It suggests me that it’s not only about the structure of the game, but about the whole social situation – as in some Goffman statements about the relationships between representation and situation in “Frame analysis”. To try a formula, we value “representation” (with inside logic), they praise “arena” (as a social mechanic). Is it the same that in MMOs, they value cooperation (which is socially oriented) and we praise pvp (whose results come fully from internal rules) ?

I think baseball appears faster to me now that I have a better understanding of what I am supposed to look out for. But it still feels very slow. I do think that a game that you do not understand always feels slow because it looks like noise (or “a mess”) – it is only once you understand the game that you start to see events and changes.

I mean, baseball is slow, but you can focus when something is going to happen (you get the action and the results). And then your focus can be relaxed again in a couple of seconds (like football, unlike soccer).

I admit I do not understand baseball at all, but isn’t that short “focus” what is important for TV, advertisement, and drinking beer?

I guess the basic cliché is that the U.S. population is impatient and wants to see results and action – but that very clearly rules out baseball, and this makes me doubt that we can really make these types of arguments.

My pet theory is rather that a sport or game only becomes interesting once you have enough familiarity with it to see what is going in, meaning that a sport that for some random reason becomes popular is likely to stay popular.

From personal experience, I can assure you that American Football and Baseball are intensely boring when you don’t know them. But they are also becoming more interesting now that I am getting a grasp of the rules and the different types of play.

Soccer is too slow and too dull. They need to shrink the pitch to 2/3rds of its current size and get rid of the utterly pointless offside rule. (If it leads to scores of 20 and 30 per game, so much the better — if both sides play by the same rules, what differences does it make?)

http://maniacworld.com/John-Cleese%20Rants-Soccer-vs-Football.html

My takeaway is that American football is essentially a game of chance enhanced by a narrative we overlay. Seems like it falls right into the same bucket of traits that those people are assigning to soccer.

I know… but it is a good joke.