Let's Argue About Stadiums!
Time to settle this "which culture is better?" debate once and for all
The world is coming to North America for the World Cup, so fans are arguing about whether American stadiums are super-sized monuments to sports awesomeness or soulless corporate money pits. It’s a brainless, zero-sum debate shot through with cultural chauvinism, and I want in. To hell with the soccer — let’s let this fight determine once and for all which is better: the United States, or the countries people have long fled to come to the United States.
But first, some ground rules: I won’t say anything positive. I won’t say anything fair. In keeping with the sacred traditions of the internet, I will only offer the most cynical, inflammatory, glass-half-empty takes I can summon. I will lean into broad-brush statements and crude cultural stereotypes, especially about the French. I’ll do this because fair-mindedness isn’t funny, so the real goal here is to personally profit while leaving the world a little worse-off.
Let’s get started.
Are American sports stadiums soulless corporate creations designed to separate people from their money like a caveman sucking the marrow from a defeated enemy’s bones? How dare you question the authenticity of Liberty Mutual Stadium at Bagel Bites Point powered by Dorito’s. Some of my most cherished memories are going there with my dad to see the ABC/ESPN/Disney/Hulu Game of the Week brought to you by KFC/Taco Bell/Tampax. And sure, we couldn’t see the game from our seats in the 8 jillion level — my dad was but a humble working man (cardiac surgeon) — but we could catch it on the flat screens at the Hooter’s/Budweiser Fan Beer-porium. At least: We could watch from there if my dad had saved up enough money for a single stadium buffalo wing for me and my 12 siblings.
If you ask me, there are no better sports fans in the world than employees of a law firm that booked at $40,000 suite for a mandatory work event. Their vague awareness that some sort of sports event is happening as they try to score facetime with the boss makes the atmosphere absolutely fucking electric. When you combine their passion with other folks you see at American stadiums — influencers, celebrities, OnlyFans stars hoping to grow their business through a viral appearance on the Jumbotron — there’s really nothing like it. And when you combine that with cues from the big screen about when to cheer, how to cheer, and how to sing along with the Black Eyed Peas being blasted into your face at eyeglass-shattering levels, there’s nothing quite like the American sports experience.
European sports are often more authentic, by which I mean: They have the showmanship of a Presbyterian church service and no one has invested in them since before the Great War. All non-Champions League European soccer teams play in stadiums made of concrete, tin, and the bones of the Irishmen who built them. They have nicknames like “Old Firetrap” or “The Vomit Trough”, they have three toilets at most, and there is a stand dedicated to the victims of the collapse of the stand that stood there before. Dining options include beer, ale, lager, stout, pilsner, porter, and some ungodly meat-cooked-in-a-pig’s-vagina thing that seems like something you’d eat on day 900 of a medieval siege.
At these stadiums, you can find the most passionate, boisterous, and — let’s just say it — Nazi-adjacent fans in all of sport. Each stadium has a section devoted to the city’s underemployed, sexually frustrated losers, who yell all the things at the opposing team that they’d like to yell at whatever God rendered them so ill-equipped for life. It’s not recommended to sit in this part of the stadium if you’re female, Jewish, non-white, literate, or if you’d like to continue to believe that euthanasia is a bad idea. This section is separated from the visiting fans’ section by a security presence rivaled only by the Chinese at Tiananmen Square.
Of course, things are different for the big-name European teams. Champions League teams typically play in stadiums that seat 70-80,000 people, there are luxury boxes and corporate signage…it’s all pretty damned American. And there’s a reason for that: Those teams want to win. Good teams need good players, good players cost money, and the only way to get that money is squeeze it out of your most committed suckers fans. Or at least: That’s the only way to get the necessary money except for being a third world oil baron with more money than Gilgamesh and Satan combined. Some such people own the big teams, and they don’t shake down their fans because they need the money — they do it simply for the love of evil.
Whichever stadium experience you prefer, it’s important that you go on social media and express your thoughts in the most obnoxious way possible. Surely, one experience is “better” — let’s find out which one! And let’s use this fight as a proxy for whether the US or Europe is “better”. Let’s also use “the US” and “Europe” as proxies for “right-wing thought” and “left-wing thought” so that we can find out which one of those is better, too — there’s a lot riding on this! But let’s get this settled before the start of the main event: Yelling at each other on social media about whether soccer is good or bad.
The beer was cheaper at Doc Martin stadium in West Ham.