Popularity of Soccer Essay Example for Free

Popularity of Soccer Essay When the United States national soccer team defeated the Spanish national team in the semifinals of the 2009 Confederations Cup, many sportswriters and fans called the U. S team’s win one of the biggest upsets in modern soccer. Although the United States is known for having dominant sports teams, many refuse to admit that the United States has a good soccer team, let alone believe that Americans know about the sport soccer. In all fairness, even people in the United States do not believe that Americans know a lot about the sport and think it is a unpopular sport in the U. Â  S. Long has been the misconception that soccer is not popular in the United States and that many Americans do not even know the rules of the game. In an episode of Family Guy, Chris Griffin is playing in a soccer game. The bleachers are almost empty with the exception of a handful amount of people. When a ball is kicked towards Chris, he catches the ball. The referee, dressed like an American football official, awards Chris’s opponents a penalty kick with a tone and style of his speech as that of a football official. A parent of Chris’s teammate yells out in anger because Chris’s mistake awards the other team an immense advantage. This scene exemplifies the common misconception about soccer in the United States. The small number of audience in the crowd suggests that soccer is not a popular sport in America. Chris’s lack of knowledge of the sport and the inaccurate uniform of the referee imply that many Americans do not know the rules of soccer and are not familiar with the sport because not many Americans play the sport. Furthermore, Chris lacks enthusiasm in his game; this lack of enthusiasm illustrates the hypervisiblity of the popularity of soccer in the United States. Soccer was virtually unknown to Americans until 1967 when the first professional soccer league was set up in the United States. The league was named the North American Soccer League (NASL). The league attracted some of the most famous soccer players in the world such as the Brazilian Pele, arguably the best soccer player of all time, and the German Franz Beckenbauer, regarded as the best German player of all time. Although the league attracted some of the greatest players, soccer overall remained a less popular sports like baseball and football in the United States. Perhaps Americans’ reluctance to follow the rules set by the British is the reason for soccer’s initially low popularity. Baseball and football, undoubtedly the two most popular sports in the United States, has its roots in the United Kingdom. An early form of baseball has been played in England in the mid-eighteenth century(The history of baseball). American football was originated from rugby football, which originated in the United Kingdom in the mid-19th century(American football history). However, the rules of baseball and American football have been adapted by Americans from their origins to become American sports. Perhaps because Americans put in place their own laws of these sports, baseball and football had been successfully integrated into the American culture and had been immensely popular since their beginnings. Soccer on the other hand, was nowhere near as popular as baseball and football when first introduced in the United States. Soccer’s laws were set forth by the International Football Association Board (IFAB) which consists of the four United Kingdom countries’ associations- England, Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland(The International FA Board). The fact that the rules of soccer were not created by Americans and the fact that the sport’s rules were created by the United States’s competitive rivals may contribute to soccer’s originally low popularity. Whatever the reason, soccer was clearly not a popular sport in the United States even though it was by far the most popular sport in the world. Certainly, the North American Soccer League (NASL) was not a widely watched league when it was established in 1967. Its low popularity did not improve as the NASL eventually failed in 1984. Although the much improved Major League Soccer (MLS) was founded in 1996(About MLS) to replace the NASL, the MLS was and is still not a very successful league in terms of salary. The average salary of a player in the MLS in 2010 is $138,169 compared to MLB’s $3,297,828 (2010) (MLB Salaries), and NFL’s $990,000 (2009) (NFL Player Salaries). In fact, the MLB’s and the NFL’s minimum salaries are far greater than the average MLS salary. MLB’s minimum salary in 2009 was $400,000(MLBPA Info), while NFL’s minimum salary in 2009 was $310,000. Based solely on salaries of professional athletes in the United States, one can get an idea of the low popularity of soccer compared to sports like baseball and football in the U. S. These stats may seem to support the hypervisibility of soccer’s popularity in the United States, but in reality they do not reflect the growing adoration and acknowledgement of the sport. Soccer’s popularity in America has been growing since the inauguration of the NASL and the MLS. The MLS may seem unpopular based on the salaries of the players in the league, but spectator attendance suggests otherwise. The MLS averages 18,452 people per game, higher than National Basketball League’s 17,110, and NHL’s 17,004. In fact, the MLS’s average attendance is even higher than the Scottish Premier League’s average attendance(Avoiding the Drop). The amount of soccer players in America further emphasizes the tremendous popularity of the sport. In the U. S. , there are a total of 24,472,778 players. This number is far larger than some of the powerhouses in world soccer such as England which has 4,164,110 players, Brazil which has 13,197,733 players, and Spain which has 2,834,190 players(FIFA. com). Lastly, the 2010 World Cup had an average of 24. 3 million viewers in the United States. The World Series and the NBA Finals, on the other hand, only averaged 19. 4 viewers and 18 million viewers respectively(deseretnews. com). The United States was not even in the final of the World Cup and still managed to attract more viewers than the World Series and the NBA finals. Had the U. S. National Team been in the final, the number of viewers of the World Cup final could have been significantly larger. The high number of attendance at MLS games, soccer players in the United States, and viewers of the World Cup final testifies against the hypervisibility that asserts that soccer is an unpopular sport in the United States. However, facts surrounding the attention of soccer in the United States firmly affirms that soccer has now established itself as one of the most popular sports in America.