The Popularity, or Lack Thereof, of Soccer in the United States

The game of soccer is a complex, exhilarating and competitive sport that I absolutely love to play and watch. I played soccer for 10years in the AYSO (American Youth Soccer Association) and CYSA (California Youth Soccer Organization). I started out in the AYSO league and by the time I was 8-years-old I came to love and respect the game of soccer. When I was 13-years-old I was recruited by the CYSA league to play on one of their select teams that traveled all over the west coast and play in tournaments, I played in this league until I was 18-years-old and it was the most exciting time of my youth. Both of these organizations started out in California and soccer quickly came to be the most popular sport to play among California's youth. The CYSA league is strictly out of California, but the AYSO league is nation wide for all of America's youth.

Soccer is a highly competitive sport, which requires the player to have strength, endurance, speed, balance and coordination. In the game of soccer a team will have 10-11 players on the field at any given time filling the positions of forward, halfback, fullback and the goalie, sometime a team will use a player that has a great and hard kicking foot to play the position of sweeper. The game is played in two 45-minute sessions with no breaks except a 5-10 minute halftime so the players can rest for a few minutes and strategies for the next half. There are several reasons why professional soccer is not as popular in America as it is in other countries and here are my top five reasons why.

Reason One: Popularity

Even though soccer has become very popular among America's youth, it has yet to gain popularity with the die-hard sports fans of America. There are several reasons why professional soccer is not as popular in America as it is in other countries. Every sport in America has a region in which it is extremely popular, the northeast has Hockey, Nascar has the south and Baseball and Football are very popular nation wide. There is not even one region in America where soccer is popular. Even though America has a large population of Hispanics and soccer is undeniably huge within their community, America as a whole just has not caught on because we are a stick and ball country and hands on when it comes to our sports. The game of soccer is played solely with the feet, no hands are to be used at all except for the goalie or a sideline throws. Even with the Beckham factor, he recently came to America to play and hopefully boost the popularity of the game. Unfortunately for the game of soccer, this was a huge flop. Beckham's wife Posh has gained more popularity than he has and as a fan of the game I am very disappointed with how this turned out for America's professional soccer teams. The only place I know of where soccer is popular is in California and this is mainly with the youth groups.

Reason Two: Media Coverage:

The sport of soccer is hardly ever televised; the more the sport is televised the more Americans will watch thus gaining popularity. Unlike Football, Baseball or Hockey, which get all the exposure they could ever want or need. Trying to find a soccer game on TV is like trying to find a documentary on the Sci-Fi channel. However, there is one station that occasionally televises soccer games and that is ESPN, but they are few and far between. So one solution to gain soccer some popularity is to televise it more.

Reason Three: Roots

This is a very simple and straightforward reason why soccer will never be popular in the United States is because the sport itself has no roots in this country. The roots of soccer come from South America, Mexico, Britain, and Africa as well as all over the European countries.

Reason Four: Too Much Acting

American sports fans especially football fans, love to see a fast receiver like Jerry Rice bust through a tackle and fly into the end zone. America also loves to see the hard hits and tackles and in soccer if a player does a sliding tackle, you will see the other player jump up to avoid the tackle and then fall to the ground rolling around acting like they got hurt to get the penalty call. In my opinion, these professional soccer players are being paid an obscene amount of money to play and should do so honorably and competitively, not act like a baby whenever another player runs into you.

Reason Five: The Game is Boring

In a nutshell, the game of soccer is very boring, especially if you have never watched or played the game. The game takes to long and the lack of scoring cuts down on the excitement of the game, you could watch an entire game and there only be one or two goals made, this makes for a long day. Then you have all the intricacies of the game. If you take all of the passing, no shooting and absolutely no hot-dogging, what do you have left? Nothing! You're just left a bunch of players running around chasing a ball. Learning all the fundamentals of the game of soccer can take years to accomplish and even then you may not fully understand it. It is just plain boring to a lot of Americans.

Although soccer is not popular here in America, I still love the game and find it mesmerizing, exciting and full of expression. Being able to play this game requires a special type of athlete and is not for everyone. I would hope that the game could gain popularity here in America, but I just don't see this happening.

References for this article came form soccer.com and mlsnet.com