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Comment by monkey_monkey

6 hours ago

No one really gives a shit what Americans who don't follow football think, though.

The original post mentioned people that weren't fans, though. Who are we talking about that are "football people" but not fans. I'm not trying to be dense, I just don't know which audience this is.

  • Look, most people around the world are not full time fans and only tune to the national final in their country or the world cup. But in any country where soccer is popular, the basic rules are something everyone knows from kindergarten.

    It's the same way that Americans know what pitchers, catchers, and batters are in baseball even if they've never picked up a bat or a glove and only go to baseball games to eat hot dogs and get drunk on overpriced beer. Soccer has two halves like baseball has nine innings,a nd the vast majority of people do not want to mess with that.

    A secondary reason that they don't want to mess with it is the perception that these hydration breaks are not organic (because it's always been acceptable for players to grab a drink fo water and there are ample opportunities to do so during a regular game), but that the breaks were imposed on the game to facilitate ad breaks in American TV broadcasts. Much of the world is tired of doing things differently just because the Americans want it.

  • USA is the exception here. In most countries, even people who are not football fans are pretty aware of how it works.

    I don't often watch football outside the world cup. I don't support any teams. But I know how football is meant to be played, and I was definitely annoyed about the hydration breaks.

    Does USA have people that don't follow american football but will watch the Superbowl? Would those people notice if there were three times as many breaks as usual?

    • > Does USA have people that don't follow american football but will watch the Superbowl? Would those people notice if there were three times as many breaks as usual?

      Well...many if not most of the people who don't follow NFL and watch the Super Bowl are watching it for the half time show and ads, so more breaks would make them happy, heh.