Talk:Sports in the United States

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Insert non-formatted text here
United States Portal
This article is within the scope of the United States WikiProject. This project provides a central approach to United States-related subjects on Wikipedia. Please participate by editing the article, and help us assess and improve articles to good and 1.0 standards.
??? This article has not yet received a rating on the Project's quality scale. Please rate the article and then leave a short summary here to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses of the article.

This is the talk page for discussing improvements to the Sports in the United States article.
Article policies

Contents

[edit] Curling

aaadasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasasasasasasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasdasda I removed curling from other popular team sports because it should not qualify as popular.

[edit] Lacrosse?

I recognize (having lived in Md.) that lacrosse is a major sport in parts of the country. However, there are lots of other sports more significant than lacrosse that don't have their own section, such as bowling and tennis. Should we really have a section just for lacrosse? -- Mwalcoff 23:54, 17 January 2006 (UTC)

There are over 60 D-1 teams, its played on the high school level and lower in many states, and there are two professional leagues. My vote would be to restore it. Cornell Rockey 00:08, 12 March 2006 (UTC)
Softball, cross country, swimming, golf, tennis, track and volleyball are all played at more D-1 schools than lacrosse [1]. I have nothing against metioning LAX, but I wouldn't give it the same level of heading as the "major" sports, lest people think it's at that level of popularity. -- Mwalcoff 08:45, 12 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] US article on featured candidate

Just to let you guys know, the United States article is on featured article candidates list, so you can cast your vote there- or not.--Ryz05 19:45, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keeping the page short

The reason I had deleted the rugby paragraph was not because of its quality but because of the need to keep this page at a reasonable size. If we have a separate paragraph for every sport, no matter how uncommon in the U.S., the page will get to be 100K. For that reason, when it comes to team sports, I think we ought to have paragraphs on the "big four" plus soccer. -- Mwalcoff 14:59, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh. Yeah I understand that the page should not be huge, but that international section is mainly about cricket with a mention of AFL. Rugby has been in the US for a long time and I think it is notable enough to have its own paragraph. Cvene64 01:40, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
Why don't we add a sentence about rugby to the international section rather than give it its own section? -- Mwalcoff 01:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
If it is under such a heading as "International sports", it kind of makes it difficult for a user to find rugby quickly. Also unlike the other international sports (as far as I can see), Rugby has a fair few US related articles and content, so I think it needs its own paragraph. It really doesnt make a big difference, it has notable content, so I reckon there should be a rugby heading. - Also, there is a bit of content about Rugby League in the US - although no one has put a link in this article yet. But I do think a "Rugby" heading is justified...Cvene64 04:51, 8 May 2006 (UTC)
It was "international sports" because Americans refer to sports like rugby and cricket as "international" or "world" sports. The fact that there is a lot of notable content on American rugby in Wikipedia does not make up for the fact that the sport is very, very minor in the scheme of things in the U.S. As you pointed out yourself in your contribution, it's not even recognized by the NCAA, putting it at the same level as ultimate frisbee. If you are accurate in that 60,000 Americans play rugby, that's an insignificant number in a country of 300 million people. By comparison, 11 million Americans play soccer, which ranks only 20th among "Series I" sports in the U.S. Statistical Abstract. Lacrosse, volleyball, golf, tennis, boxing, gymnastics, bowling, swimming, track and about 50 other sports are bigger in the U.S. than rugby is, yet do not have their own paragraphs in the article. As I said above, if we gave all of those sports their own paragraphs, the page would be a mile long. -- Mwalcoff 01:33, 9 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Soccer section

The claim that MLS soccer in the U.S. has a higher attendence ranking than NHL hockey is way off according to these numbers. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sports_attendances, I'm going to change that sentence. 24.48.127.51 21:11, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

As of last season MLS attendance surpassed the NHL. Also it should be noted that first of all MLS is on a similar popularity level as the NHL. Secondly of the people that follow profesional soccer in the US half follow the domestic league with the other half following foreign leagues. Which mean soccer ona profesional level surpases the NHL.

Also, Internation soccer is enourmously popular in the United States. US national games reguarly sell out 60K + stadiums. Foreign countries, particularly southern american also do very well attendance and popularity wise.

Thanks for the comment. First, sign your posts like this ~~~~ at the end so we can easily see who you are and when you posted. Second, MLS attendance figures (I'm an MLS fan) are notoriously unreliable and even more prone to inflation than other American sports (which are unreliable themselves in all sports but the NFL which is so popular it doesn't need to lie about their gates), so any statement about NHL/MLS attendance I would take with a grain of salt. Check the Talk:Major League Soccer page if you don't believe me. Soccer seems to be the only sport where viewership of foreign games appears to be an option, so I don't know if I'd use that in a comparison between the sports. As far as USMNT games regularly selling out huge football stadiums, I think that might merit inclusion. -- Grant.Alpaugh 05:01, 19 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] The Dream Team

After the Dream Team for basketball is mentioned there is a list of notable basketball players, a number of whom were not on the Dream Team. This seems like it could confuse some people who are not familiar with the history of basketball. Perhaps it would be less confusing if there was a sentence or two that discussed the Dream Team and the social significance of it.

[edit] Overdemocratization of sports

What I mean to say is, the page makes very little distinction between the most popular sports and the least ones. Had I not lived in the US, and if I came here to find out about what's most popular here, I would have left without the slightest idea to my question, which is really what this article is about. The article puts soccer in line with baseball and football, and hunting and fishing with basketball. I would make a change, but I'm low on time. I suggest we reorganize this page to feature the most popular sports first, and then the others later. I know there are polls on this sort of thing. The Evil Spartan 00:42, 24 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Regarding External Links

I recently noticed that the external link that I had added was removed. That site, www.FindSportsNow.com, helps people find sports leagues and recreation within the United States. Now, if it belongs anywhere it should definitely be in "Sports in the United States" and "Sports Leagues". I can understand that there might not be an exact need to have it in every specific sport, but I sure do think it would be beneficial to the user. If you have ever tried to find sports in your hometown, I think you would know what kind of headache it is. I'm from Southern California and that site helped me out tremendously. I feel like that site is justified to be on each of those sites I added it to. I do hope that others agree. 68.7.69.246 (talk) 09:12, 16 December 2007 (UTC) Forrest 12/16/2007

[edit] cricket

"For example, association football (soccer) or cricket, the most popular sports in most countries, is a minor sport in the U.S."

Cricket is not a popular sport in most countries. Just in a few former british colonies. In fact, basketball (an american sport) is more popular than cricket worldwide.