I'm currently making a character, and I was thinking in the wake of the Cup, there's no better way to show North America having become Third-World like than having the teenage girl from Puyallup (making a razorgirl ganger) one who's grown up playing and following futbol (hockey and American football require all sorts of pads and shit, which is part of why you don't see them getting played in the favelas).

I know SotA 2064 has a section on the World Cup in Amazonia, and Shadowbeat may have bits and pieces but hell if I know where my copy is right now and I remember it not having much.

There's a lot I'm unsure about, and frankly I think I'm asking you to reason this out with me as much as quote lore, because I don't think the lore is really out there on it.

Do you think soccer's popularity in the former US would have caught up with the rest of the world in the 2070s? I'm trying to think of what league she might follow. English Premier seems like a copout answer. I suppose with the Pacrimphilia present in Seattle, perhaps an East Asian league?

Also, SotA2064 mentions that soccer in Latin America now normally allows both women and men to compete on the same teams. Does this imply that augmentation and the like are allowed, to make up for muscle mass differences? That would seem to conflict with the idea of soccer as the sport of the world's poor. Perhaps the finesse nature of the sport is such that the muscle mass differential isn't as big a deal? Also, apparently Shadowbeat (been reading older threads) says some football and soccer leagues ban metas. Somehow I bet that that "some" doesn't include FIFA, especially if they're hosting it in Amazonia. I could see it being necessary in some positions, though. Troll goalies would be bad. Maybe there's a weight limit or something in that position? But out on the field it might be more beneficial to have smaller, faster players.

What do you guys think about this?

I think the Matrix version of the Vuvuzela will be even more pervasive and annoying than the real life one.




-karma

*edit* All I wrote was wrong... sorry. (just for the people who read it).

Soccer isn't explained in Shadowbeat, but under "Other Sports" it states that Soccer is still the number one most popular sport worldwide, with Urban Brawl at its heels and as for the UCAS, there the big three (Football, Baseball, Basketball) are still number one.

As for cyber, Shadowbeat states that with the upcoming of Cyberware in every sport gender-mixed teams are now pretty much a given, even though women are still kind of rare in pro leagues. Metahumans are welcome everywhere (especially Orks and Trolls in Football and Elves in Basketball).

I thought I remembered a line like that. What does that do to soccer as the sport of the poor, though, if augmentation becomes necessary in competition?

And I should ask too, do you guys think the Awakened play a role in soccer? I mean, adepts I think probably do, but say, shamans? That seems like a much rougher call.

It becomes a silly "arms race" if every team fields a stable full of Mages sustaining spells on everyone on the field. A full set of Improved Attributes and Combat Senses of course, with many other standard (and of course custom) spells helpful.

Honestly I'm surprised even cyberware is allowed.

The club will pay for it when the level goes up. Like they already pay for the transfusions

Magic is forbidden. Basically everywhere. Only exception is healing magic. Adepts are a grey line, they are considered legal, as long as they do not get any cyberware (source: Shadowbeat).



Pretty much so, yes. Pro Soccer already is nothing even close to a "sport of the poor" anymore.

Maybe the women who play simply are more muscular than the average, that's why it's called "average"

Augmentation is not only allowed, its basically what makes the pro leagues the "pro" leagues. They can afford the best implants and training.

Soccer riots must be.. well, a riot when the guy next to you might be groin height with filed teeth, or twice your height and horned. Or when the guy rooting for the other team can call up five or six buddies and slam you with a manabolt at 20 paces.

...or when a cybered-out Lone Star guy decides he doesn't like your face.

it would be something like this I imagine http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXtmBwDpYK4...feature=related

I think I would totally watch sports if they were actually like that.

Edit: I love the Asian movie in German.

SOTA 63 states that the Cheyenne Coyotes lost a few players after unsuccessful implant surgery. This indicates that augmented players are permitted and there's probably a trans national North American league.
Also, SOTA 64 notes that Australia qualified for the 64 WC thru Oceania, though they joined the Asian confederation in about 2006.

As for the [SR] future, I think the English league will lose its pre-eminence to a European super league, backed by megacorporate media interests, playing for the Lofwyr Cup :)

naaa. Japanese/chinese superninjas will take over, backed by Renraku, Mitsa, and the others.

Going back to the stuff in Shadowbeat and how they write about other sports college level and stuff is unaugmented. You prove you've got natural skills and then the big leagues pay for you to get augmented.

The real question for how big does it become in North America depends on the NAN. Europe and South America will maintain the fondness for it and it seems to be growing in Africa. The J-corps would probably favor Baseball but might have developed Soccer teams to compete with Fuchi (which when it was around did have a European element)

UCAS will probably not adopt it. It's the vore of the old american MLB cities. I don't know how big it is in the South but there would probably be a back lash against the popularity in Aztlan. I suspect it might work in CFS but the question comes with the NAN.

it took 50 years and an Ares strike team inally hunter down the last f'ing vuvuzela hidden in a shop in Singapores "dirty half mile."

And there was much celebrating.

I doubt it would be big in the south. Its not our kind of spectator sport. For instance while I can't stand playing football I don't mind watching it, and I find soccer boorish to watch though very fun to play.

What about a Latin American league like the Copa Sudamericana or the Primera División de México Aztlan? The Spanish Primera División might also be an option.

hi hi

I remember reading a short fluff piece about how an adept was disqualified from gymnastics when a dual natured ref noticed she was using magic, don't remember where though. I think it mostly depends on the sport and the league.

I happen to like the vuvuzelas, I would take it as an active skill if only there was a mental damage track in SR.

Hmm. What about "Artisan (Specialization: Vuvuzela)", base damage value (Bod)S? I'm not yet sure how to handle range.

Edit: On second thought, maybe (Bod/2)S. Otherwise a vuvuzela-using troll might be a bit extreme.

Shadowbeat seems to have settled the question of football/soccer being less prominent than the traditional big 3 American sports in the UCAS (at least in the 2050's canon).
Good point that Japanacorp influence might promote soccer particularly in the western side of the continent. It's hard to speculate on real vs. SR history though, I imagine that traditionally baseball was completely dominant over soccer in 80's Japan though far less so now. SR however is the 80's, just ask WR ;), with loyal shaikujin sedately waving their pennants for the corp team.

P.S. Also, the game is massive in Africa, just poorly funded.

Soccer would still be big in developing nations as kids only need a ¥5 soccer ball to play with the whole neighborhood. Same reason why kids play so much more football than baseball here in the States currently - just need a ball rather than a bat and a bunch of gloves for everyone.

I'd suspect there'd be some rules adjustments for a lot of sports (can you imagine a basketball game where you need no talent because you can dunk without your feet leaving the ground? Oh wait, that was Shaq...sorry...) just to allow various races/augmentations/adepts/etc. Shadowbeat would be the best source for this until the new media book comes out I think sometime next year. And I do seem to recall at least one sport not counting the Olympics only allows unaugmented mundane players and was losing popularity because of it...but for the life of me, I can't remember which. I think it was either baseball or soccer, and it might've changed since 2050 to 2063/2064/2072...

Boorish to watch soccer? That's a new one. You sure you know what boorish means?

Anyway, anyone know why the big three are so popular in America? Because honestly Baseball and Football have to be two of the most boring sports to watch besides Golf and Nascar (minus the wrecks). It seems like the big reason the big three are so popular is because they are 'American' sports, and Americans seem big on things that are 'from America'.

Well, I will agree that Football and Baseball hold little interest for me most of the time, but every once in a while, I ejoy watching a good game of Footbal... However, I thoroughly enjoy watching (and playing) a good game of Futbol.... Always enjoyed that sport.

I had a sociology professor explain it once. Sports are a "practice" for combat. In the middle ages, jousts and tournaments were safer ways for knights to prove their worth on the battlefield when there were no battles. Fast forward to America...

Baseball is about one man against many...the batter against the entire team. This is why it became widely popular in the late 19th/early 20th century because the industrial revolution was going on at the time and most companies were one-man operations (even massive monopolies)...so one man vs. the world. Same reason why it gained popularity in Japan. One man against the team trying to get noticed and shine amidst all the other players/sararimen.

However, in post-WWII America, teamwork was more emphasized as the office block and cubicle culture grew. You and your teammates working together in synchronicity with planning and forethought to defeat the other team (whether it's the guy on the other project or the competitor). That's why from the 50s to the 70s/80s, football and basketball gained a following quickly.

The reason soccer, rugby, and other European sports never took off in the US can be boiled down solely to corporations. Both games don't have regular periods for stopping for set lengths of time. No time-outs, quarters/periods, halftimes, etc. means no time for commercials. Hard to get sponsors when you can't guarantee them airtime for commercials. This is changing with soccer in the US because of all the soccer moms in the late 80s and those kids reaching their 20s now. Because parents started freaking out over "dangerous" sports like football and didn't want their little snowflakes hurt, they started putting them in soccer instead. It's also cheaper than baseball again because you just need a ball, a uniform, and shoes instead of many balls, a bat, a fielding glove, batting gloves, bases, a uniform, a helmet, and shoes. And a soccer ball traveling at the snowflake's head at 70 MPH is going to do less damage than a baseball at the same speed due to density and surface area. Therefore, kids in the late 80s onward played soccer and many of them hold it fondly, so they watch it today. With the technology to now insert ads all over the place (score/clock at the top of the screen, banners at the bottom, changeable billboards along the boards, using the grass on the pitch as a greenscreen to insert ads onto the pitch itself, etc), sponsorship for the matches is much easier.

Please note I'm paraphrasing what I remembered hearing late one night in a diner chatting with some other students and a couple of professors, so please do actual research before you start quoting me because I may be mixing things up after almost a decade

Soccer has a half time. I don't know that it is particularly long, but there isn't any real reason that they couldn't be long. I mean there is no real reason that football has to have a giant spectacle for half time other than because it is the most interesting part of the match. Could just as easily be 5 minutes as any other length of time.

Halftime in soccer is usually 15 minutes. And most commercials are placed on the large borders of the playing field and slapped onto the players 'uniforms'.

Yep. Plus people put adds in randomly. With ITV putting some on just before a goal in the world cup much to every ones haterid or mocking depending on how manic a fan they where. However most adds are on the side and on the kit.

Yes, there's the 15 minute halftime...then there's 45+ minutes straight of play on either side. Same in rugby. There's no inning changes, no timeouts, no swapping pitchers warming up, to swapping field sides for quarters, etc. Commercial breaks are typically every 8-12 minutes and last 1 to 4 minutes. If they can't judge how much time they'll have, they can't get sponsors to give a lot of money. Plus, halftime's typically when everyone goes for a beer/food/bathroom run and isn't watching the TV anymore. A network charges based on the expecting ratings and spot where the commercial airs. Something airing dead in the middle of a TV show gets more than something right after the opening credits or right before the end credits since people are less likely to watch then. Commercials in the 4th quarter of a football game are more expensive than the first quarter which is more expensive than halftime because of the likely size of the audience.

In soccer, you just have the pregame, halftime, and the postgame to show commercials. If you try to interrupt the ongoing match for commercials, you ROYALLY piss off the fans (MLS ratings almost doubled as soon as coverage became continuous). Now, they have the ability to put billboards on the stadium, superimposed on the pitch, and logos/banners at the bottom of the screen or on the score clock in the corner of the screen. They also get mentions by play-by-play ("This match brought to you uninterrupted by Stuffer Shack"). They don't make as much as they would over traditional commercials, but they also tend to only show soccer on Saturday/Sunday afternoons on broadcast and shove it on ESPN2 if it's a prime time match where they'll lose less money.

If it's the NAN we're betting on, I guess my gut feeling is they'll be busy with stickball (and hockey in the three northern nations).

And thanks for the posts and ideas guys! Keep em coming, I'm writing most of this down.

Not sure why I chose boorish... perhaps I shouldn't post when having a nightcap.

you mean Lacross? good idea

RL interesting news item recently. A NA team., Mohawk I think, takes pride in having their own nation passports, not US which they claim to reject. BUT they were supposed to go to the UK for a tournament. The US granted them dispensation to use the Mohawk passports but the UK refused them saying it did not recognize the nation and they did not have diplomatic relations. Naturally the 'indians' got bent out of shape but the truth of it is that they had their arrogance very deffinantly thrown back in their faces. I mean they want to make that big a noise about it, let them stay on the reservation or set up customs on the border with the US.

Not in germany they don't No german TV producer is that suicidal ;D

A few bits on football in 2050 and beyond;
Taking the MLS examples provided above, ads could be presented by personalised AR or on trid by obscuring the stands rather than just the hoardings with full video.
Much of the referee's tasks would be replaced by expert systems exercising impartiality and consistency and avoiding frequent refereeing blunders (See GER v ENG
Gambling and organised crime, particularly Far East syndicates would continue to attempt to fix matches with much potential work for runners.

"Sorry coach, I can't play in the world cup today, I... uh, fell down some stairs and broke my legs."

Edit:
"Oh, and so did my bodyguard, but he broke his neck... can I get a new one, fast?"

I don't think they have sorted that out by 2050. Give them one more century at least

Actually the reason they have trouble in the world cup is because they specifically refuse to use technology. Refs are not allowed to consult an instant playback or use anything except their eyes to make the call. That's the real reason there were (and always have been and always will be) so many bad calls in the world cup.

You can't take the Ref away! Yelling at and hating the Ref is a big part of soccer. Maybe one of the biggest!

The argument is:
Soccer should be played the same at every level.
A poor village in Angola can play soccer, they just need a ball and a regulation sized area.
This is the 'reason' FIFA gives for now allowing camera replays, etc. That poor village in Angola won't have cameras to do instant replays. And that's just not fair.

They also won't have shin guards or cleats or professional trainers or private dietitians or perfectly manicured pitches, or necessarily goal posts or... cameras to do instant replays with.

Or being paid close to £150k a week.

This.

I never said FIFA wasn't a bunch of idiots

So, speaking as a native of the football country (YES, WE CALL IT FOOTBAL).
I think that after the Fall of the Brazilian government and the reflorestation of Brazil, most of the teams would "disapppear" because their cities would be swallowed by the jungle but the most professional and famous teams are from the São Paulo-Rio de Janeiro region, that remains mostly urbanized.

Currently, there are many "organized cheering groups" an euphemism for soccer-related-gangs and a dystopian world like Shadowrun would still have them and possibly worst. Some of these groups indeed have criminal connections with drug dealers and if anyone saw the international soccer news these last 2 months, many football players in Brazil came from favelas, which means that they have many friends there, some of them, drug dealers.

A whole championship could be an entire campaign for a group of runners. Either stealing tactical information, poisoning a team's gaterode supply, threatening a referee or even breaking the legs of a player.

One of my players once briefly played as an British football hooligan. True story.

http://www.eatliver.com/img/2009/3849.jpg SNCR

He is talking about this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9WgcuED37M

Vágner Love, Flamengo's forward, was filmed in a drug dealear's party with people carrying ARs and an AV rocket launcher.

haha
Though we do have 4 professional 'football' codes played down here.

I think a renaming of football to handegg wouldn't go well with most Americans. Personally I don't care what they call it, I just wish they would call it something besides football to be confusing with the rest of the world. But America just likes to be different and give the middle finger to the rest of the world (So much hatred for the American measurement system).