Despite the indifference, football is thriving in America

The comparison between US and Australian soccer or football is interesting. The start of the article above talked about how some bars were packed for the Champions League Final .. citing this as evidence for the popularity of soccer. Its like the popularity of the EPL in Australia. For soccer this is both a positive and a negative. There are many people who love their EPL or Champions League or blah blah league .. they would class themselves as soccer supporters ... but dont care about the A league ... I dont think you would find many Aussie Rules, League, or Rugby supporters who dont really care about the AFL, NRL or Super 14. The US case is similar. As someone mentioned games between Mexican soccer teams in the US are absolute sell outs .. while MLS games are not. The point is that Mexican immigrants love seeing their (mexican) teams play ... but dont care about local league. I was reading on the BBC the other day about Australia´s soccer coach saying that Aussie players were better off training in Germany that playing in the A league if they wanted to get into his World Cup Squad. I guess for soccer it is a bit chicken and egg ... until the A league is really high quality ... local players will continue going overseas and supporters be more interested in other leagues .. but until good local players stay and local supporters go to matches ... the league won´t become a higher standard.

Interesting reading your comment 3 months later...

realfootball - and yet NRL audiences continue to rise. go figure. us "primative and violent" people must be breeders, huh!

There are not many things that are certain in life, but the fact that AFL will remain top of the attendance tree in Aus is one of them. I say this not liking the game at all - does nothing for me personally. But is a phenomally successful indigneous sport, paritcularly in the south and west of the country - even its aficianados would admit that its grip in NSW and QLD is loose to say the least. But NRL is a different story. If you look at average match attendances, the A-League, which has only been in existance for 4 years, is very close to the NRL. It is not at all inconceivable that NRL, rocked as it is by scandal and corruption, will lose this race in a national context. It is, in my view, a deeply compromised sport that is increasingly looking like a social anachronsim from another age. Primitive and violent, it has an irreconciliable image problem in an increasing globalised Australia.

I have heard it's quite expensive for a youngster to play football in the US. And i remember at the start of the boom in numbers there was a lot of decent payed work for youth coaches. So for a game where you just need boots and a ball it's pretty strange but the yanks managed to make it a middle class game.

I've heard and read all the arguments. Soccer/football will get "there". And by "there" I mean it will be a top 3 spectator sport within the next 20 years or so. It's demographics, it's inevitable. MLS has long ways to go, but it is (slowly) heading in the right direction. Be patient, keep talking about the sport around the coolers, with your friends and family; keep playing the beautiful game, and make sure your kids play it at an early age(and don't stop after that). With Fox Soccer Channel, Gol TV, and Setanta, quality football is accessible more than ever before. I have lived in the US for 11 years now, and I am experiencing the change in attitude on a daily basis.

The New York Cosmos were part of the first successful era of US Football and once upon a time, 77,691 people packed New Jersey's Giants Stadium to watch football, the English kind, not Gridiron. From a humble beginning in 1971 and an average crowd of about 7K, they went on to be the most popular team in New York, outdrawing the MLB, the NBA and the NFL. In their heyday they boasted players like Pele, Beckenbauer and Chinaglia and regularly sold out games and were featured in newspapers and TV sports programs. By 1985 the Cosmos were broke and out of business and the club folded. I too was fortunate enough to live and work in New York for some time and of course I went to all the major sporting events including the Cosmos, but this was after Pele and in the declining years of Cosmos football in New York – no problems getting good seats. A few years earlier I was also fortunate enough to be part of the amazing crowd that witnessed the visit to Sydney of the New York Cosmos. They still had a pretty good side with Carlos Alberto, Chinaglia and Franz “Der Kaiser” Beckenbauer included in the line up. The gates had to be thrown open minutes before kick off to avoid a riot, as football punters desperately tried to get tickets and get in. There was no official crowd figure but an estimated 60,000 fans crammed into the 45,000 capacity old Sydney Showground. Back in the USA, the MLS competition declined for many years and all the promise of the early days was evaporating. However, in the last 20 years interest in the game has grown again and the number of people playing football in the US (estimated 20 million) is starting to get close to the number of registered players in other major league sports and is predicted to take over in the future, particularly for juniors and girls. Hosting the FIFA World Cup Finals in 1994 was also a big boost for the sport. Since then, the MLS crowds have been steadily rising and they are starting to sell out games again, particularly if Posh Spice’s husband is playing. We’ve experienced Beckham Mania first hand ourselves with the sold out LA Galaxy’s friendly game against Sydney FC at ANZ Stadium.

Kurt I worked in the US myself for a few months and went to a baseball game and a gridiron game.. What amazed me was after every throw of the ball in baseball and every play in Gridiron you spoke about the play that had just been made .. It was a constant analysis of every play. The coaches in Gridiron where considered more in a massive game of chess. This is where all sports that try and market themselves in the US to me make a mistake ... and why 20 20 could take off.. RL once through it could market itself but failed to understand that playing without stopping mean you could not talk to the person along side you.. Football non stop play and low scoring means no body can stop and talk about the game during the game... AFL would have a very similar problem at least in the non stop aspects. In addition they (Yanks) love their stats .. I dare say even more than test cricket ... something that does not lend itself to football anywhere near what the US consumer is use to. Also they are used to changing players often again unlike football. Interestingly the US Football folk are thinking of coping the Australia move ... they are discussing the move to merging America as one football confederation .. meaning they will play regular meaningful games against the South American countries and same for their Champions .. like playing San Polo V New York ... This talk is growing louder and would be interesting... A statement made by one US Football guy was the US loosing to South Americans would hurt US pride and that heaven and earth would be moved to not let it continue ( I cannot comment as I have no idea just saying what some in US Football are saying) TBH I cannot see it changing ... Football will have a slow growth..

Midfiedler - I think you make an interesting point about how US sports are very much 'stop-start'. Even basketball which is a naturally flowing game is peppered with endless timeouts. This is no trivial issue, but rather a fundamental aspect of the way sports are packaged and delivered by broadcasters. I would imagine this would reduce very substantially the amount of money the MLS could generate from a broadcast deal, as well as leading to large numbers of deaths due to bladder ruptures as giant fat Americans sitting in their huge sofas wait endlessly for a commercial break to go to the bathroom.

The US is a huge, huge market, the biggest economy in the world, so even being number 4 involves millions and millions of dollars and millions and millions of people. I read there are 20 million registered "soccer" players in the US and it is growing at about the same rate as here - about 9% annually. I also read that a group of Brazilian sailors who landed in New York harbour have introduced a new sport there called Butt Shaking. Its off to a shaky start, but is predicted to grow really big!

There is a danger in making to many comparisons between the US & Australia. While there are many similarities, in the US ... Gridiron is the number one football code no one comes close.. whereas in Australia the AFL is sorta first among equals in many way... Also to their sports aside from Basketball constantly stop so the games like football / rugby / AFL with there no stop play is not what the US consumer is used too. Moreover football is much more a middle and upper class game.. whereas the streets still belong to traditional US codes as do by and large the working class. Whereas in Australia only rugby does not connect well with the working class... Meaning the local product is safe and well ... but football has a growing foot print in the US.

When in Germany during WC06, I met 4 young Americans who were travelling arounf Germany following the world cup. I asked them about the following in the US & they said it was small, still dorminated by the 4 major sports. He did say though that the while the media & the older generation steered clear of the sport, he did say the game was popular amongst the younger generation, many as mentioned playing, but also the following of the European teams & players including the American players in the Euro leagues. Not unlike here. But definately the socceroos are bigger here than the American national team.

Apparently the Americans bought up big for next years World Cup, over 96,000 when they went on sale recently. That's more than England, Brazil, Australia in fact it's the most of any nation. This thread is missing you know who...MC..so here goes.. Interesting the in roads football has made in America...wonder if AFL could ever make such in roads in any other country?

Pip, Butt shaking doesn't involve any balls and is best played in thongs.

. . . not at all !

Big Al, College sports in america was not what i was referring too. Ask an american his thoughts on say the japanese/cuban/korean baseball league or the European basketball or the NBL league here or the now defunct NFL Europa league and you would get just as many blank stares as you would if you mentioned soccer. Remember, this is a country where the majority of fans, media and players that thought that their own participation in the World Baseball Classic was a bad idea. They have this superiority complex that makes them think that the USA is the only country that counts. http://jay-mariotti.fanhouse.com/2009/03/18/save-baseball-as-we-know-it-kill-off-the-world-baseball-classic/

I'm curious about this sport: butt shaking. Is it similar to korfball?

jimbo nice story - but Brazil was no longer a colony when the poms introduced futbol there.

There are still a lot more Butt Shakers than futbolers in Brazil !

then again you might just be making it all up :-)