Blimey. Soccerball really is taking off in the US

[Miss Caphat]

A friend of mine from the UK coaches kids in the US. He tells me its getting very popular with the yoots and a good junior league system is already in place.

very popular? It is what kids do now, all of them. It is the kids' sport, has been since the 90's. still didn't equal adults getting into it outside of being "soccer moms" (and dads) until very recently.

 

[Onket]

Me & my brother both played for AYSO teams in the mid-eighties. It was very well organised and very popular.

 

[JTG]

It's taking off with the next generation now. Almost every American kid I know plays, and is a fan (that covers the whole US too, not just the seaboards). They are switching allegiance from European teams (usually British) to US teams too. By the time this generation of Tweens are in their twenties, soccer will be embedded across the US. And then the Europeans will never get near the World Cup again

What an odd conclusion to come to.

 

[Onket]

What an odd conclusion to come to.

I'd have said that the grin suggests it might not have been an entirely serious conclusion.

 

[Kaka Tim]

Tis notable that whilst the rest of american culture - film, music, TV, food - has conquered the world, their sports have not.
I guess American rugby ( ) is not ideal as mass participation sport - you need lots of players, you need loads of kit and if you are not built like a brick shit house you are at a serious disadvantage.
In football, all you need is a ball and some mates. you can have quite limited ability and get stuck in. There's a variety of roles for different physical types - small and skinny, short and chunky, beanpoles and big lumps can all be found playing professional football. You dont even need to be particularly athletic if you have decent ball skills (i.e. gazza).
Plus the potential for sudden, gut wrenching reversals of fortune - despair to triumph and vice versa - is often present to a greater extent than many other sports - (i.e. the USA almost knicked it from belgium right at the end of 90 minutes last night). Theres a reason its the worlds favourite sport.

Americans embracing football in the way that the rest of the world has would be a good thing - it would make them less isolated and their financial and political muscle might put much needed pressure on FIFA to sort its sorry act out - or even disband the fuckers in favour of something not quite so fundamentally corrupt.

 

[T & P]

You would imagine it would happen by default anyway within the next 30 years or so, what with the non-white population set to become the majority. But I was surprised at the ethnic make-up of all the footage of crowds watching the WC in various cities across the US, as well as in Brazil. So many WASPs amongst them...

 

[Favelado]

Bad example also by that article to pick liverpool FC given its record of running down the immediate area its situated in by buying up all the properties in the area for the sake of its long term stadium development plans. Very blue collar that...

The problems around Anfield's expansion and things the club have done wrong in that regard don't mean the club's traditions aren't blue collar. City? United? Chelsea? Arsenal? Out of the biggest clubs it would be difficult to say any of them haven't been warped by the all conquering god of money in the past two decades.

"Even the so-called fan-owned clubs like Barca are about as fan owned as me having a co-op loyalty card makes me an owner with some kinda clout in the co-op!"

They get to vote on electing the club president and important decisions like stadium expansion or moves. Have you voted on the dairy aisle at the Co-op being extended recently? Or the choice of branch manager?

 

[ska invita]

I guess for US fans supporting Liverpool for its blue collar credentials is a bit like when i was down with Compton by supporting the Raiders

 

[skyscraper101]

I think there's a lot of things going on which have contributed to this surge in popularity so I done a list of what I think are some major reasons the soccerball and particularly this World Cup is big news...

1. The US team is actually fairly decent right now. Howard and Dempsey are like household names. Landon Donovan is too and he's not even in the squad.

2. The globalisation factor. Social media has been more rampant with this World Cup than ever before. Look at all the hashtaging and meme'ing going on with #USMNT and #thingstimhowardcouldsave going on last night. It was massive. All that must have galvanised some added interest from even usually non-interested passers by.

3. The US is not so isolationist in sport anymore and it seems to be a two way thing - you could also point to the NBA and NFL doing competitive season games outside the States in recent years as an example of that. Loads of people on urban increasingly seem to dig the NFL. Perhaps the access to each others sports are easier now and we can all watch across the world on TV and online.

4. The rising popularity of the English Premier League on US TV. NBC got last years premiership rights on TV from Fox. I'm not sure if that means bigger coverage and more viewers but it was a big deal at the time as I recall (also handy as it means I can occasionally watch premiership games in the mornings for free)

5. More US players playing outside America. Better players emerging from more competitive leagues. See Dempsey/Howard etc again.

6. Tours by the big European Clubs are a regular feature in the summer. US Soccer and the marketing appeal therein seems to be taken a bit more seriously in that respect. Man Utd were very good at capitalising on this even back in the 90s in Asia and America.

7. The immigrant and next generation factor, as already mentioned (I suspect we may even see a decent cricket team emerge from a massive Caribbean population in the future)

8. The decreasing hooligan images of 70s/80s and the rise of modern football is all very US-friendly. Big Nike/Addidas sponsorship, superstar players like Beckham and Henry playing in the US, and friendly atmosphere of big money football gaining a foothold in the UK and elsewhere is all very American in its nature.

9. The brain injury thing in NFL, parents more keen on their young ones playing soccer these days (at a guess, based on what I hear in the US media). Junior leagues are a big deal as mentioned already. Colleges and schools already have great facilities (and football is the easiest thing to accommodate really).

10. For this World Cup at least, Brazil time is not at a silly hour compared to US time. I think almost all the locations are only 1 hour ahead of Eastern Time so it's an ideal excuse to knock off a little early for those 5pm kick offs straight after work with your work colleagues. Even on the West Coast a 5pm kick off is at 1pm so it's perfect at the weekend and during the week you could always take an extended lunch break (not that I would ever do such a thing, noooo)

 

[ska invita]

as an aside to #3, NFL made real inroads to the UK in the 80s - my mate played in a team there were games every weekend on our local rec as part of a local league, channel 4 screened games etc. I think NFL is pretty dead in the UK these days from what i can see, certainly by comparison

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

American-style football is fun to play, not much fun to watch. Too much happens in too brief a time span. It's more fun to watch if one has played it - and a lot of people in NA have played a little football in school, or with friends.

 

[skyscraper101]

as an aside to #3, NFL made real inroads to the UK in the 80s - my mate played in a team there were games every weekend on our local rec as part of a local league, channel 4 screened games etc. I think NFL is pretty dead in the UK these days from what i can see, certainly by comparison

I remember the big interest in the 80s and the brief attempts at getting a UK thing going (London Monarchs wasn't it?) - I think it'll be a while before they'll ever achieve a significant non-US league but I was reading not long back that part of the NFL's drive to globalise the interest by holding games at Wembley was to possibly get a London franchise going which could compete in the NFL. Or rumour has it the Jacksonville Jaguars will relocate to London - they already played last year and have three more Wembley games lined up for the next three years consecutively.

More here

 

[Epona]

American-style football is fun to play, not much fun to watch. Too much happens in too brief a time span. It's more fun to watch if one has played it - and a lot of people in NA have played a little football in school, or with friends.

I find watching it, it's not so much that too much happens in a brief span, more that there are frequent gaps where nothing is going on. Perfect place for US TV channels to air commercials, but when you're used to (in for example soccer) 90 minutes of activity with 1 break halfway through, and watching on a UK channel that does not cram commercials into every available break in activity, American football often seems more "stop" than "go". I still watch the Superbowl every year mind you, but for me there is too much time where nothing is happening for it to really grab me.

 

[Favelado]

I guess for US fans supporting Liverpool for its blue collar credentials is a bit like when i was down with Compton by supporting the Raiders

Were Raiders clothes big in London for teenagers around 1992? You almost had to have a Raiders jacket, wooly hat or cap for a while round my way.

I was caught up in the original wave of the NFL craze in Britain in 1983-1984. There has never been better round up music than 2 Tribes being played in the background to massive touchdown passes. I remember waking up to the news that the Dolphins had lost the Superbowl to the 49ers in 1985 and being pretty gutted.

The NFL games at Wembley seems to have gone down a treat recently and they're thinking about having a permanent "franchise" in London.

 

[ska invita]

Were Raiders clothes big in London for teenagers around 1992? You almost had to have a Raiders jacket, wooly hat or cap for a while round my way.

i had a raiders jacket for a couple of years as a teen i was i suppose a fashion victim - i guess this was before the UK rave scene and i still looked to the US for culture

 

[Johnny Canuck3]

Just watched Argentina/Belgium, and realized what it is: soccer without goals is like fucking without orgasm - still pretty good, but better with climaxes.

 

[Silva]

Were Raiders clothes big in London for teenagers around 1992? You almost had to have a Raiders jacket, wooly hat or cap for a while round my way.

I think that has a lot more to do with west coast gangsta rap becoming mainstream and a youth fashion trendsetter than the popularity of the NFL.

 

[Favelado]

I think that has a lot more to do with west coast gangsta rap becoming mainstream and a youth fashion trendsetter than the popularity of the NFL.

I think the trendsetters were wearing it for that reason, but I think if you asked the kids I knew why they had Raiders stuff on, they wouldn't have said anything about rap. They liked rave and breakbeat and were just wearing Raiders stuff because it was in the shops and it was what everyone else had. There must be a gangsta rap spark to the trend, because the timing would be too coincidental otherwise, but it didn't apply to the people I knew who all had a cap, hat or jacket.

 

[Silva]

I think the trendsetters were wearing it for that reason, but I think if you asked the kids I knew why they had Raiders stuff on, they wouldn't have said anything about rap. They liked rave and breakbeat and were just wearing Raiders stuff because it was in the shops and it was what everyone else had. There must be a gangsta rap spark to the trend, because the timing would be too coincidental otherwise, but it didn't apply to the people I knew who all had a cap, hat or jacket.

I think there's an ESPN documentary by NWA's own Ice Cube about the connection between the Raiders and southern LA when the whole West Coast thing blew up. They're certainly connected, but as wide as it spread, particularly outside the States, could also be a bit of Americana. Retailers aware of the image of the Raiders in the rap/hip-hop community import the merchandise for that purpose, people outside like it so much because it has cool colours (black and silver) and seems mildly exotic, so also adopt it.