Follow the $$$$$ and you'll know why soccer will never be popular in US! (league, clubs)
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It could have been better handled if the argument was... people in the Deep South don't like soccer simply because it is not an American sport, and most of our best players play in European countries rather than the MLS. American football, baseball, and basketball have a much higher priority - being American sports.
Heck, we didn't even have a pro league until 1995, which also hurt. American soccer is relatively new, compared to the four "major" sports.
You either forgot about, or are ignorant of, the North American Soccer League which ran from 1968 to 1984.
Of course, it may not seem like it because the announcers on Sportscenter are the most BIASED people in the world and would rather talk about competitive basket-weaving and the world series of darts than soccer.
Give me a break, Sportscenter makes me sick.
What exactly does Sportscenter have to do with this? Do people not realize ESPN and other big sports based companies do years worth of research about what their viewers are interested in? They only show what their polls tell them to show. That's just good business sense. If you had a party and +75% of the people coming told you they wanted fish, why would you give them pasta?
Besides, ESPN is driving the World Cup hype bus...
Ironically the web contains lots of history, people just aren't familiar with it. I remember seeing Pele play on the Cosmos at one game I attended live.
It could have been better handled if the argument was... people in the Deep South don't like soccer simply because it is not an American sport, and most of our best players play in European countries rather than the MLS. American football, baseball, and basketball have a much higher priority - being American sports.
Heck, we didn't even have a pro league until 1995, which also hurt. American soccer is relatively new, compared to the four "major" sports.
They have had plenty of soccer leagues througout the years in the US, I even think Pele played a few years in the US when he was ancient. Soccer is not a viewer friendly sport, thats the main problem. I don't consider the low scoring to be the problem, hockey has lower scoring but its packed with action, while you can have an entire soccer where nothing happens. The closest a team can come to scoring is a shot 20 feet wide or high of the net. The player base is too international too, how could someone from Kansas City want to root for a team full of people from Chile or Colombia?
Replace Chile or Colombia with Venezuela or the Dominican Republic, and you are referring to baseball.
I was thinking that, I think there would be even a more foreign presence though, bordering on hockey levels. Soccer players seem to be more arrogant and cockier then players from others sports, making them less likable to the average American.
I think this may change in the future. The MLS is adding a couple more teams, or have recently anyway. And there are more and more Americans playing that ever, at higher levels. Not all of them can go to Europe.
But soccer is truly a global sport. Which for some parts of the country, where the globe ends at roughly red states... not good enough.
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