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So in other words your saying the Seattle Seahawks have a much higher popularity than the Timbers in Portland?
No, I'm saying there's probably more overall interest in the NFL than MLS among the entire population of Portland. Soccer is still a niche market. People will go to Timbers games, but last season when the Timbers weren't in the playoffs, I never heard much interest or discussion from people following the results of other teams of who was playing for the cup. I don't remember people at work or at bars or on the bus talking about whether they thought the Houston Dynamo had a chance against the LA Galaxy. And really dedicated and diehard soccer fans are more likely to watch and follow the Premier League or Champions League or other European clubs often.
On the other hand if you go to sports bar during the fall on a Sunday, there's a lot of people watching games for NFL franchises of cities they've never been to. There's dedicated Green Bay Packer and Pittsburgh Steelers bars in Portland. People who aren't even big football fans end up watching NFL playoff games and everyone is watching the Super Bowl. On Monday mornings at work, you hear people talking about football. There's soccer bars in Portland now and the Timbers do get more attention, though it's a certain crowd following them.
The Seahawks sort of have a warm-weather fanbase in Oregon. My point is that in general, despite the impressive fanbase for soccer in Portland and the hype and popularity around the Timbers, American football is still much more ingrained in the local culture once you look at the whole population of Portland and the surrounding area. The Timbers are covered on the local sports news now, but they devote about five to ten minutes in the fall to just High School football results--along with coverage of college football and NFL coverage. There's not a lot of focus on soccer outside of the Timbers. The top high school athletes in Portland are still playing football or basketball or maybe baseball rather than soccer most likely.
Now if you wanted to make the claim that soccer is more popular than hockey in Portland--I'd say yes, for sure, NHL interest is very low here compared to MLS. In terms of other pro sports though--people have longer time spans of interest in those leagues than the MLS. Maybe at some point in the future you could truly say soccer is really more popular than baseball in Portland, but more people still today grow up following baseball or basketball in general...
The Sounders average 43,000 at a game, and the Seahawks average 63,000.
Yeah, but the Blazers play over twice as many home games as the Timbers, in an indoor arena. I guarantee you they easily pull in better ratings.
Another example--the Galaxy had a higher per game average in 2012 than the Lakers. They're nowhere near as popular.
MLS is doing a great job of drawing fans, despite the relative weakness of the league in terms of talent, and the fact that it has to compete with so many other team sports for attention. I'll give it that.
The Sounders average 43,000 at a game, and the Seahawks average 63,000.
But Average game attendance doesn't mean anything coming sports. Basketball playing in a 18,000 seat arena while soccer or football is usually played in a larger stadium. Also, in game attendance doesn't mean more popular. The Sounders may have 40,000 plus people at the game but they aren't as relevant through social media and what not. The diehard fans will always remain diehard. While when the Seahawks play, twitter, facebook, local television is congested with Seahawks type news and updates. Average ticket to a sounders game is like $25 while average ticket to Seahawks game on any given day is $80 and huge games if can go above $100. So take in game attendance as a grain of salt. Just cause people love to go to games doesn't mean people are paying attention outside of the stadium.
St. Louis is historically an American hotbed of soccer, but it has since declined in importance. In 1950, half the US World Cop soccer team were St. Louis players, and in the early part of the century, in a national soccer league, St. Louis was the only team that could field a team based on hometown players, instead of immigrants.
St. Louis is historically an American hotbed of soccer, but it has since declined in importance. In 1950, half the US World Cop soccer team were St. Louis players, and in the early part of the century, in a national soccer league, St. Louis was the only team that could field a team based on hometown players, instead of immigrants.
The problem in this discussion is that there is no verifiable metric for "more popular" - whereas attendance is verifiable. TV ratings aren't all that useful simply because not all games are shown and even when they are, they may be shown on PPV, network TV, cable/satellite-only TV.
Also, for Portland, since the city doesn't actually have a professional football (or baseball) team, it is a sort of moot comparison anyway.
You are clearly underestimated the popularity of the Portland Timbers. I would boldly say that they might be even more popular than the Portland Trail Blazers(NBA).
I live near Portland. I listen to Portland sports radio. The Trail Blazers are 25 times more popular than the Timbers are. It is not close. The Seattle Seahawks are more popular in Portland than the Timbers are. Think about that for a bit.
Even in the cities where soccer is popular, it is still the 4th most popular sport. To find a city where soccer rates in the top 3, you would have to go to a Mexican border town.
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