Facts about soccer's increasing popularity in the US

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/sports/s...cer&oref=slogin

Soccer, while not enjoying the consuming interest that it has around the world, has seemingly never been more popular in the United States. It has arrived — if not by a long-anticipated revolution, then by slow, steady, stealthy growth.

The final of last month’s Gold Cup, a regional tournament that featured the United States and Mexico in the championship game, drew 40 percent more television households than did the concluding game of the N.H.L.’s Stanley Cup finals.

The combined American television audience for the final of the 2006 World Cup on ABC and Spanish-language Univision was 16.9 million viewers, compared with an average audience of 15.8 million viewers for the 2006 World Series on Fox.

Soccer has become a staple of autumn weekends in suburbia. According to the Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association, 14.5 million Americans played soccer in 2006, and two-thirds of them were younger than 18.

Given the increasing Hispanic influence in this country and the viewing choices available with three cable networks devoted exclusively to soccer, “we can’t expect the 18-to-35-white male to be the sole metric for sports on television,” said David Carter, the executive director of the Sports Business Institute at the University of Southern California. “The interest in soccer on a global basis is clearly penetrating the domestic market.”

Rather than overreaching and trying to fill football stadiums, M.L.S. gained stability by building six stadiums with capacities of 18,000 to 27,000, with two others scheduled to open.

M.L.S.’s average attendance of 15,504 for the 2006 regular season would have ranked it eighth among European leagues, behind Germany, England, Italy, Spain, France, the Netherlands and Scotland but ahead of Russia and Turkey, according to a British statistical report.

Among the league’s 13 teams, the Galaxy and FC Dallas have shown a profit in their new stadiums, and Chicago, Denver and Toronto are also expected to finish this season in the black, Garber said.

That said, in the 12 years since the inception of M.L.S., club owners have invested hundreds of millions of dollars without showing profitability across the board. The league’s revenue of a reported $20 million in annual television rights fees and $150 million in licensed product sales is pocket change compared with that of professional football, baseball and basketball leagues. And although the quality of play in M.L.S. has improved significantly in recent years, it is still viewed by many as a lesser league.

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that's all cool, but this is weird. I'm not even sure I really understand what this guy means.

Do you think its fair to say that USA see the success football has and how its the biggest sport in the world and they arent the best at it so they want some piece of the action?

no actually if anything the opposite.

If it's possible to characterize a "typical" American attitude toward soccer -- which it isn't; but let's pretend -- it is looking down on it. Either because it is boring or because players dive.

There's also this thing called American exceptionalism. There's a tendency in American culture to see the US as not only superior, but also simply different from the rest of the world. Because it's linked to ideas of superiority, Americans can be proud and happy when they feel they do things different from the rest of the world.

So the fact that soccer is the "world's game" actaully makes Americans less, not more, likely to embrace it.

I have a feeling that the people promoting soccer in the states are true believers. They're not doing it for the money. There are a lot better ways to make money in the US. Like panhandling.

Ive been told a couple of times ive been USA that football hasnt caught on there yet cos they find it boring. They like end to end stuff such as Basketball and dont see the excitement in football which might end 0-0.

Do you think that'd change with Beckham who is probably the most famous footballer around going over there?

And if* that doesnt work, if USA ever won the world cup, would that change peoples thinking?






* It'll never happen so this is purely hypothetical

how much of an impact, both sporting and marketing/advertising will Beckham have in the USA?

in your opinion.

This is interesting in answer to your question about Beckham. Funny, to think of it like that, but maybe true.

Sometimes it's not about the game itself. Among some, there's a cultural resistance to football as un-American. It maps in some ways on to other cultural characteristics like social conservatism (pro-life, religious) and, like those characteristics, is more pronounced in some parts of the country, like the southeast or midwest. Soccer is popular especially out West and especially especially in California. If (American) football is for political conservatives, soccer is for liberals.

But when you ask people why they don't like it -- yeah, no scoring, not enough happening (:doh:). Baseball is losing popularity for the same reason.

Beckham won't mean any great changes. He'll help it increase in popularity a little, continue the upward trend that's already started.

There are a lot of people who say that soccer will finally be accepted in the US only if* we win the world cup, as you suggest. It would certainly generate a lot of interest, but would that interest be sustained? Would we have to keep winning** the world cup? The country would have to be ready to start following soccer at the point, or interest would pass. We'd have to have sufficient investment, a good enough league, etc. But that period of intense interest would probably make not just new fans but new investors, etc. turn to soccer.



*when
**we will :good:

sporting -- in the sense of what? bringing new fans in or changing the way the game is played in the US?

marketing -- in the sense of what? bringing new fans in or giving, I dunno, Levi's jeans a new ad campaign?

whats the most popular team in the MLS then.

is it DC united?

1 - football, will it generate more fans because Becks is here to play football, and consequently inspire a new generation to pick up the game.

2 - in terms of sponserships etc.

Arent LA Galaxy bottom of the league?

So much for Beckham not going there for the money :rolleyes:

is Landon Donavon still the best player in the MLS?

also theres a player called Ronnie O'Brien, he's Irish and came up through the Juve ranks, so how the hell is he in MLS?

Owen Hargreaves mark 2?

1. I think it certainly will, but not enough to guarantee that the league is viable. You gotta figure that some percentage of people who are interested in Beckham will come to like soccer for itself. But some percentage will also lose interest pretty quick. The US needs to generate its own players and it needs to bring in quality players (as opposed to superstars) from around the world, but especially Latin America, if the MLS is going to survive in the long term. I think it's especially important to have good Americans play in the MLS, who can also play on the national team. There's kind of a paradox there, because while there are likely to more and more genuinely good American players, they're also likely, more and more, to go play in Europe.

One thing -- Americans are very savvy consumers of sports. Soccer in the MLS needs to be genuinely good and exciting if it's going to make it to the bigtime.

2. I really don't know. Beckham's already brought in a lot of sponsorship for the Galaxy. Will a company want to sponsor the Rapids simply because Beckham plays in the league? Probably, yeah, a little bit. But that's just a guess.

This might be interesting to you, CK:

well, tbf to Becks, the Galaxy have been a top team in the past. But this year, yes, they're sucking hard.

But, really, do you think Becks cares that much about winning silverware in the US? I imagine that he is thinking of his job as helping soccer in the US. That's noble, in its way.

Landon's one of the best, but not the best. The player of the year, unless something changes pretty radically, is going to Juan Pablo Angel, recently of Villa. He's scoring a goal a game right now, I think.

I don't know anything about this Ronnie O'Brien fellow.

How did he end up in the MLS? Maybe he sucked when he was at Juve?

thanks JF, it was interesting to note that Real's marketing director said yesterday that Beckham and his "marketability" generated some 300 million euros for Real.. :yikes:

what do you make of the salary cap?

whilst in one way its great; the league is more competitive, yet if the MLS paid the wages of the Premier League, heck even the Mexican league then could the league and football really take off in America?

Oh Beckham cares about winning things but i dont think its his main priority.

As you say, making "soccer" famous over there is.

I believe hes opened up football schools there.

Ever tempted to go?

I like salary caps in general. You'll never have a top-4 situation in American sports like you do in the prem.

I don't think MLS teams can afford to pay the salaries top-flight English clubs play. And it doesn't put us at a competitive advantage in terms of attracting players -- yet. Because most players who can command top wages in Europe will want to play in Europe for competitive reasons. In that situation, MLS clubs would have to significantly outbid European clubs. And there's no way they could afford THAT.

I don't know what Mexican salaries are -- or MLS salaries, actually. Have to look that up.

You do know, don't you?, that each MLS club can sign an "exception player" (like Beckham) who doesn't count against their salary cap. So each club can, in theory, get one top-class player from Europe. They can also trade their exception to another club for other considerations (players from that club, etc.). With that system, you can actually have multiple top-class players in the same side.

he will do, I think; not yet, but maybe I'm wrong.

I hope to become the in-house statistician

What other famous player is there at the moment?

By famous i mean someone we might have heard of ie someone whos made their name in European football

Juan Pablo Angel?

Edgar Davids, maybe? Not sure. I can't think of any, but then I don't know the MLS real well.

Ah yes Davids is certainly one.

I wasnt sure if he was in Holland or USA so didnt name him myself.

Isnt Abel Xavier there now?

yes, yes, he is. In fact, with the Galaxy, I think.

Him and Alexi Lalas must have good conversations on hairstyles

It starts out funny (when he says things I like to hear) but then it turns nasty (when he says things I don't like to hear).

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/sports/AP-...r=1&oref=slogin

Column: Soccer Won't Stir U.S. Interest

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By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: July 10, 2007

Filed at 2:19 p.m. ET

The English have been gaga over him for years, for reasons not yet fully understood on this side of the pond. The short version is that David Beckham, along with being the master of many hairstyles, has a special talent for kicking a stationary soccer ball just where he wants it.

That's big stuff in England, a country that has about as many sports heroes as there are sunny days at Wimbledon. Ordinarily, though, it might not cause much of a buzz among the beautiful people of Tinseltown.

But the beautiful people are nothing if not adaptable, especially when it comes to their own. Who would have thought just a few months ago that they would have cared so much about what happened to poor Paris Hilton?

Beckham, you will soon find out, is nothing if not a beautiful person. He's got a beautiful head of hair, a beautiful wife, and a beautiful $22 million home in Beverly Hills.

Among his neighbors are his beautiful best friends, Tom and Katie.

He's also got a beaut of a contract and endorsements that will pay him untold millions to play for the Los Angeles Galaxy, a minor league soccer team of sorts that plays in a league that is major in name only.

Beckham begins earning that contract on Friday when he makes an appearance at the Galaxy's home field, and the perfect media storm begins to brew. A few days later, his wife's trip to America will get more prime-time television coverage than the Beatles did when they first came over.

If you thought A-Rod's wife craved attention, just wait until NBC airs the hourlong special ''Victoria Beckham: Coming to America,'' the chronicle of a rich and famous wife who gives up her rich and famous life in London to live a rich and famous life in Beverly Hills. The former -- and future -- Posh Spice will be shown doing things most soccer moms do, like developing her signature line of clothing, sunglasses and perfume.

But that's merely the beginning.

On July 21, ESPN will wave the pompoms for three hours cheering Beckham's arrival in a show that will include everything except a concert by the Spice Girls. Adidas will run constant commercials featuring Beckham and Reggie Bush, and Motorola will pay him millions to sell phones. Americans, whose willingness to fall for hype has never been overestimated, will undoubtedly be entranced by it all. And then Beckham will actually play a game.

Soccer moms will swoon, and gather the kids around the TV. They'll have plenty of angles to look at since ESPN is using 19 cameras for the exhibition match against Chelsea, including one that will be trained on the master himself the entire game.

If all goes well, someone might score a goal. If things really go well, Beckham will score a goal. Everyone will race out to buy season tickets, and set their TiVo for a season pass of Major League Soccer -- or not.

Sure, sports and celebrity may seem like a great mix. But soccer and Americans just aren't.

We've seen it before, albeit on a smaller scale, when Pele came to the United States in the 1970s to make soccer as popular as the Ford Pinto. It didn't work then, and it didn't work in 1999 when Brandi Chastain and the U.S. national team were hailed as saviors of the game only to see their attempt at a professional league flop miserably.

Speaking of which, has anyone seen the millions of little girls who were supposed to be converted into soccer fans by that World Cup win recently? They're mostly grown women by now, so they shouldn't be hard to miss.

And how about the tens of millions of boys and girls who played soccer growing up? If they're like most kids I know, they gave it up just as quickly as they could for other sports once their parents gave them a choice.

Beckham isn't going to change that, no matter how much ESPN, Adidas and Motorola try. Americans may be fascinated by beautiful people, but for the most part they're bored by a game where one goal is cause for celebration and is often played so defensively that even open shots are a rarity.

People will tune in at first because they're curious, and because Beckham will be marketed as much as the iPhone. They might even buy a few tickets to get a glimpse of his hair or to see if he can really bend it like they say.

But will they be on hand to watch the Colorado Rapids play to a 0-0 tie with the Columbus Crew? Maybe, but don't bet on it. Because, in the end, they're still likely to find soccer about as enticing as the newest Spice Girls album.

yeah Xavier is at LA Galaxy.

Jens', could you tell me a bit more about a guy called Josmer Altidore, who's playing in the MLS? My old friend in America emailed me a couple of days ago saying Grimandi was running the rule over him and has been impressed... :unsure:

Josmer (Jozy) Altidore (born November 6, 1989 in Livingston, New Jersey) is an American soccer striker, who currently plays for the New York Red Bulls of Major League Soccer.

He has played for the Under-17 United States national team, and was part of the U.S. squad at the 2005 FIFA U-17 World Championship. He appeared as a substitute in the United States' 3-1 win over Italy and 2-0 loss to the Netherlands. He has also played for the U-20 team in their successful qualification to the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup in Canada. During the group stage of the U-20 World Cup, Altidore tallied three goals, helping the Americans to advance at the top of group D. He scored two goals in the 2-1 win over Brazil in the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup. In the quarterfinals, Altidore scored a goal in the first half against Austria. With 4 goals he was the leading goal scorer for the Americans in the 2007 FIFA U-20 World Cup.

Altidore was taken 17th overall in the 2006 MLS SuperDraft, with the MetroStars trading up to receive the selection. Altidore spent the majority of the 2006 season away from the team while working towards his high school diploma in Florida. Altidore made his professional debut 23 August 2006 as a substitute in a 3-1 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup loss to D.C. United. He scored his first professional goal at the age of 16, blasting an 83rd minute, 28-yard shot to beat Columbus 1-0 September 16, 2006. Scoring three times in seven appearances, including a crucial goal against the Chicago Fire on September 30 2006, Altidore became a fan favorite. He scored the Red Bulls' only goal of their 2-1 aggregate loss to D.C. United in the Eastern Conference Semifinals Series when he headed in a cross in the second leg. With that goal, he became the youngest player to score in the MLS playoffs at 16 years, 357 days (breaking DaMarcus Beasley's record by almost three years). Altidore was also youngest to start in an MLS playoff match on October 21 against D.C. United (16 years, 349 days).

Silva Lining -- if you go on youtube for highlights of U-20 WC US-Poland, US-Brazil, and US-Uruguay(-or was it Austria?) you will see his 4 goals.

He was the second most impressive player on the U-20 squad after Freddy Adu. He showed good finishing from up close and at distance, good movement, good hold-up play, a decent ability to turn; I think he's pretty fast. Some people think he's the great American soccer player to come, rather than Adu (not me, though). A lot of people think he's going to do a better job answering the national team's striker questions than Eddie Johnson (me included, here).

Altidore is doing quite a good job in the MLS considering his age. I'd love to see how he turned out with Arsenal training.

Here are the Poland highlights:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_DgOkYb01ZI

Here's some info about the business side of the MLS.

"Only two MLS teams are making money, but seven new owners have come on board since 2004, D.C. United was sold for a record $33 million six months ago, and expansion fees are expected to be $30 million when the league grows to 16 teams by 2010. "You couldn't sign Beckham in 1996 [when the league started]," says commissioner Don Garber, "not before you had the right facilities, the right television contracts and the right brands with our teams, so we really understand how to build this business."

"Now things here are more organized," says Pelé. "The league is set up, but they need more good names in the other cities to continue to promote the sport."

That's where Beckham comes in. MLS's increased stability and TV revenue prompted the owners last fall to pass the Designated Player Rule (a.k.a. the Beckham Rule), allowing each team to have up to two players whose salaries aren't limited by the $2.4 million cap. So far three teams have signed players with their DP slots: the New York Red Bulls (Colombian forward Juan Pablo Ángel and U.S. midfielder Claudio Reyna), the Chicago Fire (Mexican forward Cuauhtémoc Blanco) and the Galaxy (Beckham)."

It's from a long article about Beckham's arrival in the States.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/writ...10/beckham0716/

This might be interesting for you provincials

http://www.soccer-weblog.com/50226711/davi..._phrasebook.php

Amid all the razzmatazz, confetti and messiah worship of David Beckham's LA Galaxy press conference there was one beautiful cultural moment.

"The most important thing for me is my family, the second is the footba ... is the soccer. [mild embarrassment] I'll get used to that at some point. I'm sorry."

Indeed. To help Becks avoid any more minor transatlantic mishaps, I put together this English-American, Football-Soccer Phrasebook which was originally posted here.

David Beckham's English-American Football-Soccer Phrasebook English American
football soccer
squad roster
fixtures schedule
shirt jersey
kit uniform
boots cleats
shin pads shin guards
sent off ejected
foul by Mastroeni foul on Mastroeni
attack offense
draw tie
reserves second string
pitch field
derby rivalry
terraces stands
clean sheet shut out

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I still get confused by the one I've put in bold and it takes me a second to make the translation in my head.

Derby are in for Eddie Johnson....... wizardly

really? that'd be interesting. I'd like to see him play in England.

watching the MLS all-stars (in your language, the best XI) against Celtic. The American league is up 2-0 at the half. It's funny -- and sweet -- to hear the commentators talk up Celtic as a big club, in order to make the MLS opponent as impressive as possible.

Now, of course, they're having an interview with Beckham. Interesting fact: Beckham was 6 weeks old when Pele joined the New York Cosmos in the old American soccer league. It's a generational cycle.

What else about this match might be interesting to GWers? Well, it's being played at the stadium that hosts the Colorado Rapids, Kroenke's team. That says something good about Kroenke -- it's an honor and a profit to host an all-star game. I think this was also one of the first soccer-specific stadiums built. Most teams started out playing on American-football fields.

How many of you remember Steve Nicol, of Liverpool fame? He's the MLS all-star coach, since his team, the New England Revolution, have the best record halfway through the season. What makes this fun is that he is apparently a big Rangers supporter, so you have to figure he's pretty intent on beating Celtic.

Yeah i knew that Steve Nicol was the man in the MLS, he has been there for ages though

They have set up a scouting network out there and are taking a look at Nathan Sturgis, Nik Besagno and Eddie Johnson......

I guess Freddy Adu never blew up like they expected eh

Freddy was one of the very best players at the U-20 WC -- maybe the best. His profound failure to impress in the MLS is partly due to the fact that he's always played at lw, when he should be a no.10. And partly due to the fact that, well, he might not be so good. But he's still only 18.

I learned last night that Celtic is going to set up 30 or so training/scouting centers in the US, many in the inner city, which is fantastic.


I also want to say, punchy, that I appreciate your posting in this thread. I wasn't really interested in what you had to say, since you're such a newbie and all, but I am glad I'm not just talking to myself.

erm thanks.....:unsure:



Tosser. :tiphat:

So, the MLS all-stars beat Celtic pretty handily, 2-0.

Boruc held the MLS back for a while, nearly single-handedly, including saving a penalty, but then the cream rose. :good: The MLS more or less dominated the match.

Dwayne de Rosario (ask Dr. Gonzo about him) tortured Steve Pressley all night long, including once viciously nutmegging him. He assisted Juan Pablo Angel on the first goal.

The MLS all-stars are now 4-0 vs. the international competition -- Guadalajara, Fulham, Chelsea and now Celtic.

What does this mean about the quality of the league? I saw the Chelsea match and the Celtic one. On the one hand, the British teams are in preseason and look on the match as a training session. But, on the other hand, they do start their best 11 and they do try hard -- they don't want to lose to the minnow league. Also, the MLS players are coming from different teams -- they don't know how to play together.

So there's some significance to the fact that the MLS players keep winning these games: they're pretty darn good. Let me put it this way: this MLS side, if they played together for a premiership club, would easily get into the UEFA club and people would be talking about them, not Tottenham, breaking into the top 4.