I was just reading The U.S. soccer fan’s Bill of Rights at sportsillustrated.com and one of them gave me an idea. Here is number 6 from their list:
6. The Right to First-Class Sports-Fan Citizenship. Every soccer fan in the United States has experienced this: You walk into a bar hoping to watch a match, but the bartenders have all five TVs tuned to a midseason baseball game. You ask politely if he’ll turn one of the TVs to the soccer match. He, of course, didn’t know it was on and probably doesn’t even have the right channel anyway. At which point, you walk out. This has to stop. American soccer fans have to demand that sports bars regularly include soccer in the lineup.
It reminded me of countless trips to various sports bars to watch a game. Sometimes MLS, sometimes the US MNT, sometimes a European game. It has been rare to get a nice TV actually with sound. Usually there is a rodeo, baseball game, golf, or some other crap on multiple TVs that no one is watching that still get more play than soccer. The bartenders usually have a hard time understanding why someone is asking them to put what game on?
It made me think that someone should keep a list of soccer friendly bars. I don’t mean somewhere that will turn a small TV in the corner to the game, but somewhere that you can expect to have a game on the big screen – and actually be able to listen to it.
I’ll try to get something set up for that soon – but I’ll need help to make the list. I’m not sure if there would be a single place in my home town that would make the list.
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Here’s a Facebook group.