taxpayers had to cover the cost for a new stadium, or he was moving the franchise. As a huge RSL fan and season ticket holder, I didn't want the team to move, but it still made me made he blackmailed the community in that way
Can't say that I blame them. If I were a stone's throw from NYC I certainly would stay/go there instead of NJ. Who wouldn't?
Good points. But here's a third viewpoint: They're both boring sports, played by a bunch of entitled prima donnas, and watched by overzealous whack-os.
And here I thought the comments would be about getting some tax relief by ridiculously successful companies is a good thing. Instead a stupid discussion about which sport is better, yada yada yada. Silly me.
Source?
The nfl franchises made over 1 billion in profit last year
http://www.thepostgame.com/blog/dish/201308/only-one-nfl-team-lost-money-2012
The top football clubs such as Real Madrid only brought in a measly 45 million in profit. That would place them amongst the middle of the pack in the nfl. They may have a lot of revenue, but their profits are measly.
How does it feel to be so amazingly wrong?
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It's great that financing is coming from the private sector, but this shouldn't be an issue. There is so much money in football that city/state governments should never have to pay for a team. It's ridiculous that local governments have to pay for new stadiums, some costing upwards of a billion dollars, or risk the team moving to another city that will pay. Franchises should have to pay for their own stadiums and improvements, and then pay taxes like any small business.
Same goes for large corporations. Cities have to compete with bribes (low-interest loans and tax breaks) to attract/keep large businesses. Again, small businesses don't do this, and they create many jobs as well.
Yes. But 100% of the Super Bowl market is 1st world while 99% of the World Cup market is 3rd world. As a corporation, which would you target?
That's another difference between the two sports.
American Football is a business. You try to win to make more money and you stay in competition as long as you are profitable. In Football, most teams are owned by club members, or some are owned by businessman who are also lifelong supporters of their clubs. They are almost always happy to loose money to win trophies. That's why most winner clubs came close to be bankrupt. The reason is high level of competition. They value winning over making money. Once in a while when an American investor tries to buy a club and make it profitable, he gets death threats from angry fans.
The difference between the two is clear on how these clubs are regulated. In US, regulators try to make the competition open to all teams. If you are successful, you are the last one to choose in transfer season. It's the only way to attract fans in a competition where there are no continental tournaments or relegation. In football, you can transfer whoever accepts your offer. You can pick the best players in the world to win titles and get bankrupt. That's why football's regulators focus on team budgets rather than who picks who first. They try to save teams from bankruptcy.
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And yet typical scores in American Football are far lower than we see in Basketball or other popular sports. Us dumb Americans don't need to see big scores to get excited, that's not the purpose. And years later, there are still plenty of remembrances or discussions about how a player missed a block, or a kicker made or missed a kick for a single game-winning point, or how a team managed to pull off an ingenious play or game-winning strategy against a dominant or favored opponent.
Some positions do favor "larger" players. That is unfortunate to some degree, but also not unique to American Football. The majority of positions and roles in the game still favor those athletes who are lithe and quick with a high strength to weight ratio.
As for the concussion argument, I have to totally disagree here. Not in terms of what often happens with American Football, but in terms of football/soccer. There is currently an epidemic of concussions and related conditions and injuries in Soccer. Especially at the collegiate level and even predominantly in Women's Soccer. They may not be "allowed to" hit others in the head, but it happens far too often. Shock-absorbing headbands and other similar innovations have done nothing to hinder this alarming trend.
It's just business and a sport doesn't directly make anyone stupid.
That stupid image has been floating around for years. And was obviously created, and perpetuated by, people who lack the basic understanding of why American Football is called "Football."
In their defense, I would bet that half or more of NFL fans out there don't know either.
If a Soccer Ball were named in the same way, with the same reasoning, as an American Football, then it would be a 2-hand Ball. Kinda funny, eh? Or we could call it a half-cubit ball...
Typical middle America arrogance...
I don't know anything about it, so it's wrong.
I don't know anything about it, so it doesn't exist.
People in Europe or other parts of the planet watch the Super Bowl the way they watch a documentary. They watch it to see what the fuss is about. No one cares about who wins the game, or knows anything about any of the players. It's on TV, and the TV channel and Hollywood tells you it's a big deal, so why not take a peek if you have nothing else to do after midnight.
For the rest of the planet, including 3rd world countries like UK, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Netherlands, Switzerland, Norway and about 190 more, World Cup is even bigger than the Olympics. Maybe not in terms of total number of TV coverage, or the number of athletes in the competition, or the number of countries made to the final stage, but in terms of passion and excitement it brings to billions.
Btw, how much do you think Apple can increase its market share in US where it already owns almost half of the market? Wouldn't it be a better choice to target markets like Spain, Italy, Brazil, etc. where it has a very small market share?
Wow... I guess I am shallow and dumb, though you don't even know me. First off, the scoring had nothing to do with the level of excitement. It was just something that I pointed out with that particular match, in conjunction with the pace of the game. I find the game to be dull because it moves too slow for me. I don't know what it is; maybe the size of the field relative to the play on the ball. On the other hand, I am sure soccer/football is fun to play. I have the same feelings about basketball. Basketball is fun to play, but I do not enjoy watching it. For me, it is the opposite to soccer because there is so much scoring going on (almost like it is too fast pace). My point is that I am not knocking on any sport. Playing a game and watching it are two entirely different things for me.
I am not a huge American football fan, but I find it much more enjoyable than soccer. Hockey is my favorite to watch and there are plenty of games with little scoring.
Wow, all I can say is that it would be better to google, wikipedia, or even ask the stupid kid on the corner about your facts before embarassing yourself so badly in public.
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I had never heard that part of history. I knew the brits invented the game, but can you provide a source for your statement about the reasoning behind the invention? I would be interested in reading more about this.
If you've never been there, sure. Anymore unless you have a purpose, it's an overpriced tourist trap. There's some great things to see in NJ if people would look. But to each his own.
Perhaps this is meant to be a joke, but just in case it isn't I thought I ought to point out that it's total BS.
As is all this trying to argue that NFL is bigger than soccer worldwide. Come on people, patriotism is one thing, but putting your fingers in your ears and saying la-la-la-I-can't-hear-you is another thing all together. Can't we just restrict that practice to defending apple products?
You must be pretty arrogant to insult an entire region (middle America). You are also quite ignorant as to misinterpret my comment. When I called out another commenter for being wrong, it was because he/she claimed that no one outside of the US watches American Football. It is pretty easy to disprove that.
You said that "People in Europe or other parts of the planet watch the Super Bowl the way they watch a documentary. They watch it to see what the fuss is about. No one care about who wins the game..." Have you conducted national surveys with appropriately sized sample groups and a reasonable margin of error to back up the claim that this is why they watch a game or that no one cares? I would imagine, as people are different, that there are several reasons why a person would watch a sport. There are several reasons in the US that people watch the Superbowl.
You said "Hollywood tells you it's a big deal, so why not take a peek if you have nothing else to do after midnight." Perhaps some people watch a program on the telly because someone in a relatively small town in California tell them to, and perhaps some people watch because they have nothing to do after midnight, but I would imagine that other people are genuinely interested. Again, their reasons may vary, and I don't want to speak for them, but the numbers show that American Football is viewed outside of the US.
You claimed that the World Cup is bigger than the Olympics, not by any quantitative measure, but because it makes them feel really good inside. I don't know if this is true or not. I haven't had the chance to examine the insides of people worldwide. And I'm not really sure what this has to do with my comment, as I never claimed that American Football, or the Olympics for that matter, were bigger than the World Cup on the global scale. My point was merely that American Football is viewed outside of the US by a significant number of people.
Also, I'm not sure why you refer to the UK, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and Norway as third world countries. There are a couple of definitions of "Third World". If you're referring to Cold War nomenclature, the third world refers to neutral and non-aligned countries, or countries that weren't aligned to either the US or USSR. By this definition, Switzerland is the only country you listed that would qualify as third world. The other definition refers to developing countries, also called less-developed countries. By this measure, none of the countries you listed can be considered "third world".
Your other comments had to do with Apple's market share, which had nothing to do with my comment. Maybe you have ADD. You could probably ask Siri to direct you to local doctors who treat it.
So, to sum up my rebuttal by paraphrasing you:
You don't know anything about it, so just make crap up and hope it sticks.
You don't know anything about it, so just slap your eyepatch back on, straighten your picture of Che Guevara, and pound away on the keyboard in your mother's basement (yeah, I went there).
The Handegg thing never made sense to me. With that logic, shouldn't other games be Stickdisk, Clubball, and Batball?
why are taxpayers footing the bill at all in the first place?
Kapernick just signed a 110 MILLION contract with the 49ers.
Yet the NFL is a 'non profit' and taxpayers are on the hook to subsidize the biggest advertising sell of the year.
Kapernick just signed a 110 MILLION contract with the 49ers.
Yet the NFL is a 'non profit' and taxpayers are on the hook to subsidize the biggest advertising sell of the year.
Then educate me.
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Again, someone who doesn't understand simple economics.
Quantity != Quality
3 billion households making $5,000 per year with $100 in disposable income is a much smaller market than America with 100 million households making $40,000 per year with $15,000 in disposable income.