Every four years, during the World Cup, soccer becomes a hot topic in the United States. Everyone is either watching it, talking about why they hate it, or debating about why it is not as popular as American football. A recent Freakonomics podcast rolled out the usual statistics, comparing soccer to football. Five times more Americans watched the Superbowl than the finals of the 2014 World Cup (Rosalsky). However, ten times more people in the world watched the World Cup than the Superbowl, making it the most popular sport on Earth. There seems to be some economic reasons behind its lack of popularity involving monetization, but the primary reasons are historic. While the rest of the world grows up with soccer, the de-facto sport, the U.S. developed its own unique sports, including football, a sporting behemoth that is unlikely to be toppled anytime soon. Football is popular in the U.S., and soccer is popular everywhere else in the world. Even North Korea, an unstable and isolated dictatorship, has the largest soccer stadium in the world and a pretty good national team (Fraink). There are many theories to explain the lack of popularity of soccer in the US, some are anecdotal, some economic and some full blown sociological peer-reviewed studies. The reasons and conclusions are usually the same, nobody knows exactly why, but most American just do not like soccer.
Economists have recently been picking soccer apart and comparing it to American sports. Even the financial structure of professional soccer is different. There are the club leagues, sponsored by owners, cities and sponsors. There are also national teams, which are run by a
countries federation. Like any sport, it is mostly about money and advertising, sponsorship and television revenue is all required to successfully monetize a sport. One argument is soccer does not have enough predictable pauses to run commercials (Rosalsky). Football has the half-time show, and the infamous commercials. Soccer has a perpetual game with a short halftime and briefly interrupted by fouls. This argument seems suspect, particularly as media is moving away from television and moving towards streaming internet. Furthermore, there seem to be perpetual advertisements plastering the screen during soccer matches. The companies sponsoring soccer around the world seem to know how to get there name out there. There are other more esoteric economic arguments, but the bottom line is if there was a demand for soccer American capitalists would quickly exploit it.
There are historic reason as well. When American professional sports were established, the founders made deliberate efforts to create uniquely American games. Baseball was based on cricket, football on rugby and basketball was modeled after soccer. But it is important to note that we did not just get here and start playing cricket. We changed it up and created baseball. When Americans did look to soccer, we made basketball. The world has Formula 1 car racing, we made Nascar. Rebellious Americans would never be satisfied simply adopting the world sport of soccer.
Then there are the socio-economist theories. For most the world, soccer is not just a sport. In The Socio-Economic Determinants of International Soccer Performance, Hoffmann highlights the complex relationship between football and culture. The popularity of football in depends on the cultural make-up of a country. According to Hoffmann, soccer “has in some countries served as a platform for religious or regional rivalries, to express nationalist sentiment or political aspirations” (Hoffmann 217). In the U.S. football already does this nicely. It serves as a “platform” for regional rivalries. Every fan is usually more focused on how much they hate the opponents, then how much they love their own team. Even if the local team is extremely bad, fans can hold their heads up high with pride as a loyal and long-suffering fan. There also seems to be a strange phenomenon of people just picking a team because of socio-economic or stylistic appeal. For example, “Raider Nation”, the name for the rabid urban-oriented fans of the Oakland Raiders, can be found all over Nebraska.
Interestingly, the U.S. is not alone. The Philippines is a country that should love soccer, their neighbors in Asia, Malaysia, New Zealand and Australia certainly do. It never caught on in the Philippines. There are many explanations but the theory is that American G.I.’s, who lived in the Philippines, exported the game from the U.S. and it became the national sport. Every poor neighborhood in the Philippines has a basketball hoop. Boxing is a close second. One theory is Filipinos like high scoring sports and – like many Americans - find soccer boring (Tiglao). So the explanation for the unpopularity of soccer in the U.S. could be exposure, Americans have culturally adopted the sports we have created, they are available to kids, then colleges award the scholarships and there are professional leagues for the kids to dream about. It is a self-perpetuating cycling that is very hard for soccer to break into. This can also incorporate the historical, cultural and socioeconomic explanation, if dad played football, you play football.
Soccer in the U.S. is obviously making progress. The U.S. woman’s team has won two world cups and is currently ranked #1 in the world. This throws a sexual element into the analysis. Generally, girls don’t play football because cultural norms are against it and maybe they just do not like crashing violently into each other. They do play basketball, and there is a professional woman league, like soccer. There are very few mainstream sports for women to seriously pursue professionally. If you are a male high school athlete, you have multiple sports to choose from, including baseball, basketball, football and soccer. For woman, there is only basketball and soccer. So the professional sport of woman’s soccer has much less competition for female athletic talent.
Immigration and globalism is playing a huge role in the popularity of soccer, and there may be some hidden trends that have not been analyzed yet. If a Mexican-American watches his local soccer team online on his laptop, it does not show up in the Nielson ratings. The NFL is an established brand and makes millions on merchandising and selling television rights. Soccer just does not work like that. The popularity of soccer might be underreported and therefore not appreciated by the people who really care about the numbers.
Ultimately, a sports popularity fluctuates. When Lance Armstrong won the Tour de France people were discussing cycling like they were Italians. Since his retirement and disgrace the sport has receded from the headlines and become a non-mainstream sport again. Soccer may be a sport similar to cycling, seen as too weird and European to gain sufficient traction for widespread popularity. Likewise, the popularity of football may decline. There are current debates about concussions in footballs that may limit participation due to safety concerns. Meanwhile, there are more soccer moms and dads than ever. As soccer gains momentum, it might become one of the more popular sports in the U.S. but it has shown to be a difficult task, and usually only discussed every four years.
Works Cited
Fraink, Douglas. "WorldSoccer - The Unrivalled Authority on Soccer around the World." World Soccer. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2014. <http://www.worldsoccer.com/>.
Hoffmann, Robert. THE SOCIO-ECONOMIC DETERMINANTS OF INTERNATIONAL SOCCER PERFORMANCE ROBERT HOFFMANN, LEE CHEW GING AND BALA RAMASAMY* (n.d.): n. pag. Universidad De Cema. Web. 1 Nov. 2014.
Rosalsky, Greg. "Why America Doesn't Love Soccer (Yet): A New Freakonomics Radio Podcast." Freakonomics RSS. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Nov. 2014.
Tiglao, Rigoberto. "Why Were Not into Soccer (2) - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos." Why Were Not into Soccer (2) - INQUIRER.net, Philippine News for Filipinos. N.p., n.d. Web. 02 Nov. 2014.
