No, it's pretty much always boring.

The sport itself is boring. It doesn't matter what teams are playing, or if they're rivals or whatever. The act of kicking the ball around for hours while only scoring 1-2 points, is extremely boring.

Yr too fixated on the 'goals' part.

It's much more than that.

it's fun to play but boring as hell to watch

I think America's problem with football is that their only exposure to it is the World Cup and MLS which are pretty fucking boring.

Hardly a revelation I know but just thought I'd remind everyone.

But so is baseball.

This is true. Most Americans don't have the patience to sit through continuous play whilst most Brits for example don't have the patience to sit through constant commercial breaks. Just comes down to culture and what we've grown up with. You guys deal with the ad breaks because you haven't known sport to be any different. Over here, the breaks are one of the main reasons people don't watch American sports, they're unbearable to most of us.

I've really enjoyed watching the Whitecaps in the MLS. The style of play is very up and down and because of that low scoring can be great with a lot of chances.

Incorrect about basketball - it was developed by James Naismith to keep YMCA youth in shape when they couldn't go out and run track during New England winters.

Oh, and things like this making national "news" is part of what keeps Americans away from soccer (Gasp, I said a dirty word):

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I can really only speak on a few sports:

With hockey as has been mentioned, it's mostly a weather issue, thus it's popularity lies in colder climates because that's where you can play on frozen ponds. Baseball's popularity in Japan is a result of American occupation following WW2. The troops brought the sport over and it caught on. Pretty sure it's a similar deal with Latin America. American Football, from what I've encountered, is criticized abroad because of the perceived lack of athleticism from the bigger aka fatter players, excessive padding in comparison to the similar sport of rugby, the lack of actual action in the game, the constant starting and stopping and the name of the sport, considering the "other" football is the most popular sport on the planet (and actually makes sense as a name).

Football will never be popular in America - certainly not to the extent it is nearly everywhere else in the world. It's too low scoring and people here hate draws, America would find it hard to appreciate a 0-0 draw whereas I enjoyed the first Spurs/City match this season immensely. Not to mention the fact that it does not translate to American-style sport viewing as there are no commercial breaks so attention must be paid 45 minutes straight.

Then there's the fact that - unlike American sports - shit teams don't get rewarded so unless they're bought by billionaires a la Man City they're going to stay shit. In America, shit teams get first pick of the best amateurs whereas in football, the best players sign with the richest/biggest/most successful clubs. I think it's also important to bring up that there is a huge contrast in statistics. Whether or not people realize it, we fucking love stats and inventing new stats, for that matter. While there are stats in football, it's really just goals scored and assists for individual players for the most part. Player ratings for American sports have become virtually objective as they are proven mathematically. There is an incredible amount of subjectivity in football, which is a nice change for me.

And then there's the whole 'MURICA aspect. Sure Canada invented hockey, baseball is an adaptation of rounders as American Football is with rugby, but really these sports have taken on American identities. Football is inherently global in its identity and Americans don't like that. I don't think they'd take kindly to the idea of being mediocre in a sport, thus they'd rather dismiss it. And thus it's considered a joke sport far too much. I think the foreign-sounding names would also be a problem. I see it with hockey (a niche sport) and when Sportscenter chooses to show highlights from matches. Pronouncing Barca as Bar-ka and Eric Abidal as A-bid-ul are recent examples.