In one of the best pieces of writing I’ve read in a long time, Simon Kupar’s analysis in the Weekend FT links the relative popularity of different sports to successive waves of globalization.

Soccer and cricket’s appeal around the globe originated in “Sport’s first wave of globalisation … in the late-19th century, when British sailors, merchants and missionaries spread British games like viruses.”

This was followed by “a century of stability. The Indians played cricket, the US resisted soccer, and Melbourne favoured Australian Rules football, which barely existed even in other Australian cities.”

The Pitch is Flat

The second wave of “sporting globalisation” in the 1990’s with cable TV broadcasting Man United to China, India the US and Japan. It’s a global world and, to paraphrase Friedman, the pitch is flat.

Soccer has the broadest global appeal.

The lack of goals, lampooned by late-nite TV comics in the USA, is part of its appeal. One astounding piece of information which Kuper unearthed concerns an unlikely fan of the Gunners:

Fans wait so long for a goal that when one comes, it prompts an unloading of joy found in no other sport. Osama bin Laden, who watched Arsenal several times in London in 1994, remarked that he had never seen such passion as among soccer fans.

The universal appeal of soccer was vividly obvious during a 2004 family vacation in Thailand and Laos. My 11-years-old son wore a Man United shirt and got high-fives from tut-tut drivers in Bangkok. Each evening in the streets of Luang Prabang he played in a pick-up game with the local kids, reveling in the shared language of soccer:

Cricket, while not as universally popular, has taken root in those areas of the world influenced by the British Empire: India, the West Indies and Australia.

Both sports spread on the backs of the British Empire, and have outlived the decline of that institution.

The Gridiron

So what of the sporting influence of today’s Imperial power, America? Is there a spread of States-side sports around the planet which follows the traders and the troops?

No.

It’s not through want to trying. As John Cleese remarks, one difference between American and Britain, is that unlike the Baseball World Series, when we host a World Cup, we invite other nations to play. (The other difference, noted at the time of the Monica Lewinsky affair, was that when you meet our Head of State, you only have to go down on one knee…taa-boom!)

Estimates are that of the 93m SuperBowl fans in 2005, just 3m were outside North America; that year the World Series attracted 21m viewers in North America and less than 1m elsewhere; the last game of the NBA finals, also less than 1m.

Contrast this to 100m Chinese who stay up late to watch two Chinese players in an Everton vs. Man City game.

Why American sports don’t travel well

Kuper’s article lists a host reasons:

• Players of over 70 nationalities compete in the UK Premiership leagues vs. almost no foreign players in the NFL
• More American kids under 12 play soccer than baseball, American football and ice hockey combined
• American sports arrived late to the party – soccer was well-established
• American football is infernally complicated “as confusing to most non-Americans as cricket is to Americans.”
• Broader cultural artifacts which travel well are often British, not American. The six bestselling novels of the past 100 years are all British: four Harry Potters; one Agatha Christie and one Tolkien (Middle Earth holds more appeal than Middle America).

Yankees Go Home!

Most telling, from an economic and political standpoint, is the fundamental difference between the British Imperialists of the 19th Century and the current neo-con ones. In a passage worth quoting at length, Kuper nails the reason for America’s lack of moral standing among many in the world today. These are issues that any American executive speaking overseas would be well to be cognizant of and tailor their message accordingly (not least by avoiding clichéd sports analogies common in America board rooms, such as “quaterbacking a deal” or “gameplan”):

The difference between British and American empires was summed up by an American lawyer who worked for the British government in Baghdad. He said that when American officials wanted an Iraqi to do something, they would generally call him into the Green Zone and, if necessary, ”bawl him out”. Sometimes this worked. Sometimes it didn’t. But the Americans only summoned Iraqis when something needed fixing, the lawyer said. By contrast, British officials were always inviting Iraqis in, for parties or just for chats, even when there was nothing particular to discuss. This is how the British used to rule their empire: by making long-term allies.

”European imperialists spent large parts of their lives immersed in the cultures of the countries they had colonised,” explains John Gray, professor at the London School of Economics, ”learning the languages and often forging enduring alliances with local rulers. As well as subjugating and exploiting their colonies, they also ruled and lived in them.”

Few Americans today do, notes Gray. The US does not govern any countries. Under the British empire, Nelson Mandela learned British sports at school, but in the American empire, that sort of thing scarcely happens. In fact, American troops in Afghanistan have been reduced to wooing the natives by handing out soccer balls. (The exercise failed: Allah’s name was found to be printed on a ball, blasphemous on an object designed for kicking.)

There’s much more in Simon Kuper’s article, such as an observation that the two most famous archetypes of the Englishman abroad are the gentleman and the hooligan.

Great stuff, well worth downloading and reading in full.

Meanwhile, Go Patriots (of all nationalities…)