Every year I try and watch a sport that isn’t soccer. For decades I’ve given American sports a shot to try and impress me. It took 20 years for me to “appreciate” baseball. I like it…sort of…. I don’t watch it on telly… I just go to Dodger Stadium when the Mets are in town and eat ice cream and chat with my friends for a couple of hours as the players do something or other in the background. I’ve been doing this for a long time and I’ve never paid for a ticket. I just can’t see myself paying for a sport that isn’t soccer.
You see I’m the guy that showed up on these shores in the barren late 1980’s when soccer was no where to be found in the television landscape. Of course going into a cantina and watching Mexican soccer was available to anyone at the time but American soccer had died and at that time…most people thought it was buried for ever. I made it a point to be the one guy not watching the Lake Show or whatever the Dodgers were called when Gibson did that famous thing he did. I couldn’t have cared less about The Rams in Los Angeles.
Until 1994….I kept the torch alive for soccer…The American World Cup in my backyard changed that and suddenly Soccer was back in vogue.
In 1996, my dream came true. A league of my own to watch and in the very stadium the 94 Final took place. Suddenly, what felt like a lonesome journey of pick-up soccer matches in Mexican and Armenian neighbourhoods around Los Angeles…and dreams of English football being shown on television…became a weird notion that Soccer could finally become the most watched sport in America. Why couldn’t it?
That notion has been stirring in my brain since 1996. Can American Soccer become the number sport here? I’m talking about American Soccer not just soccer in general. Let’s face it! America’s #1 Soccer League is the English Premier League so I’m talking about the usual American Suspects of soccer. Can American Soccer overtake the BPL in American viewership? Can American Soccer overtake any of the other American Sports in terms of fans and TV viewership?
Back in the day, soccer fans were just happy to see soccer on the television. Today, we can watch soccer from around the world LIVE and on TAPE just about every day of the week on TV and at a moments notice online. Fans of soccer have grown in numbers beyond some folks beliefs.
At it’s height, The Old NASL had an average attendance of 14,201 fans in the stadium. The Cosmos averaged 46,690 people coming over to New Jersey to watch the matches. Where are we now? In 2015, MLS’s average was 22,310 with the Sounders topping the average counter with 39,115 fans coming out to see them. I like the growth there…Those numbers show that…soccer has grown! (kind of) We should be happy about that. Right? The thing is…folks in stadiums…don’t equate to eyes on TV. American Soccer doesn’t have the TV ratings to get close to competing with the other American Sports. You can watch every MLS match in 2016! I didn’t have that luxury in the early years. But as I’ve said on my podcast for years (10 of them to be exact!) It’s a lot easier to be a fan now than it was 20 years ago.
So with TV in place, the growth of fans, the stability of leagues, the success of the National Team and all the things that American Soccer has going for it….why is the beautiful game…the best sport in the world…no higher up in the American Sports pantheon than Ice Hockey? Why hasn’t American Soccer become the number two Sport (one below NFL) in the United States yet?
I want to hear what you have to say…so go ahead and tell me what you think. Write your responses below.
Let me bring the whole “I try and give American Sports a shot ” back. This year…I started my sports adventure by going to the RoseBowl and watching Iowa vs Stanford. I mainly wanted to go because I had never in my life known anyone from Iowa. I had heard that the women there were gorgeous and friendly and that was enough of a reason to go to the stadium. As I do…I ended up talking to a lot of people. I’ve been told I’m a people person! For some reason…call it fate…I ended up on a bus that was filled with Iowans. I sat there and two guys who were sitting in front of me gave me the “wassup” nod. I obliged and immediately one of them responded with “Which team do you support in MLS?” I had forgotten that I was wearing a hoodie with the old MLS logo on it. I replied “I like all of them!” To which I got “So who’s your favorite EPL team?” Quickly “Liverpool” and suddenly there were high fives and bro hugs from my two new friends from Iowa. The conversation was exactly the kind you would expect from seasoned soccer vets. But these guys were young Americans. I was amazed at how much EPL knowledge was thrown around. I wish you were all there. As the conversation was winding down I got asked the question.
“Why hasn’t American Soccer taken over the other American Sports?”
The answer I gave him was sort of like the one I’ve been yelling for years on my show. “You’re from Iowa and you travelled all the way by plane to see your College Football team play in Los Angeles and I bet you don’t even know who the Des Moines Menace are?” I have to say that he got exactly what I was saying. We can sit and talk about quality of soccer and low salaries and not enough exposure but I’ve maintained in a roundabout way that…in the US…there aren’t enough soccer fans because there are too many sports fans. I ask Columbus Crew fans….If the Crew were playing on the same day as Ohio State….which one would you go to? (I don’t know if that’s possible but I think you catch my drift here!) I ask Sounders fans…I have season tickets in my right hand and season tickets to The Seahawks in the left…which one will you take? I have tickets to the Super Bowl or tickets to MLS Cup Final…choose one! Outside of our Soccer bubble…Sports fans will chose some other sport over American soccer. I can tell you of the time my friend who had season tickets to ChivasUSA decided to watch the rodeo rather than soccer…they were both at StubHub at the same time. I’ve maintained at one point we will have to stop spending money on the other sports if we want to see American Soccer move up the rankings.
One day we will have to put away the Ohio State jersey for good.
I want MLS to be the number one Sports League in America. That’s something that hasn’t changed since 1996. It’s the reason I have not spent one dime on other American Sports.
