That may explain why, at 8:30 a.m. last Sunday, a lively crowd of supporters with tattoos and artfully rolled jeans showed up to Banter, a bar in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with plank floors that caters to Premier League fans. With several in Steven Gerrard jerseys and team scarves emblazoned with the Liverpool team motto, Youll Never Walk Alone, they settled in for a crucial live match between Liverpool and Manchester City.
Sure, anyone could have watched the game at home, thanks to NBC Universals $250 million deal to show all Premier League games. But football a term some Americans have learned to appropriate without wincing is a communal experience, even when you grew up 3,000 or 6,000 miles from the community that you have adopted as your sporting home.
You buy into the history and the tradition, the values of the club, said Bryan Lee, a digital brand strategist who grew up in Southern California and lives in Greenpoint. He showed up in a vintage gray Liverpool away jersey. Historically, Liverpool has been a blue-collar port city, added Mr. Lee, 24, as thoughtful as if he were delivering his orals at graduate school. The politics of Liverpool was really sort of anti-Thatcher. Its become the peoples club. Those hardworking blue-collar values never really left, even though its been ushered into the modern era of the club being a global franchise.
In a neighborhood that places a premium on authenticity, soccer offers plenty at least compared to garish, earsplitting telecasts of American team sports. Unlike American football, there are no commercial breaks to disturb the balletic flow of action for 90 minutes, except at halftime. The rest of the world already knows soccer as the beautiful game. Aesthetically minded Americans have finally figured this out, too.
Soccer is perfect for this neighborhood its the alternative sport, its the too-cool sport, said Michael Coogan, 30, a production assistant with flowing dark hair who lives nearby. Williamsburg is too cool for everything.
