Why Americans Will Never Like Soccer

Seemingly every American family has a child playing youth soccer at the YMCA or some other youth league. It is one of the fastest growing sports in the country with thousands more a year taking up the sport. How can a game that is gaining players in such large numbers, grow so slowly if at all in the mainstream? Simple, American's have become desensitized to boring sports.

American's already have a boring sport to call their own and it is baseball. Growing up in America we are almost forced to love baseball! I mean it's the great American pastime! While baseball and soccer aren't at all similar in play style; they are almost identical when it comes to scoring! In 2009 the average score for a winning team in the MLS was 1.61 for the winner and .66 for the loser (majorleaguesoccertalk.com). That's not even 3 goals a game! 2.27 goals every hour and a half? In 2008 in the national league the average score was approximately 6-3. Now, 9 scores is better than 2.27, but with games averaging three hours or more baseball only scores 4.5 points in the time it takes to play a soccer game. In my opinion, it's not that much better!

The point being, American's like excitement and scoring and if they want to relax and watch a skilled and relaxing sport, they choose baseball! It's not because baseball is any better than soccer (most would argue it's not), it's because baseball has been a part of American culture since the turn of the century. It is so revered in this country and was deemed so necessary that it is the only legal monopoly in the United States; why do you think there are no competing leagues? Soccer is growing, but it will never be as popular as in Europe just as baseball will never be as popular in Europe as it is in the United States.