[aasarava]

Not sure about European sports reporting, but the problem I've found with both the US sports reporting and the Indian sports reporting that I've read is that journalists are allowed to -- perhaps even encouraged to -- use sports jargon without definition. If a tech reporter were to file a story containing undefined three-letter acronyms (CRM, ROI, etc.) and refer to Python without mentioned that it's a "programming language," his or her editor would mark it up and send it back (as she should).

[corin_]

That would be the case if writing for a more general audience... but in a publication whose audience is, say, digital marketing executives, "ROI" would be perfectly fine. Of course, depending on the editorial guidelines that publication follows, it might not be allowed because they don't like acronyms, but not because it needed a definition.

With sports writing, you can't expect definitions for common sports jargon. In F1 racing you have to assume that readers know what "pole position" is, in football (US: soccer) you assume readers understand "offside", and so on. If you were to explain every piece of sporting terminology in every article, it would drive readers crazy.

As to acronyms, while it makes it even more confusing for people who don't understand the sport, the vast majority of the readers are people who do understand it. And for those who don't, it often wouldn't make a difference. If I wasn't a baseball fan, "earned run average" wouldn't make any more sense to me than "ERA".

The biggest difference between American sports and European sports (I'm not familiar with MLS, so I'm not sure if this difference lies with the sport or where it's being played, MLS perhaps fits with European football or perhaps with sports such as baseball) is that American sports use way more terminology and statistics, not just from journalists, but talked about by fans, shown in stadiums, etc. If you watch a US baseball game, and a cricket game (not that cricket is all European, but it is non-US), you'll see that difference hugely.

And that's actually something that fascinates me - I'm English, so such a big focus on stats wasn't a part of sport for me growing up, but once I got into NFL/MLB, I really love it. But, it still seems like something that most sports fans wouldnt care about, to me. Even though I know that they clearly do.

[marcusbooster]

Going off-topic, but what the hell. I grew up memorizing stats on the backs of baseball cards and playing sports video games, so I agree that knowing the numbers is as much a part of my understanding of the game as the actual rules.

What I enjoy about the English football writers I read, is they'll link sport with culture, history, and politics. An upcoming match preview can feel like a history lesson for an entire region. That's something you rarely find over here (though Hunter S. Thompson used to do a sports column for ESPN that covered all kinds of ground). I'd say most Americans get their sports news through highlight shows, but there's always been the tradition of "checking the box score" in the paper.

When soccer does hit mainstream news here, like during the World Cup, most of the conversations seem to be around "how can we fix the game?", ie. goal-line technology, etc. Maybe as a culture we like things that are more concrete, which leads to something like the current NFL, new rules every year so it takes 5 minutes for the officials to sort out a play.