Why is Soccer Not Popular in the United States?

From the slums of Senegal to King's Road in London, soccer is a sport loved, watched, and played by billions. As Frank Cannon and Richard Lessner said in a Weekly Standard article, "Soccer is the perfect game for the post-modern world. It's the quintessential expression of the nihilism that prevails in many cultures, which doubtlessly accounts for its wild popularity in Europe. Soccer is truly Seinfeldesque, a game about nothing, sport as sensation" ("Conservatives and Soccer").Dubbed the most popular sport on the planet, soccer almost has a religious status all around the world. This sport sensation may have swept the world, but it has not conquered the United States. While soccer offers billions hope, passion and competition, Americans have not embraced this international game because the sport does not represent their sport culture.

There are several reasons why the world loves this game. In many ways, soccer is very similar to what religion strives to accomplish. Soccer gives an endless supply of hope to people. From poor children in Africa using the sport to achieve better lives for themselves and their families to the rich child in Rome who dreams of playing for the "Azurri" (the Italian national team), the possibilities with the sport are endless, and the dreams are achievable. Second, soccer can be miraculous at times. When Angola qualified for the World Cup in 2006, the people of Angola agreed that a miracle had occurred (National Geographic). The nation that had been rocked by war and famine had finally found something to dream about and hope for with their soccer team. Third, the rules of the sport are so simple that everyone can follow them. The rules emphasize non-violence, restraint and equality, all determined by a non-biased official, the referee. And surprisingly, the home team in a match seems to play inspired, as if a higher being is pushing the team forward. Hope, miracles and simple rules underlie both soccer and religion.

Another reason why soccer is loved by billions is the simplicity required to play it. The only equipment necessary to play is a ball that can be made out of anything, from rags wrapped around rags, to a brand new Adidas ball. This is why in many third world countries soccer is very popular. These people in the underdeveloped countries cannot afford equipment, so they resort to making their own ball to play soccer. Soccer gives these poor people the opportunity to enjoy themselves, not by spending money, but rather by playing a sport that their heroes play. Loyalty to those heroes leads to intense rivalries and passion that feed the sport's popularity. In club soccer, teams like Chelsea, Manchester United, Real Madrid, and AC Milan spend upwards of $5,000,000,000 to build dream teams. This investment brings the greatest players from countries around the world into one team and increases the sport's popularity and the loyalty of fans for their local squad or a team 1000 miles away.

One final reason for soccer's popularity throughout the world is the culture of rivalry and passion it creates. For example, in Glasgow, Scotland, the two best teams in the country face off in what is known as "The Old Firm" (Foer 40). This rivalry pits Celtic, supported mostly by Catholics, versus Rangers, who are supported mostly by Protestants. When this game occurs it is not just a soccer game, nor just an important game because the two teams are from the same city, but rather an unfinished fight over the Protestant Reformation. During the games both sets of supporters sing anti-Catholic/anti-Protestant songs and regularly clash with police and crowd control officers. Rangers fans sing "F**K the Pope!" and Celtic fans sing "Surrender or you'll die" and "F**K the Queen". This kind of passion can only be found in a soccer rivalry that not only divides cities, but also divides nations, ethnicities, and even religions. This kind of passion and rivalry is a way for millions of people to express themselves and can be seen as a metaphor for their own lives.

On the international scene, rivalries can divide millions of people from different countries against each other. The most notable international rivalry is between England and Germany. The main reason the rivalry is so intense among supporters and the teams is the memory of past historical events. World War II continues to have a great influence on many rivalries in Europe and Asia and is the predominant factor in the origin of the English/German rivalry.

These soccer rivalries help further the popularity of the sport by giving those who dislike each other an arena in which to battle and show their differences, not through war, but through a game, through songs and chants with their friends, and through the success of their team.

Sports culture in the USA is very different. In the United States there are four major sports: football played in the National Football League, baseball played in Major League Baseball, basketball played in the National Basketball Association, and hockey played in the National Hockey League. These four sports are all characteristic of American culture and identity. Baseball, played in America as early as the 1830's, has been identified as "America's Pastime." Baseball has been grouped with apple pie and hotdogs as a creation of American society. This connection has caused baseball and MLB (Major League Baseball) to become the most loved sport in America and the premier baseball league in the world. Not only seen as a competitive league, MLB is a moneymaker. Even though the season is 162 games long, the average attendance during the regular season is 33,000 people, very impressive for a league that has 30 teams and plays games from April until November. The total revenue for MLB is $6.08 billion, measuring the sport's immense popularity here in America (Plunkett Research Ltd.).

Along with baseball, football is one of the most popular sports in the United States. The NFL signed a record $21.4 billion TV deal with NBC, CBS, FOX, and ESPN to broadcast the league's games (Plunkett Research Ltd.). This amount paid by the TV companies shows the demand for football on the TV screens of Americans. Also, the NFL averaged 69,000 people in attendance last year, and had a revenue of $6.54 billion.

Because of competition from other sports, soccer has struggled to gain an economic foothold in the United States. Michael Mandelbaum, author of "The Meaning of Sport," has said about the sport scene in the US, "The cultural, economic, and psychological space available for sport is limited and that space is already taken" (The American Thinker). Major League Soccer, or the MLS, is the professional soccer league in America. Comparing the TV deal, average salaries, and revenues with other major US sports, the MLS loses dramatically. First, the MLS has lost $350 million since its founding in 1996. Second, the average salary for a player in the MLS is $115,000. The average salary for a basketball player is $5.3 million. Also, the MLS has only a $30 million TV deal, compared to the billion dollar deals the NFL and the NBA have (About Major League Soccer). Andrei Markovits, the Boston Globe's soccer correspondent, says "America filled its own sports space with three games (plus the Canadian import of ice hockey...), thus 'crowding out' soccer's chances of becoming part of America's sports culture" (The American Thinker). All of these economic factors are hard evidence of how the United States has not accepted soccer into its mainstream sports.

Besides a large selection of sports to choose from, there are several more reasons why the American public has not jumped onto soccer. One of the main factors is the lack of scoring in the sport. Frank Cannon and Richard Lessner define the sport this way: "22 men running up and down a grassy field for 90 minutes with little happening as fans scream wildly" ("Conservatives and Soccer"). This description summarizes the overall American attitude and perception of soccer. Most Americans see the game as a slow-paced, low-scoring, boring game. This perception of the sport is fairly accurate when comparing the game to other sports such as basketball, football, or hockey. Many Americans believe that it is American to hate soccer. Tom Weir in USA Today said of the dislike of soccer in America "...that hating soccer is more American than apple pie, driving a pickup, or spending Saturday afternoons channel surfing with the remote control" (Foer 240). Sports writers, commentators, athletes, and even politicians speak negatively about the game, especially as a major tournament approaches such as the World Cup. Former Buffalo Bills quarterback Jack Kemp, one of the more influential conservatives of the 1980's, went before the US Congress to try and pass a resolution that would stop the US from hosting the World Cup in 1994. Kemp said, "I think it is important for all of those young out there, who someday hope to play real football, where you throw it and kick it and run with it and put it in your hands, a distinction should be made that football is democratic, capitalism, whereas soccer is a European socialist sport" Jim Rome, a famous sports host, said of soccer, "My son is not playing soccer. I will hand him ice skates and a shimmering sequined blouse before I hand him a soccer ball. Soccer is not a sport and does not need to be on my TV, and my son will not be playing it" (Foer 241-242). Kemp and Rome, like many others feel that soccer is not representative of American culture and history, but rather represents the pasts of European countries and their style of life.

Although soccer has yet to break into the mainstream American sports culture, it is expanding rapidly. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association of America the number of teens playing baseball fell 47 percent between 1987 and 2000. During the same years soccer has grown drastically. In 2002, there were 1.3 million more children playing soccer than baseball (Foer 244). Also, the attendance figures in the MLS have grown. In 2007, ESPN published a report that said the MLS averaged 16,000 fans per game and that each team had more that 10,000 fans at every match. This shows how these teams playing in the MLS have developed a strong following in their respective cities ("A View from the Terraces"). These attendance figures also show that the MLS has a higher attendance than the club teams of Argentina and Holland. Argentina and Holland are soccer-crazed nations and have a smaller average attendance for club games than the MLS.

Since the founding of the United States this country has resisted outside influence and the same can be said for sport. Because soccer is seen as a European game it was not accepted along with the sports America invented such as football, baseball, and basketball. Also, because of the slow pace and low scoring, soccer has always been on the outside looking in, in the American sports scene. Although not viewed as a major sport in the US, over the past few years soccer is becoming increasingly popular. The World Cup in 2006 had the highest number of viewers for a soccer tournament ever in the United States. This along with the increase in popularity of the game at the youth level show that the United States might be closer to accepting the sport than some people think.