Posted on Tuesday, 28th July 2009 by Michael Lomax
There are more than 300,000,000 people in the United States and the world population is quickly approaching 7 billion. Our country makes up just 5% of the entire global population, even less. The days of US athletic dominance may soon come to an end for this reason, unless the country wakes up from complacency and positions itself or the future.
Vast amounts of money are already being put into countries across the globe. Looking ahead, the USA may lose its grip as the most powerful sports media force in the world, all lost at the expense of other emerging nations.
Athletes, media personalities, team coaches, managers, owners, and sports agents will need to present themselves in a more global light. Fans in other countries will need more and more reasons to look to American athletes as their role models.
The US should become multilingual, or more accommodating to markets that speak other languages, and the country needs to be more broad-based in its knowledge, with schools teaching children growing languages such as Chinese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian. Without this, the shining light that the US presents itself as to the rest of the world will steadily fade over time.
Other countries are quickly beginning to approach our viewership figures, and we’ll need to be mindful of this if we plan to remain at the forefront of the sports world. Our inability to accept soccer into the mainstream is a perfect example that showcases our stubbornness and unwillingness to change. I, for one, realize this, and have proactively made efforts to watch more and more of the sport; and I’ve really liked it.
Not only is soccer an incredible sport, but the picture is beautiful when watched on HDTV. The game’s premier player (Cristiano Ronaldo) just as exciting with his ball-handling skills as Chris Paul is when it comes to NBA basketball. Kaka and his excellent means of passing the ball to his teammates is just as exciting as watching Drew Brees passing the ball to his fellow Saints.
It’s time for we Americans to open our minds to the rest of the world. We’ve always been known to be an innovative, progressive, and future-minded nation and as sports fans, we most definitely fit the bill. Failing to adapt to global trends only exposes us to potential irrelevancy.
The reward is that if we embrace the dynamic world around us, we then continue to maintain and preserve American dominance for as long as the eye can see. And very few would object to this.
Tags: a, America, b, baseball, basketball, f, football, g, global, h, hockey, i, international, l, n, o, p, r, Recreation Sports, s, soccer, sport, sports, USA
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