Revenge of the Nerds

I didn't expect the Richard Whittall post to get the play it did, engendering considerable traffic, a long response from Whittall, and a wildly entertaining BA Duane & Bill Archer blood feud in the comments. It was like unlocking a secret area in a video game.

Naturally, I was interested in the response to my handiwork. Duane still seems to think I engage in "frat-boy antics", while Whittall described me as a pedantic, stubborn nerd. Some aspects of these characterizations are mutually exclusive; others perhaps are not.

I spent some time wondering whether it mattered how much Whittall was equating Fake Sigi with what allegedly results from soccer being a niche sport in America with little print media coverage:

Therefore it's left to a sizable army of internet nerds to fill in the gaps; because it's essentially a free-for-all (lord knows I have no journalistic credentials whatsoever), writers closest and most dedicated to the source tend to hog the mic stand. And, unlike mainstream media outlets, they're only beholden to write about the sport for themselves and fellow NA football enthusiasts who'll share a link or two.

Which is generally a very good thing. The problem—and excuse me while I borrow a few terms from my dusty and yellowing philosophy degree—is that dedicated N. American soccer pedants often confuse positivist claims with normative ones. I challenge you to find someone as aware of the current single entity system and the various issues involving the infeasibility of loosening cap restrictions in MLS as Fake Sigi. But does that intractability therefore mean the notion of changing salary caps should be a priori dismissed completely out hand? Does it dictate the worthiness of the notion on its own merits?
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And you're not going to attract anyone new by persisting with an online dick-measuring competition about who can better remember average attendances from NASL's 1984 season.

It's is a criticism of not placing enough value on personal experience, of perhaps being a bit too reductionist in our outcomes, of not listening to others and repeating the same, tired old arguments. The most damning accusation is that of dick check competitions. I hope to God I've made my stance clear on that issue.

Ultimately, I decided it didn't matter since that's not the way I run things over here. And besides, Whittall's argument about nerds controlling the debate has two major problems.

First, while it's true that analog print coverage has been touch and go for soccer in America, that gap is first filled by behemoth institutions like Soccernet, ESPN (always), Football365, MLSNet, and BigSoccer (which an institution with semi-pro bloggers and random people); then by journalists like Ives, Steve Goff, Jack Bell, Beau Dure, and Glenn Davis; then by semi-pro sites like 3rd Degree, du Nord, Pitch Invasion, The Offside, and Goal.com; and then you get down to people like me. In that environment, it can hardly be claimed that pedantic nerds are hogging the mic - they're still trying to get a hold of it.

Second, a large body of print coverage in other American sports hasn't exactly prevented them from getting messed up by pedantic nerds. So even if "pendants" were unusually active participants in the soccer debate, it's hardly without precedent in more mainstream sports.

The point is that the niche free-for-all Whittall describes doesn't exist. Any influence me or people like me have over the debate is based soley on the merits of our arguments or work, not on filling an imaginary void left by old school beat writers and columnists.

Then there's Whittall's call for new voices:

I guess what I'm trying to say is that it's not always a good idea to leave the pedants to define the terms of the debate about the future of soccer in North America. Sometimes a bit of distance, the cry of a few outside voices, can bring fresh and much-needed perspectives to the debate.

What this apparently means is to put out a call for anecdotes of readers' experiences "outside of the endless technical debates that dominate the journalistic spectra," changing the debate to exclude pedantic people like Fake Sigi who have learned too much about the inner workings of MLS.

Richard, if you want to opt out of Fake Sigi Land, that's fine. I can unsubscribe from your RSS feed, I'll even toss an anecdote your way out of kindness. I'm not against new voices. But when your desire for "inclusion" is apparently influenced by an over-generalized view of what MLS fans are and what should be done with them:

[European games on American TV] might also help wrest MLS from MLS fans, those insular nerds who do things like blame Beckham for responding to familial insults and hurl beer cups at linesman before going home to flood the internet with false Designated Player rumours. A fresh, young, American audience knowledgeable about football and not willing to wait for Garber to slop his league through ill-advised franchises in small soup midwest cities playing football on covered gridirons can only be good for North American club soccer.

Then I think I'm well within my rights to say you are totally off base. You can't grow a league by bad-mouthing the biggest supporter demographic as you build an aspirational one, nevermind that your definition of the core group also has serious problems. And if you're going to advocate for the sorts of sweeping change you seem to support, an outside view is fine, but it needs to be precise and accurately stated. Otherwise we end up back here.

For me personally, I'm under no illusions that what I do appeals first and foremost to those who are already American soccer fans (except for maybe this post). But having a small following of fans and bloggers is how I reach a wider audience, because that audience is counting on those readers to pass along what they consider relevant. And that wider audience will pass along things it likes to those who have only a tangential interest in the matter at hand. Done consistently well, niche audiences in niche interests can grow quite large. A strong core and buzz attracts those who might not be interested otherwise.

Anyway, good luck with your anecdotal experiment - I hope it works out even though I think you've got it exactly backwards. Just remember that when you quote wikipedia, there's no such thing as the North American soccer pyramid. Or is it too pedantic to point that out?

Fake Sigi out.