Good Idea! Now find a better one.

I slowly wave my hand as my neighbor is about to change channels from the MLS soccer match on ESPN, “You don’t want to change the channel. You like soccer.”

He replies, “I don’t want to change the channel. I like soccer.”

There are some marketers and business people here in the US of A who wish they could exercise such control over their potential market. They would love for their prospect to have “weak minds” as Obi-Wan Kenobi demonstrated in Star Wars.

The reality is that we have to wrestle with the Value, Way, and Means of American sports viewers to understand what is needed for Americans to watch more soccer.

Now, Conventional Wisdom says that Americans must become more enlightened to appreciate The Beautiful Game. We have to learn to appreciate the subtlety, grace, and flow of Soccer.

Conventional Wisdom implies that Americans must change themselves to value the game itself.

Well Conventional Wisdom isn’t always wise. The game is not the Value. The game itself is not why we watch sports. The reason we watch is simple: Humans are relational.

We prefer to share sports with friends. We like to discuss, analyze, debate. Who’s the best player or team? Who’s unstoppable? Who’ll make a comeback? Did you see that shot?!? All day, baby. All day.

In short, we like pointless arguments. Get a group of football fans together and tell them that the recent New England Patriots dynasty could easily beat the 1985 Chicago Bears and gird yourself for the onslaught.

Be prepared to take notes as statistic after statistic is cited proving offensive effectiveness, defensive prowess, consistency, endurance and performance in the clutch.

The relationships between friends and rivals are the Value. The Way to that Value is through sharing thoughts, observations and opinions. The Broadcast of the game is only the means.

You cannot control who people discuss or share the game with. You cannot control what they value. But you can make more and better tools for people to get to what they value. So how do we change a broadcast and actually provide the tools?

Provide statistics, analysis, metrics, replays, slow motion and measurements - Give Americans a path to what they value and they’ll give you greater viewership.

And what statistics are available in a typical Soccer broadcast? # of Goals, Fouls, Corner Kicks, Shots, Saves, Free Kicks, Goal Kicks and % of time with possession of the ball. That’s it. So here’s a very short list of potential statistics:

• Shooting Statistics
• Speed of the shot, Spin on the ball, Accuracy
• Reaction time of the Goalkeeper
• Effects of heat, humidity, altitude on ball flight
• Goal Kicks and Punts
• Hang Time, Velocity, Distance, Height
• Player Matchups
• Forward vs Defender
• Midfielders vs Midfielders
• Moves
• Names of the moves
• Analyze form, timing, the reactions of defenders
• Fouls
• What percentage of called fouls were dives?
• The dive percentage for each player
• Attacking Statistics
• Number and Speed of counter attacks
• Naming different types of attack

This is just the tip of the iceberg of what could be tracked and analyzed. Put two Americans who don’t know soccer in front of a TV with all this data and see what happens.

Will they start to enjoy the broadcast? Will they begin to understand just how difficult it is to get the ball in the net? Will they enjoy themselves arguing about the game, the players, the ref?

A great place to see some of this in action is the X-Games. Watch any of the high flying events and see if you don’t walk away with a whole new vocabulary. McTwists, 720’s, Lounges - Everything is named, every jump is analyzed. It’s perfect material to spur discussion.

Speaking as Soccer fans who watched every game of this past World Cup and Football fans looking forward to the coming season, we would certainly welcome more data, analysis and statistics in Soccer broadcasts.

We would love to have the data in hand that proves which players dive and flop all the time.