Let me just spit this out: At age 64, I enjoy watching soccer more than I enjoy watching NFL football.
This heresy has been stuck in my throat for awhile, like a shard of hard candy, but last Sunday's World Cup finals Heimliched it right out of me.
It was not only the thrilling drama of the Wold Cup finals in Qatar pitting the defending champions, France, against the sentimental favorites from Argentina led by Lionel Messi; but the contrast between the "beautiful game" and the plodding, commercial-filled, borderline-boring NFL games that followed on TV last Sunday afternoon.
Granted, some are calling the 2022 World Cup finals the most exciting championship game in history, so it's probably not fair to compare it to run-of-the-mill, midseason NFL games. But still ...
I've been feeling this aesthetic shift coming on for a while. Some of my middle-age friends think I'm crazy. After all, I'm a lifelong Pittsburgh Steelers fan with a photo of middle linebacker Jack Lambert hanging in my dining room.
So why my sudden ambivalence about the NFL? Maybe it's just that the Steelers are having a down year. Or perhaps it's that the Titans, my other favorite team, are sort of average.
Deep down, I'd like to think this change of heart is more than just a down cycle for my favorite NFL teams. I honestly find there just isn't enough action in most modern NFL games to warrant the time demand. Plus, each commercial break (at least 16 in most non-overtime NFL games) is a potential off-ramp in a world of short attention spans.
Sometimes when the Steelers aren't on local TV, I watch the 11- to 12-minute full-game highlights on YouTube. It has occurred to me more than once that anything worth watching in a 3 1/2-hour NFL game can be boiled down to about 11 minutes of action. That means about 95% of an average NFL broadcast is wasted time.
Soccer, on the other hand, is like a heavyweight fight wrapped inside a marathon. To a non-fan, a soccer game looks like an endless pinball of passes and hopeless shots on goal. But to a soccer fan, it resembles a prize fight -- look away for 10 seconds and you might just miss the knockout punch.
I'll be the first to admit that watching international soccer is an acquired taste. If you didn't grow up playing (or watching) the game, it takes awhile to appreciate the athleticism (and fitness) required to play. Watching our sons play soccer for the last 18 years has, no doubt, contributed to my conversion.
Plus there's the whole America-first aspect of football fandom. Some people seem to think soccer is an encroachment on red, white and blue traditions.
Not so. It's no threat to football traditions to note that soccer now has a small but increasing fan base in the United States and that hosting the World Cup here in 2026 will only increase its exposure. (It's already the world's favorite sport with as many as 1.5 billion estimated worldwide viewers for last Sunday's World Cup finals, compared to just over 200 million Super Bowl watchers.)
On a local level, the growing interest in soccer is slow but unmistakable. Who would have thought back in the 2000s that Chattanooga, a midsize city in the mid-South, would have two professional soccer teams in 2022?
I'll admit that there are still things about soccer that confound me. For example, zero-zero ties are the worst. Ending every tied soccer game with penalty kicks would suit me better.
And the culture of flopping in soccer to draw fouls, is, well, foul. (Still, anyone who has watched opposing defensive linemen stop, drop and roll while playing the University of Tennessee's uptempo offense must admit that fake injuries happen in American football, too.)
Let's just agree that soccer, like jazz music, is an acquired taste. And in a free country, choosing your favorite sport should be as easy and judgment-free as choosing your favorite music.
The Family Life column publishes Sundays in Life. Contact Mark Kennedy at mkennedy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6645.