Dear american football...

[Scooch]

Fair point. Asians, too.

Baseball isn't as popular with Mexicans, who are 2/3rds of the U.S. Hispanic population. So, not exactly the demographic shift that MLB needs.

 

[Guinness]

we're not spring chickens here, we've heard that argument for 40 years. i think the people who made the same argument so long ago would've expected soccer to be further along if they were honest about it. this isn't the first generation of youth leaguers that have grown up

Soccer and Lacrosse are both in that same boat. They have been the next big thing for the past 40 years.

 

[Scooch]

It's indirect, but clearly there is a correlation, or else the viewing numbers wouldn't keep going up..

Correlation is a statistical thing. Football ratings keep going up, and youth football participation has declined.

Anecdotes are fine, but they aren't representative or statistical. Soccer's fan base and TV audiences are increasing, but it is NOT correlated to youth participation. I can't be any clearer.

 

[djcon57]

I can't post specific numbers (sorry!) but NHL is about 25% higher than MLS for avid fans. Not as big as you might think given the history of each league. The NHL is not, and never has been, a "major" sport in the US. It's a huge niche sport, and is major in certain regions. There are 5 national, major, US leagues: NFL, MLB, NBA, CFB and CBB.

I wouldn't pit sports against each other the way people are in this thread, though. Interest in sports is not zero-sum, which is why polling about people's absolute favorite isn't entirely useful. There is opportunity for one to grow without necessarily causing another to decline.

CBB is not a national sport.

 

[jekelish]

If it was the badminton World Cup, Americans would still tune in to watch because they are playing in it... They also get off work. It's happening in Canada right now with Tennis. Eugenie Bouchard is doing very well in Wimbledon and people are calling in sick etc, not because they like Tennis, because they don't want to work...

I love soccer, but it will never grow in North America. Never.

Just my opinion.

I disagree for several reasons but have to point out especially that Mexico is part of North America. Soccer seems pretty big there.

 

[jekelish]

Soccer and Lacrosse are both in that same boat. They have been the next big thing for the past 40 years.

The difference is lax is an expensive sport to play. Soccer is very inexpensive and therefore is always going to have more people playing.

 

[Scooch]

CBB is not a national sport.

Yes, it is.

 

[Bayside44]

Not now.

We all have babysitters, I am not going to watch a TV show about babysitting. Putting a 4 year old in something to have them engage in activity isn't rushing anyone out to see the DC United.

 

[jekelish]

Correlation is a statistical thing. Football ratings keep going up, and youth football participation has declined.

Anecdotes are fine, but they aren't representative or statistical. Soccer's fan base and TV audiences are increasing, but it is NOT correlated to youth participation. I can't be any clearer.

Youth participation has always been high, so I agree with you that's not really a correlation. But CONTINUED participation is, as is the availability of a quality product both live and on TV.

 

[djcon57]

Yes, it is.

Nah. Disagree. It's not close to NFL, NBA, and CFB

Literally no one cares outside of college towns.
*I* care. A lot. But I'm the minority and I'm ok with it.

 

[billsin01]

One other way to measure the growth of soccer in America is looking at the quality of the players themselves. We are so vastly better than we used to be it's ridiculous, and we are just going to keep getting better, as more kids play and take it as seriously as the other major sports.

I don't know enough to quantify this or even really comment on our team this year relative to our team a decade ago, so I'm not questioning your logic. But from what my eyes tell me, we are not even remotely close to Belgium or Germany and we beat Ghana for the first time in three tries. We may have improved, which is great, but again I think it's disingenuous to suggest we still don't have miles upon miles to travel to start matching up better with legit World Cup contenders.

 

[Millhouse]

Nah. Disagree. It's not close to NFL, NBA, and CFB

Literally no one cares outside of college towns.
*I* care. A lot. But I'm the minority and I'm ok with it.

do you leave the country in march every year?

 

[billsin01]

I completely agree with you. But that's why I also keep pointing to the fact that MLS is only 20 years old. It hasn't really had enough time to make that sort of lasting impact, because the kids growing up on it are still growing up.

Absolutely but that isn't going to change drastically in 10 or even 20 years, IMO, particularly when anyone who follows soccer has got to be well aware of the fact that the MLS is might not even be AAA when compared to the EPL.

 

[Millhouse]

I don't know enough to quantify this or even really comment on our team this year relative to our team a decade ago, so I'm not questioning your logic. But from what my eyes tell me, we are not even remotely close to Belgium or Germany and we beat Ghana for the first time in three tries. We may have improved, which is great, but again I think it's disingenuous to suggest we still don't have miles upon miles to travel to start matching up better with legit World Cup contenders.

they went 40 years without making a world cup. now they're basically a shoe in every year. IIRC this is the first time they've made it out of a group 2 WCs in a row.

 

[Guinness]

The difference is lax is an expensive sport to play. Soccer is very inexpensive and therefore is always going to have more people playing.

I would not call it inexpensive to play in youth leagues. At least where I live you are paying 90-100 per season plus you have to buy your cleats and shin guards. You usually end up the start of each season being in for around 200$. The league cost is very similar to the cost of little league and football.

But yes if you want to play in the yard all you need is a ball and that is cheap.

 

[jekelish]

I don't know enough to quantify this or even really comment on our team this year relative to our team a decade ago, so I'm not questioning your logic. But from what my eyes tell me, we are not even remotely close to Belgium or Germany and we beat Ghana for the first time in three tries. We may have improved, which is great, but again I think it's disingenuous to suggest we still don't have miles upon miles to travel to start matching up better with legit World Cup contenders.

I'm not saying we are contenders, but our talent level is so much higher now than even 15 years ago. This year's team would have destroyed, for instance, the 1994 team when we hosted the World Cup. Germany is ranked #2 in the world and we competed with them, though they were obviously the much better team.

Put it this way: if we come out and compete with Florida State and lose, say, 30-17 that will probably be viewed as massive improvement from last year. That's kind of like the loss to Germany.

 

[billsin01]

they went 40 years without making a world cup. now they're basically a shoe in every year. IIRC this is the first time they've made it out of a group 2 WCs in a row.

OK -- that's great. We got hammered by Belgium. It ended up close by some act of God but we got completely destroyed. It's OK and I'm not knocking soccer but the amount of growth needed to be a real threat remains massive.

 

[djcon57]

do you leave the country in march every year?

So because it's big for a couple of weekends in March makes it a national sport. Got it.

Horse Racing is a national sport too when the triple crown comes around.

Daytona? Indy 500? Yeah. People like picking brackets, but CBB is simply not discussed on a national level outside of that one month.

CBB's final four ratings are lower and lower every year

 

[Guinness]

CBB's final four ratings are lower and lower every year

Probably because they have moved the games to all sorts of crappy cable channels with even crappier NBA guys talking about it.

 

[jekelish]

Also - because I'm always curious to see what international fans think of the USMNT I was on a Manchester City board earlier, and there is a 5 page thread legitimately debating how quickly MLS will catch up to the European leagues, and hardly a snide comment to be found. Many of them legitimately think MLS is going to pull even eventually.

These are the fans of the team that won EPL last season.

 

[billsin01]

Well, the NBA waters down its product with so many meaningless regular season games. Their attendance is not growing and the viewership is not growing like soccer. That's like saying football attendance is artificially skewed by a shortage of the product. As exposure on TV grows, many sports experience lower viewership per broadcast. That's money to the owners, too - broadcast rights and the live gate and merchandise. You can't simply throw one out and say "oh, that doesn't matter because they don't play as many / they play more games."

I'm not sure I get what you're arguing -- Football attendance absolutely is skewed by a shortage of the product. If they start playing three times a week for five months they won't be playing in 90,000-seat stadiums. Soccer playing less often, in bigger venues, charging less for tix and fielding 2/3 the teams absolutely affects avg. attendance per game. Does that mean it's not popular? No, not really, but saying the LA Galaxy outdraw the Lakers by avg. attendance certainly doesn't mean the Galaxy own LA.

 

[djcon57]

Probably because they have moved the games to all sorts of crappy cable channels with even crappier NBA guys talking about it.

You think they'd move NBA, CFB, or NFL finals to a crappy cable channel or mess with it?

They just had the CFB final on like 3 different ESPNs at the same time.

 

[Guinness]

You think they'd move NBA, CFB, or NFL finals to a crappy cable channel or mess with it?

They just had the CFB final on like 3 different ESPNs at the same time.

The NBA probably. The NFL no.

The CFB final being on three channels was (imo) worse than having to listen to Barkley mumble about the SU zone. In fairness as much as like college football I really hate ESPN and how much they over hype and kill the sport.

 

[Scooch]

Nah. Disagree. It's not close to NFL, NBA, and CFB

Literally no one cares outside of college towns.
*I* care. A lot. But I'm the minority and I'm ok with it.

Stastically, in terms of ratings and fan bases, it is a national sport.

Duke fans live in NY.

Kansas fans live in CA.

 

[jekelish]

The NBA probably. The NFL no.

The CFB final being on three channels was (imo) worse than having to listen to Barkley mumble about the SU zone. In fairness as much as like college football I really hate ESPN and how much they over hype and kill the sport.

I think at the end you cut right to the heart of it. At the end of the day, ESPN is going to dictate what is and isn't a popular sport more than any other factor.