Direction of Soccer

Direction of Soccer in the U.S.

I am very fascinated in the now. The present, ‘cuz there is no time like it; however, I have as much attention on the future. All of my rants and raves will have to do with the course of which certain cultural aspects are headed. My first one has to do with the direction of sports. Soccer specifically, I am really looking forward to it expanding and growing in America. I know it’s un-American to say that it is real football, but let’s be honest, American football really is limited in the amount of foot-to-ball action. But I digress, I think Soccer would be a great sport for more people to gravitate to in our nation. In an article from the New York Post website titled “Soccer’s growth in US measured in the time between World Cups” and the hyperlink at: http://nypost.com/2014/07/14/soccers-growth-in-us-measured-in-the-time-between-world-cups/ by Brian Lewis, I agree with his points. He has some clear bullet points for why Soccer probably won’t get that big anytime soon. I have outlined a few of them here.

1. Lack of commercials also causes a lack of huge advertisement opportunity for big companies. Every year we are baffled by the prices and amount of effort that go into Super Bowl commercials, with soccer we wouldn’t see that. Soccer is two 45 minute running halves, which makes it a pretty painless couple of hours of entertainment, versus the four hour event that is NFL football. Why because that market has already been exploited as much as possible.
2. Lack of huge marketable players– what house hold soccer players are there in America? Pele? Maybe for my parents’ generation. Messi? Ronaldo? Those two are getting there but they are content with the success they have had in their own continent and individual countries that I’m sure they aren’t pressed to learn fluent English.
3. If there is one thing Americans hate more than anything else, it’s losing. Especially in things we care about. So if we don’t care about the sport, it’s no sweat off our back is it? If we aren’t the best at it, then whatever it is for the birds.
4. Nowadays, we U.S. folk are all about instant gratification. Now I individually think soccer is very exciting, but people would argue against the excitement factor because of the lack of high scoring. It’s more comparable to baseball in that sense, that it could possibly be a while between highlights in a game. People gravitate to football and basketball more so because of the constant excitement it brings without fail.
5. His final point I agree with is the in home viewing numbers. When they can stop competing with WNBA numbers is when they can maybe consider being a top 5 sport (behind football, basketball, baseball, and hockey). No diss to the WNBA, but the WNBA averages is 230,000 views per game, compared to the MLS which dropped within the last year from 310,000 to 220,000 viewers per game. It just shows you the ball park the MLS is in compared to other professional organizations.

I really enjoy watching soccer. Brian Lewis told nothing but the truth in his article which dated back to the summer when the World Cup was well underway and in full heat. He was able to see past all the hype and allure, and visualize whether this was another trend versus something that could maintain a long term attractiveness to newer fresher audience. I enjoy the FIFA video game franchise very much so as well, and really want to see it expand; however, there are a few hurdles soccer needs to hurdle in the U.S. in order for more people like me to hop on the bandwagon.