Soccer in USA

One of the reasons I like posting here is I like to think I'm getting a unique variety of perspectives from all across Europe. World Cup soccer has a way of drawing interesting angles out of people from around the world because of it's unique blend of international team sport competition. The World Cup has been very interesting from an American standpoint this year because not only do we have a somewhat competitive team but the sport itself is also rapidly gaining popularity. They actually televise several Serie A club games every week, and they are showing at least one World Cup match per day on ESPN in addition to all games being shown live online by ESPN free of charge. This is an unprecedented amount of soccer coverage, at least three times that which existed for the last World Cup. There has also been a change in the average American's attitude towards the game. I live above a bar, which was full last night on account of game 7 of the NBA finals (which was a huge rival game that was expected to be one of the most watched NBA games of all time). An hour or so after the game, in the wee hours of the morning, I heard something funny from outside my headset, I thought maybe it was a fight. I took my headset off and lo and behold, the whole bar was chanting U-S-A trying to get pumped for the 9:30 AM kickoff. The average sports fan is now a soccer fan, whereas it was a fringe game much like lacrosse during the last World Cup. I myself, who had played the game in organized leagues for a good chunk of my childhood, didn't care much for watching it until a few months ago during qualifying. The game is too slow to those who don't appreciate the intracacies of a game. Then I saw this today on ESPN.com:



Let me break down what each of those options means:

- Stephen Strasburg is a pitcher who has caught a hot streak and was National League player of the week last week. He's a huge baseball story right now. Baseball is the most popular sport in America being played at the moment.

- Manny Ramirez is the most popular player on the team in America's second biggest sports market (LA), who won a World Series playing for Boston, who plays in Fenway Park.

- Mets vs. Yankees: the two New York City baseball teams, it's rare that the Mets are good (which they are now) and the Yankees are the best team in baseball, not to mention the most popular sports team in America.

- U.S. Open: Americans love golf, although watching golf is only usually slightly more popular than watching soccer.

So that leaves us with the World Cup. I have several guesses as to why soccer is catching on, I enjoy it because it's more athletic than baseball and there is more parity at the club and international level than any other sport except for maybe hockey. This new found popularity is likely to have several ramifications on international football. Obviously, it starts with money. Americans love spending money on professional sports, and sponsors write big checks to clubs. MLS, which is our professional league that you may have heard of via David Beckham, is going to have a lot of money to draw top players in. At first, this will likely only affect the importing of talent to the US. However, in a decade or so we may begin to see the US exporting massive amounts of top level talent. The reason we don't see great US footballers (although several US players have been reasonably successful at the club level) is not because the US is incapable of producing athletes capable of playing soccer, it is the simple fact that most of our top athletes aren't aware that soccer has earning potential like NFL football or NBA basketball when they start training. With soccer being out in the open now and the MLS picking up sponsors and national spotlight, it's only a matter of time until the US makes a legit international superstar, and the soccer "trade" goes fully international. Some may be resistant, but I think it's quite a beautiful thing to think that we may soon have a truly international sport and that the World Cup has only begun to realize its potential.


P.S. I don't know why I wrote this but I'm bored... I'm an English student who has an interest in sports journalism so sometimes it's nice to work on my craft.