Does Soccer Have a Chance to Ever Become a Major Sport in North America?

News Type: Opinion — Seeded on Sun Mar 18, 2007 12:00 AM EDT

Article Source: The Economist

sports, us, nfl, mlb, nba, nhl, soccer, canada, usa, mexico, mls, north-america, major-league-soccer

If I am remotely representative of the potential North American audience, does soccer have any chance of ever becoming a major sport in North America? Will it ever be as big, by some measure, as MLB or the NFL? [notice I omit the NHL because soccer probably does have a chance of surpassing hockey by some measures; in terms of participation, it already has.].

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{"commentId":592672,"authorDomain":"spudsstuff"}

Spuds Stuff

I think it's pretty much impossible for any sport to compete the MLB, NFL, NBA and to a degree the NHL. The coverage of sport I see coming out of America is so dominated by these sports no one else stands a chance. It's similar to us here in New Zealand where Rugby (All Blacks) is so dominant that every other sport gets relegated to the background.

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2 votes

#1 - Sun Mar 18, 2007 4:21 PM EDT

{"commentId":592755,"authorDomain":"onlineapps"}

Andy Min

Not really. Soccer is (I believe) a fall sport. That's football (American) season. America's football fans are literally fanatics. Similar to the British soccer fans ;-)

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3 votes

#2 - Sun Mar 18, 2007 5:31 PM EDT

{"commentId":592993,"authorDomain":"javelin"}

David Gottfried

The NLL (indoor lacrosse) has a bigger chance of being a "major" sport in America than soccer. Personally, I love going to the local soccer games, but I know a lot of people who can't stand low scoring events!

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4 votes

#3 - Sun Mar 18, 2007 8:42 PM EDT

{"commentId":593180,"authorDomain":"icexe"}

maw

Agreed. Most Americans would go nuts if week after week they spent three hours watching a game that ended in a 1-0 score. There would need to be a lot more scoring a lot less running back and forth.

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#3.1 - Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:36 PM EDT

{"commentId":593191,"authorDomain":"spudsstuff"}

Spuds Stuff

Make the goals biggers then you will get bigger scores.

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#3.2 - Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:43 PM EDT

{"commentId":593198,"authorDomain":"mark"}

mark

The NASL used to move the offsides line to the 30 yard line to increase scoring, although I'm not sure how effective it was. They also had a cool NHL like shootout at the end of games where the player had 15 seconds or so to score starting at midfield. It was very exciting.

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#3.3 - Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:50 PM EDT

{"commentId":593420,"authorDomain":"onlineapps"}

Andy Min

I'm not sure about the low scoring games. Look at hockey. On the other hand, hockey isn't the most popular sport in America...

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3 votes

#3.4 - Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:24 AM EDT

{"commentId":593195,"authorDomain":"mark"}

mark

It's important that there's a perception that the greatest local athletes are competing in that sport. Although soccer is the most popular sport in the US for youths, it's also one of the first sports kids drop as they grow older.

As long as the best athletes in your high school are playing football and basketball, there's going to be a perception that the second tier of athletes are playing soccer. That kills much of the appeal at the professional level for many fans. I don't have any data to back this up, but I always thought that soccer attracted the best athletes in Europe, Central/South America, and Africa.

Maybe when kids see the Beckham contract and the potential for stardom in soccer, we may start to see an equivalent Tiger Woods phenomenon in Soccer.

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3 votes

#4 - Sun Mar 18, 2007 11:47 PM EDT

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MICHAEL SAUTTER

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Does Soccer Have a Chance to Ever Become a Major Sport in North America?

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