Top 5 — Edition VIII: Why Soccer Won’t Be Huge In The U.S.

The eter­nal ques­tion of football/soccer and its sur­vival in the United States is: Why won’t the sport be huge and break into the Big 4 of US Pro­fes­sional Sports (NFL, NBA, MLB, NASCAR)?

Well we have 5 answers to that ques­tion that will make you think and hope­fully bring out some emo­tion in favor or against these argu­ments. So let’s reveal the Top 5 rea­sons why soc­cer will not be huge in the U.S.

#5 — Out­side Soc­cer Snob­bery


My col­leagues at Mad About Fut­bol might take offense or dis­agree but for­eign­ers from soc­cer loving/mad coun­tries look down & raise their noses to the US game. There is no doubt that the US game is of lower qual­ity than in Europe, Africa, and South Amer­ica. The struc­ture of col­lege ball in rela­tion to the pro­fes­sional game and the ludi­crous rules of the col­lege game have cer­tainly con­tributed to the slow progress of the US game from a skills perspective.

For the game to grow in the US, those peo­ple from soc­cer lov­ing nations out­side the US have to stop bad mouthing the qual­ity and look at the MLS and the col­lege game for what is. It is impor­tant these “Soc­cer Snobs” look at the game here through a dif­fer­ent lens and stop com­par­ing it to their home leagues and expect­ing MLS or col­lege teams to play like a team from their home 1st divi­sion league.

#4 — No Patience

Those of us who love fut­bol know that its takes great patience to watch 90 min­utes of a match. The fact is Amer­i­cans are some A.D.D., ridicu­lously short atten­tion span hav­ing peo­ples. The most com­mon com­plaint is that there isn’t enough action to sus­tain watch­ing a soc­cer match. Amer­i­cans are not con­di­tioned to appre­ci­ate the sub­tlety of foot­ball because Amer­i­can soci­ety as a whole is about instant grat­i­fi­ca­tion and the quick fix. The artistry & skill of soc­cer is lost on Amer­i­cans because there isn’t a goal being scored every 2 sec­onds or some­one isn’t get­ting the snot blasted out of them on every play. A game of patience can­not become huge in an impa­tient society.

#3 — Freak Ath­lete Fac­tor


This might be the most over­looked of the rea­sons, the Freak Ath­lete Fac­tor. Amer­i­cans like their ath­letes freak­ish, whether they are unusu­ally tall like bas­ket­ball play­ers or unusu­ally mus­cu­lar like Amer­i­can foot­ball or the roided up base­ball play­ers. There is a real life, comic book qual­ity that Amer­i­cans like in their ath­letes. Soc­cer play­ers are tremen­dous ath­letes but com­pared to ath­letes in the Big 3 sports, there is noth­ing about their size or phys­i­cal stature that makes them stand out.

If you didn’t know who Lionel Messi was and he walked down the streets of a city in the US, you would walk right past him and not think twice. The 2 great­est play­ers of all time, Pelé & Maradona are 5’8″ and 5’5″ respec­tively, their heights alone would have made it damn near impos­si­ble for them to be suc­cess­ful in the NBA, NFL, or MLB. With­out sound­ing con­de­scend­ing, soc­cer is the com­mon person’s game with its stars & icons look­ing as com­mon as their rabid fans.

#2 — Rich Coun­try, Poor Game


Football/Soccer is the game of the poor and the US is the rich­est coun­try in the world. (Hon­estly, poor peo­ple in the US live bet­ter than poor peo­ple in most other coun­tries). How many times have you heard of an Amer­i­can foot­baller grow­ing up learn­ing to play bare­foot in the street and fash­ion­ing a ball out of plas­tic bags or socks? Zero. That’s a reg­u­lar occur­rence in many coun­tries all over the world. In coun­tries with worse poverty, their ticket out is soc­cer. In the US, poor kids see bas­ket­ball & Amer­i­can foot­ball as their way out. It takes a lot less equip­ment & “stuff” to play soc­cer than Amer­i­can foot­ball or even bas­ket­ball. The poorer you are the less “stuff” you can afford, the eas­ier it is to take up soccer.

#1 — The Amer­i­can Way


The num­ber one rea­son that soc­cer will not be huge in the US, is Amer­i­can iso­la­tion­ism. Amer­i­cans are adamant about doing things the “Amer­i­can Way.” That’s why in the States, we don’t use the much eas­ier met­ric sys­tem, health care is not social­ized, and why soc­cer is looked down upon. The pre­vail­ing notion in the US is that soc­cer is as an immi­grant sport played by short guys with one name who aren’t mas­cu­line cause they don’t use their hands. See Jim Rome’s igno­rant, iso­la­tion­ist ass. A nation founded by immi­grants has grown to view immi­grants as dirty and the scourge of a nation. This Amer­i­can iso­la­tion­ist men­tal­ity & air of supe­ri­or­ity has car­ried over to the pro­mo­tion & mar­ket­ing of soc­cer, thus stunt­ing the growth of the Beau­ti­ful Game in the US.

There you have it, the 5 Rea­sons Why Soc­cer Won’t Be Huge In The US. I’m an Amer­i­can born & raised and I don’t care if soc­cer breaks the Big 4 of US Pro Sports as long as there’s enough of a fol­low­ing for my child to make 6 fig­ures play­ing pro­fes­sion­ally in the States. The inter­na­tion­al­ity of soc­cer is allur­ing enough for me to make The Beau­ti­ful Game my #1 sport till I die.

Tagged as: Top 5, United States