And Greg, great analysis, but one question since we are dealing with two options here in this discussion. Is a draw after two OTs preferable to a draw after 90 minutes? If so, why exactly? The two OTs don't solve the "American tie problem" if no one scores. Or would everyone prefer that regular season games have the two OTs followed by PKs to match American tastes?
Good question. I think that even those with American sensibilities have their limits. In football and hockey, two frenetic contact sports that are incredibly physically draining on players, it's possible to end in a tie after attempting to break the tie with overtime (although the NHL refuses to cave on its antipathy for ties, using a shootout if OT does not end the game, high school and college hockey still have ties). Basketball never ends in a tie, which I think is a plus in basketball's favor, even though the end of a three-overtime game can look like the short-pants equivalent of the Bataan Death March. But basketball players are much less likely to suffer a concussion or a broken arm or torn knee ligaments in that third overtime than a hockey or football player would after that much playing time. And, of course, the only real danger in playing seventeen innings of baseball is running out of players. I think that most fans get that certain sports go over the line in terms of risks to life and limb if played to excess.
But at least baseball and basketball are true to themselves by insisting upon a standard-rules overtime outcome*, rather than employ a gimmick like the shootout in hockey or starting drives at the 25-yard line the way that college football does (How would you do this in basketball? Play a game of H-O-R-S-E?). Then again, as I said, football and hockey are contact sports where exhaustion heightens the likelihood of serious injury.
But the point, I think, in the eyes of most American sports fans is that the governing organizations of their favorite sports are at least
trying to rid themselves of ties. Even if they're not accomplishing that goal 100% of the time, they come close enough for the fans to live with the once-in-a-blue-moon tie. That's why I think that the typical American sports fan would welcome the two ten-minute overtimes in soccer, even if half of them (if Simple Coach's memory is correct) do end in a draw.
Penalty kicks? That's another matter. I think that fans tend to be split on the gimmickry of breaking ties in a manner other than the normal run of play. Some fans consider a shootout of any kind to be an abomination, whether in soccer or hockey, since it's not really the normal unfolding of the game itself. But soccer fans, unlike hockey fans, can at least claim that
their version of a shootout is a distillation of a genuine (but static) element of their sport, the penalty kick. Nevertheless, it still feels alien to the game itself. The intrinsic beauty of soccer lies in the movement of multiple players on a large field, and the shootout has none of that. But what it
does have is drama, and drama is a very important part of the appeal of sports. Speaking as someone who has called D3 tournament shootouts as a play-by-play broadcaster, I can vouch for the powerful tension and release involved in a team's entire season coming down to one penalty kick. But it still feels strangely out of place, like settling a knife fight with a hand of gin rummy.
* Don't get me started on pro baseball's new start-with-a-man-on-second-base-in-extra-innings rule.
