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Why more United States Citizens aren't into Soccer
The US is doing very very well in the World Cup. Both my mother and brother are following and watching. I may tune in soon myself. My brother, a natural athlete, played pretty much every sport imaginable in school and growing up - but by far his favorite was soccer, and it is the one that he still played at the University level and well into adult hood. I too, have tried every sport imaginable - didn't excel at any of them, but I did like soccer - it made sense, there was a skill level required that honestly isn't in most of the other sports. Also unlike most of the other sports - the action is non-stop, and very fast.
Why aren't a lot of people in the US not into the World Cup? (Note not all, I know a lot of soccer fans, and have worked with quite a few. One of my co-workers toured the US on a soccer team, and got into a University in the US on a soccer scholarship, he also coaches inter-league children's soccer. And I had a former boss who was a soccer coach and involved with inter-league soccer. Plus most of my friends watch it. Also note, I'm stating the US, because in the Americas? Most people are more into Soccer than the other sports. Interesting, don't you think?)
Anyhow, without getting into a highly subjective discussion of sports, and look at it from an objective and logical perspective. More Mr. Spock, less Kirk. (Because only a die-hard American Football or Baseball fan could possibly state either sport was more entertaining than soccer, and only one who clearly never played the sport or watched it. But that's again a subjective statement.)
1. Nationalism
Soccer is a sport that originated outside the US. It is not really a "national sport". Unlike Baseball, Basketball, American Football - Soccer was not created by the United States. The Origin of Soccer - shows it's an old sport, originated over 2,000 years ago. And transitioned into football or as US calls it Soccer by the British.
Records trace the history of soccer back more than 2,000 years ago to ancient China. Greece, Rome, and parts of Central America also claim to have started the sport; but it was England that transitioned soccer, or what the British and many other people around the world call “football,” into the game we know today. The English are credited with recording the first uniform rules for the sport, including forbidding tripping opponents and touching the ball with hands.
The US having broken away from Britain, wanted its own sport - so refused to acknowledge sports done by Britain. Baseball is in many ways - an off-shoot of the British sport, Cricket. The US and some of the areas of South America, Australia and Japan do Baseball - but it's not caught on across the globe, and the British, India, and a good portion of Europe do not understand its appeal. As is American Football also called "grid-iron" - an off-shot of Football or Rugby, not Soccer.
American football descended from rugby football, played in the United Kingdom in the mid-nineteenth century.
American Football is actually a very young sport, that only dates back about 200 years if that. And it was an off-shoot of a far more brutal and strategic sport in the UK - rugby. Note - everywhere else they play rugby, the US plays American Football not rugby, which should tell you everything right there about the US establishment's take on sports?
2. Sexism
Women's Soccer has done better than Men's Soccer on the world stage and national stage. Along with the Olympics, and in college.
We had a great women's soccer team in college - they actually won more than our Men's Hockey Team, but we barely knew about them at the time - this was the 1980s. The Women have won medals in the Olympics. They've won Internationally.
But in the US, women's sports is barely seen. And US tends to scoff or underplay sports that feature women or that women play along with men. If the women are doing better at a sport then the men are, we see less of that sport in the media.
While men can play "grid-iron" football, women are excluded from the Game. (I played Touch Football in Junior High gym class briefly - it's the only time I ended up sent to the Vice Principle's office for cursing on the field.) Baseball is equally exclusive - there aren't any national female Baseball Teams. The sports that are less exclusive Basketball and Soccer have less major focus.
3. Money, Marketing, and Advertising
There's not a lot of money in soccer. Because we haven't put in the infrastructure behind it. Remember that line in Field of Dreams - "build it and they will come?" Well, we don't really have soccer stadiums or if we do, not that many. To my knowledge - NY doesn't have one, but it does have two baseball stadiums and a football stadium. It also has not one, not two but three football teams. But no prominent soccer teams that I'm aware of. We have ice hockey arenas, we have grid-iron football stadiums, and we have baseball and even basketball stadiums, but not a lot in the way of soccer.
The news media doesn't advertise the sport. Nor do the films. I can count on one hand the number of soccer films I've seen, and most of them I barely remember. While the Grid-Iron films and television series are too numerous to count, as are the baseball films and television series.
Long ago, a writing teacher told me that the US's main export was its "media" and that's true. We are awash in it.
There's a lot of money expended and made in Grid-Iron Football. Texas has a whole industry wrapped around it - and it starts there at the high school level if not earlier. They put millions in their football in Texas, and much of the South. The North does as well. People are indoctrinated in these small rust belt towns to "worship" at the altar of grid-iron football. There's also cheer leading associated with it. Television shows are pre-empted during the College Football Bowl Season. And the money that switches hands - it's in the millions.
We even have parades - see Rose Bowl Parade.
Soccer doesn't have any of that, nor does Basketball for that matter.
You also don't have the owners or managers - who own a team, invest in them, and pay or lobby US Senators, Congressmen, also State Senators, Congressmen, Assemblymen and Governor's to build them stadiums using tax payer dollars. (Oh, did you think Yankee Stadium was funded with the owner's money? Sorry, it wasn't - at least not entirely. How do I know this? I work in infrastructure, and know there are kickbacks, and tax breaks - because the view is the Stadium brings in people who eat at the restaurants and fuel the economy.)
If you want to know why one sport is seen and noticed more than another - look no further than the marketing, promotion, and money behind it.
Grid-Iron Football is among the most marketed and promoted sports in the United States. It gets more promotion than any other sport played. I have a co-worker who used to work in advertising, and watches the Superbowl, mainly to see the advertisements, because she'd been part of the project team behind those ads in the past. And she told me about the process. And how much money is involved. Those ad spots are now up in the billions.
That's serious money. Baseball is similar - there's so much money invested in that sport, just watch the film Moneyball.
4. Indoctrination
Sports are introduced to kids at any early age. And the vast majority of the US is, unfortunately, segregated, and introduced to just two sports - grid-iron football and baseball. Unless you live in an urban area, or a more affluent one, or diverse one with a lot of immigrants, you probably didn't see much outside of grid-iron football, and variations on baseball (a la Softball) growing up.
My high school, which was in an affluent area, also with a lot of middle class and working class - did have a soccer team, basketball team, baseball team, and Football (although the Football team was a joke). We really didn't have as much focus on Football - more was on soccer - but we also were a highly affluent suburban area. University was a Basketball school. But it too had a football team, which has come to prominence in recent years. Soccer - not there at all, except for the Women's team. College was more affluent and had a great women's soccer team, horrible football team, and was more into ice hockey.
Most places, small towns, suburban and rural areas across the US are Grid-Iron Football towns. There isn't much to do in a lot of places outside of watching Football and Baseball. And both are men's sports, women's sports in a lot of these areas are not encouraged, instead women are encouraged to become "cheerleaders" or "drill team". That was in many ways the way it was in a good portion of the 20th Century.
People are indoctrinated at an early age to see Grid-Iron Football and Baseball as great sports. They may have even played them in their neighborhoods. I know we did. But soccer, not so much - it was a sport that was outside their realm of experience. Soccer doesn't bring up childhood memories, it doesn't have the nostalgia involved.
A lot, and I do mean, a lot of money, time, expense has gone into making both Baseball and Grid-Iron Football American Sports that are associated with childhood, comfort, and emotional investment. People have been told and shown that they need to like these sports, almost bullied into it over a very long period of time.
I was. I remember being told from the age of 8 on up why I had to love Grid-Iron Football and Baseball. Since my father preferred Baseball - that argument was laid out a bit better. It was never logically formulated, and my own experiences with both - got across why both weren't that interesting to me. But how dare I not like the All American Sport? Except are they? They are sports that cater to men. Women aren't encouraged to play them at all. Women can play Softball, and are making inroads to baseball, but can't play Grid-Iron.
There's also a lot gamboling associated with them. Especially Football. And video games, and fantasy board games - my Dad played a fantasy Baseball Game once, where you get to play manager and pick the players, and how much you will spend to get each one to build a team.
Oh, and least I forget, the trading cards industry - we have Baseball trading cards, and rankings, scores - all tabulated. Signed baseball balls, signed footballs, cards of the players that are collectibles. We don't really have that around Soccer.
Why aren't a lot of people in the US not into the World Cup? (Note not all, I know a lot of soccer fans, and have worked with quite a few. One of my co-workers toured the US on a soccer team, and got into a University in the US on a soccer scholarship, he also coaches inter-league children's soccer. And I had a former boss who was a soccer coach and involved with inter-league soccer. Plus most of my friends watch it. Also note, I'm stating the US, because in the Americas? Most people are more into Soccer than the other sports. Interesting, don't you think?)
Anyhow, without getting into a highly subjective discussion of sports, and look at it from an objective and logical perspective. More Mr. Spock, less Kirk. (Because only a die-hard American Football or Baseball fan could possibly state either sport was more entertaining than soccer, and only one who clearly never played the sport or watched it. But that's again a subjective statement.)
1. Nationalism
Soccer is a sport that originated outside the US. It is not really a "national sport". Unlike Baseball, Basketball, American Football - Soccer was not created by the United States. The Origin of Soccer - shows it's an old sport, originated over 2,000 years ago. And transitioned into football or as US calls it Soccer by the British.
Records trace the history of soccer back more than 2,000 years ago to ancient China. Greece, Rome, and parts of Central America also claim to have started the sport; but it was England that transitioned soccer, or what the British and many other people around the world call “football,” into the game we know today. The English are credited with recording the first uniform rules for the sport, including forbidding tripping opponents and touching the ball with hands.
The US having broken away from Britain, wanted its own sport - so refused to acknowledge sports done by Britain. Baseball is in many ways - an off-shoot of the British sport, Cricket. The US and some of the areas of South America, Australia and Japan do Baseball - but it's not caught on across the globe, and the British, India, and a good portion of Europe do not understand its appeal. As is American Football also called "grid-iron" - an off-shot of Football or Rugby, not Soccer.
American football descended from rugby football, played in the United Kingdom in the mid-nineteenth century.
American Football is actually a very young sport, that only dates back about 200 years if that. And it was an off-shoot of a far more brutal and strategic sport in the UK - rugby. Note - everywhere else they play rugby, the US plays American Football not rugby, which should tell you everything right there about the US establishment's take on sports?
2. Sexism
Women's Soccer has done better than Men's Soccer on the world stage and national stage. Along with the Olympics, and in college.
We had a great women's soccer team in college - they actually won more than our Men's Hockey Team, but we barely knew about them at the time - this was the 1980s. The Women have won medals in the Olympics. They've won Internationally.
But in the US, women's sports is barely seen. And US tends to scoff or underplay sports that feature women or that women play along with men. If the women are doing better at a sport then the men are, we see less of that sport in the media.
While men can play "grid-iron" football, women are excluded from the Game. (I played Touch Football in Junior High gym class briefly - it's the only time I ended up sent to the Vice Principle's office for cursing on the field.) Baseball is equally exclusive - there aren't any national female Baseball Teams. The sports that are less exclusive Basketball and Soccer have less major focus.
3. Money, Marketing, and Advertising
There's not a lot of money in soccer. Because we haven't put in the infrastructure behind it. Remember that line in Field of Dreams - "build it and they will come?" Well, we don't really have soccer stadiums or if we do, not that many. To my knowledge - NY doesn't have one, but it does have two baseball stadiums and a football stadium. It also has not one, not two but three football teams. But no prominent soccer teams that I'm aware of. We have ice hockey arenas, we have grid-iron football stadiums, and we have baseball and even basketball stadiums, but not a lot in the way of soccer.
The news media doesn't advertise the sport. Nor do the films. I can count on one hand the number of soccer films I've seen, and most of them I barely remember. While the Grid-Iron films and television series are too numerous to count, as are the baseball films and television series.
Long ago, a writing teacher told me that the US's main export was its "media" and that's true. We are awash in it.
There's a lot of money expended and made in Grid-Iron Football. Texas has a whole industry wrapped around it - and it starts there at the high school level if not earlier. They put millions in their football in Texas, and much of the South. The North does as well. People are indoctrinated in these small rust belt towns to "worship" at the altar of grid-iron football. There's also cheer leading associated with it. Television shows are pre-empted during the College Football Bowl Season. And the money that switches hands - it's in the millions.
We even have parades - see Rose Bowl Parade.
Soccer doesn't have any of that, nor does Basketball for that matter.
You also don't have the owners or managers - who own a team, invest in them, and pay or lobby US Senators, Congressmen, also State Senators, Congressmen, Assemblymen and Governor's to build them stadiums using tax payer dollars. (Oh, did you think Yankee Stadium was funded with the owner's money? Sorry, it wasn't - at least not entirely. How do I know this? I work in infrastructure, and know there are kickbacks, and tax breaks - because the view is the Stadium brings in people who eat at the restaurants and fuel the economy.)
If you want to know why one sport is seen and noticed more than another - look no further than the marketing, promotion, and money behind it.
Grid-Iron Football is among the most marketed and promoted sports in the United States. It gets more promotion than any other sport played. I have a co-worker who used to work in advertising, and watches the Superbowl, mainly to see the advertisements, because she'd been part of the project team behind those ads in the past. And she told me about the process. And how much money is involved. Those ad spots are now up in the billions.
That's serious money. Baseball is similar - there's so much money invested in that sport, just watch the film Moneyball.
4. Indoctrination
Sports are introduced to kids at any early age. And the vast majority of the US is, unfortunately, segregated, and introduced to just two sports - grid-iron football and baseball. Unless you live in an urban area, or a more affluent one, or diverse one with a lot of immigrants, you probably didn't see much outside of grid-iron football, and variations on baseball (a la Softball) growing up.
My high school, which was in an affluent area, also with a lot of middle class and working class - did have a soccer team, basketball team, baseball team, and Football (although the Football team was a joke). We really didn't have as much focus on Football - more was on soccer - but we also were a highly affluent suburban area. University was a Basketball school. But it too had a football team, which has come to prominence in recent years. Soccer - not there at all, except for the Women's team. College was more affluent and had a great women's soccer team, horrible football team, and was more into ice hockey.
Most places, small towns, suburban and rural areas across the US are Grid-Iron Football towns. There isn't much to do in a lot of places outside of watching Football and Baseball. And both are men's sports, women's sports in a lot of these areas are not encouraged, instead women are encouraged to become "cheerleaders" or "drill team". That was in many ways the way it was in a good portion of the 20th Century.
People are indoctrinated at an early age to see Grid-Iron Football and Baseball as great sports. They may have even played them in their neighborhoods. I know we did. But soccer, not so much - it was a sport that was outside their realm of experience. Soccer doesn't bring up childhood memories, it doesn't have the nostalgia involved.
A lot, and I do mean, a lot of money, time, expense has gone into making both Baseball and Grid-Iron Football American Sports that are associated with childhood, comfort, and emotional investment. People have been told and shown that they need to like these sports, almost bullied into it over a very long period of time.
I was. I remember being told from the age of 8 on up why I had to love Grid-Iron Football and Baseball. Since my father preferred Baseball - that argument was laid out a bit better. It was never logically formulated, and my own experiences with both - got across why both weren't that interesting to me. But how dare I not like the All American Sport? Except are they? They are sports that cater to men. Women aren't encouraged to play them at all. Women can play Softball, and are making inroads to baseball, but can't play Grid-Iron.
There's also a lot gamboling associated with them. Especially Football. And video games, and fantasy board games - my Dad played a fantasy Baseball Game once, where you get to play manager and pick the players, and how much you will spend to get each one to build a team.
Oh, and least I forget, the trading cards industry - we have Baseball trading cards, and rankings, scores - all tabulated. Signed baseball balls, signed footballs, cards of the players that are collectibles. We don't really have that around Soccer.
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The issue of the women's performance is an interesting one because in the past decades we have also tended to have more American women excel in the Olympics than men. A great many people have pointed to the deep effects of Title IX reforms in education for why American women have in some cases had a leg up than countries which have not barred but also not carved out space for their female athletes.
The issue of money a political influence is, I agree, relevant. And probably also the reduced opportunities for advertising due to the games' continuous play. Obviously other countries learned to monetize this but it runs counter to a lot of what occurs in the U.S.
And without a lot of money to chase at the professional level, kids aren't encouraged to pursue it. I remember during one game the commentators talked about how one player switched from baseball to soccer after seeing a World Cup. But even if they love the game, the decisions often go in the other direction.
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And stamina is required, the US just didn't have the stamina to beat the Netherlands. The Netherlands played a better and harder game - there was more drive behind them. They were constantly on the US, and constantly moving.
Also, true about how the Title IX reforms changed athletics in the US - women are more encouraged to participate in competitive sports and their sports get more attention than they did previously. The Women's Soccer Team brought a lot of attention to that sport in recent years.
And it is hard to support a sport on network broadcast television - if you can't break for commercials. On the other hand - we are starting to break away from commercial sponsorship with a lot of the streaming and cable channels. But that's still in the early stages. Kids are less encouraged to pursue - because you can't really make much of a living in soccer in the US, Football and Baseball - yes, Soccer - not so much. So they tend to pursue it more as a hobby, like my brother has, and my co-worker.
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My experience growing up in Canada and watching coworker's kids grow up here is that, as little kids, the neighbourhood organized "teams" you can join are t-ball, baseball and soccer (and hockey in Canada) Football isn't really something kids do until high school.
Once they hit high school, though, it feels like organized soccer and baseball are no longer a thing (although community hockey does continue). High school seems to be football and basketball, but that is run through the schools and not the community.
It might be different in other parts of the country too?