Soccer is the Greatest Sport

I was hoping for a more practical debate. I understand your logic about proving that soccer trumps all sports but rather then wasting everyone's time you should have been able to present at least one other sport which is greater or present as many as you would like that you believe are better then soccer and why. Then I could address those. It would have provided a more orthodox and meaningful debate. -Instead you kept attacking my points, which is understandable but with only one point of yours (which I forgot to address the last round, oops). I will not bring up new points but I will defend my previous points and in the process defend my position. I don't think you can really declare victory at this point and nor is that very orthodox but let's continue to the topic at hand. Let me attempt to clarify why I believe popularity is a show for quality in sports and what I meant by the ability to play it across the world. -the popularity and widespread nature of soccer means that it can be played with more people. What I mean by that is the popularity makes it more unifying and social. I share soccer with over 1 Billion people. This is a unifying factor for all of those people. The widespread nature allows people to have a means of understanding each other. Two nations, the most bitter rivals 60 yrs ago recently co-hosted the largest sports tournament on the planet, the world cup. Korea and Japan. This created a unity through the best means possible, soccer. I ask you to present me with one sport which has the popularity and therefore the power to unify people. I was not clear to you in previous rounds about this which I am sure will lead to my defeat in this debate (for the popular vote of course). When I said you can play soccer anywhere in the world what I meant was that you can find people to play with. If I took one random person in the world, they would more likely say yes to playing soccer then any other sport, because it is the most popular. This means I share the sport with more people. I can enjoy and be connected to more people. (Man I really wish I said this in previous rounds, I really just wasn't clear!!!!) By soccer being more social I meant what I said above. That I share it with more people. "Again, this has no reflection upon the quality. Popularity doesn't make good quality. In fact, having a lot of upper middle class people liking the other sports kind of argues against you. The richer you are, the higher quality you demand, no? Therefore, sense upper-class people like other sports, it stands to reason that other sports are higher quality." This is a great point but there is a gap in your thinking. You assume they like it because it is higher quality but this is not the case. The popularity of soccer is not truly very different across the economic spectrum and I believe is the most popular sport in any economic class. The reason I said the upper middle class watch other sports is due to environment. They have the options of choosing other sports but since these decisions are individual it says nothing about the quality/greatness of soccer. The reason I say soccer is the best is because of the popularity and the popularity may or may not exist for the right reasons such as the best sport design but for the nature of the sport. Basically all it says is, America, the nation which consumes the most, likes football, it says little about quality. No one can truly convince me that in terms of the design of the way the sport is played makes any sport the greatest because it is opinion based but I will say that the primary factor affecting the popularity of one sport or another is environment. If any other sport were the most popular sport in the world I would argue for that sport even if I enjoyed soccer the most, because the other sport would show a more useful and great potential to it then soccer. Although i provided no evidence on the economic evidence I will say that I still believe the economic power of soccer is much greater then that of any other sport. http://www.forbes.com... -In the article they do state that football is the most profitable sport. Ouch.... Forbes then says http://www.forbes.com... Ooh.... It is simply obvious that there is a whole lot more money in soccer then other sports. The average may be lower but in the other sports there is only one primary league and those no competition as I said earlier. Also the monopolized nature of other sports doesn't reflect on the true popularity of the sport. These are new arguments not new points....just to be sure that I'm not introducing any novel ideas. "To sum this up: Soccer is played more at lower levels in lesser leagues. This is 100% trues, and is a point in my favor. This leads me to think that on average, if there are lower soccer leagues, the entire quality of soccer is pulled down, because the cream of the crop aren't the only playing. In the NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL, only the best of the best get in there. Therefore, the overall quality is better, because there aren't as many little leagues taking up the worse players and letting them play for a living." Without being too negative, I think this is counter intuitive.... Here's why.... -Soccer leagues (except in the US) are set up such that the best and most successful teams rise to the top and the poor teams fall through the ranks through promotion and relegation. This allows for the best to rise to the top in a more efficient (in terms of sports) but costly manner (for the teams) this does not happen as effectively in other sports because it is not set up in the same manner and if it is, it does not have the right size for this to happen. -The fact that the "worse players" earn a living means there is a demand for it, thus he must have some quality. No? -The monopolized sports have, players who make it and players who don't. They have a small middle range, while soccer does, this does mean the average quality of soccer is lowered but soccer overall has approximately the same if not higher quality because of this. -the largest and most successful soccer clubs are very consistent in their success. Only the cream of the crop teams can remain above the relegation zone and thus be worthy of remaining in the top. -While US sports almost reward the failing teams with parity by spreading the wealth and awarding them the opportunity to chose the top potential players. This rewards poor teams. (by poor I mean bad not the opposite of rich) -football has its fair share of bad players who are on the large teams who would probably be playing on a lower level team if it weren't for the fact that there is only one pro league. Soccer allows variety. Addressing your previous point about rivalries I must say that it is an extremely biased report by an American company. The most well supported teams in the world which rival each other are probably in fact the best rivalries and soccer teams are the best supported. This means that soccer has the greatest rivalries. Rivalries=passion=hooligans(Which sort of denies you a point but brings up a bad part of soccer). And damn I wish I chose more rounds. I could debate this again if you want. Because I thoroughly enjoyed this and I pretty much screwed myself and the debate over with the earlier rounds, I apologize for my poor showing in that aspect but I hope I made it up with this round. Good