This article in USAToday tackles something I’ve heard countless times before: Why aren’t Americans frothing mad over soccer like the rest of the world? From listening to the morning BBC podcast — and from conversations with Europeans, in general — the rest of the world is seriously bothered as to why we just aren’t going apeshit about the sport. Especially since we fielded a decent team at the start of the cup games.
Perhaps they see it as another example of American arrogance. It is a view I’ve heard repeated, but still can’t wrap my head around: we’re the Ugly Americans because we don’t like what you do as much as you do. Um, no.
Brits, in particular, love to hate American sports, particularly baseball, which they tend to find boring and childish, and football, where they tend to focus on the padding and the fat lineman. Of course, that’s just a generalization gleaned from drinking with British people. Perhaps they feel differently sober.
Both of those sports, like soccer, have their own unique thrills, strategies and athletic standards.
Speaking for all Americans: Soccer is a fine game, we’re just not that into it, sorry. It has something to do with culture and a lot to do with market share, somewhat.
The fact is, we tried to like soccer. Honestly, we did. As a child, I remember Pele being a big star. He was even in a movie with Stallone. (Hey, it was the 80s, and Stallone was culturally relevant, honestly!. If you were in a movie with Stallone in the 90s, it just meant that you were Rob Schneider.)
Even now, going by my own very unscientific survey, the World Cup broadcasts have been very popular among Americans who otherwise wouldn’t care. In fact, I hope to attending a World Cup final party this weekend.
Soccer has been the perpetual Next Big Sport for America since the 1970s. Certainly, I remember playing in the midget soccer league in the early 80s. I’m sure those leagues are still around, but they probably have dropped the midget moniker for fear of offending the region’s huge midget population. But despite at least two major soccer leagues that I can recall, it still isn’t as popular as indoor lacrosse, arena football, professional bowling or a number of other second tier sports.
I take that back, perhaps it is as popular as professional bowling.
So why don’t we like soccer?
It’s not the low scoring — we love ice hockey, which is usually low scoring.
It isn’t an anti-foreigner bias — some of the biggest stars in baseball, hockey and basketball aren’t American.
It isn’t even the oft-repeated notion that you don’t need equipment to play the game – informal stickball and touch football were the biggest sports in my childhood, despite midget soccer and little league baseball.
I don’t have a definitive opinion, but I think part of the issue might have to do with soccer being part of Europe’s imperial legacy, much like baseball is part of America’s.
It just isn’t part of our cultural landscape. (Aren’t we supposed to celebrate our differences?)
There might be a grain of truth in this quote from the article:
So long as soccer here remains the casual sport of middle-class suburbanites and their elementary school offspring, it won’t penetrate our popular culture.
I don’t know if that is necessarily true. Soccer will get bigger, but not I just don’t know if there is room for another big league men’s sport, an idea that I don’t see getting a lot of play in these types of stories. For the last 30 years, soccer has been a kids’ sport in the US, mostly because there is no room to grow.
Soccer does have the potential of being the next great women’s sport in the United States. The WNBA seems doomed. But I don’t think it is because it is a women’s league. I think there is only so much basketball the market will tolerate, much like how the WBA and the USFL were doomed to failure. The WNBA will die, not because nobody wants to see women play basketball, but because there is already a venue for basketball in the NBA (and college ball, never forget college ball).
MLS exists, but isn’t quite flourishing. Women’s pro soccer already seems set for a comeback, so perhaps there is still room Women’s professional soccer (which came on strong with Mia Hamm a few years back) to dominate the soccer market.
There, problem solved. We have room for soccer in this country. Fret not, my foreign drinking companions, real and imaginary, you can still wrong-headedly complain about American beer.
I’ll save that topic for later.