Shut... I assume by the big 3 you mean Football, baseball and basketball. I will sound like a heretic.... there is nothing slower than baseball exceot maybe golf, so action wise there is no comparison.
Football is a coaches game... in the old days you went out there and called your plays, nowdays you have to be told what to do ...just execute and everything will be OK. Great action but very little creativity.
Basketball is the closest thing... but to me basketball is 5 minutes long, start at 100 and play 5 minutes and you have the same result.
So the big 3 generate lots of money... the 2 Bs by playing a million games in a season. Football only has 16 games for the obvious physical toll.
The problem with your statement best athletes do not play soccer. Lets first state that as athletes go soccer players are usually better conditioned due to the game, secondly you have to compare apples to apples... The US is the size of Europe, you cannot use the same logic for building players that is used there, especially when the infrastructure is almost non-existant. you basically have to compare a continent to the US. Therefore you cannot say that there aren't enough athletes to select 23 to play at the world cup out 300 million.
The problem (or differenc) is choice. There are far too many choices in the US, the same cannot be said elsewhere. So in order to develop the players a whole new approach must be used, using rejects from Europe/SA/Mexico to run the programs is not going to work because their experience is not the US reality. Secondly your point....money.... the US has it, a service is provided therefore a fee is paid. But what is the ROI?.... nothing....unless you use school or profesional leagues as the enticement.
So you want to fix soccer? start by making 18 scholarships available at schools instead of the missly 9.9 for men or 12 (?) for women.
Where to get it from? Football has 60 plus scholarships on an individual basis. In any game no more than 40 play (to be generous) why you need so many? And yes I heard the stories of who pays for what....see Chico's analysis.
But here is the crux of the matter, you have to rob Peter to pay Paul, and Peter is none too happy. So lets drop the charade, admit that college football and basketball are indeed profesional, and start comparing apples to apples. Soccer will be a slow growth market in the US, one which will eventually grow in size to challenge the status quo, but it will not happen anytime soon.
So I will continue to push the sport I love, work within the available avenues and try to provide ideas (hopefully good ones) on how to make it better.
We can complain all day long but if we do not get off our butts, nothing will change and nothing will get better....except of course for our complaining.
