With the FIFA Men’s World Cup two months in hindsight and the Women’s World Cup about five months away, soccer is gaining more and more traction in the United States. And while yes, there is the dissonance between calling the sport “football” or “soccer” (I prefer football but for the purpose of adhering to a predominantly American audience, I will call it soccer), that has not prevented Americans from exploring their newfound interest in the world’s most popular sport.
It seems that at this pace, the growing interest towards soccer in the United States could make way for a new generation of talented players and shift the current state of American sports culture to include soccer as part of the mainstream conversation.
While exposure definitely inspires and garners interest, I don’t think soccer will become a prominent sport in the U.S. anytime soon for a number of reasons. Soccer in the U.S. is not easily accessible for many people. It is expensive, not attractive for broadcast and does not utilize a promotion-relegation system that other professional leagues have.
Although street soccer has bred some of the biggest names of the sport, some of which include Diego Maradona, Pelé and Zinedine Zidane, it is not likely to become a norm in American sports culture. Basketball and (American) football are much more popular domestically even outside of organized basketball and football leagues, Americans generally lean towards basketball and football for recreational activities. Soccer would have to compete with both basketball and football on a popularity scale to even reach the streets.
Off the streets and onto a proper pitch, organized club soccer is expensive. While recreational teams exist for the enjoyment of the sport and are more affordable, they are less competitive and therefore less focused on the development of the player. Competitive travel soccer programs can be extremely expensive, with registration fees just shy of 2,000 thousand a year. This does not account for separate team fees that would cover travel and hotel expenses, tournament registration fees and uniform fees.
The pay-to-play system utilized by the U.S. Soccer Federation creates a great barrier to entry for those who are not middle and upper-class or unable to afford competitive soccer programs. As a result, a significant fraction of the talent pool is cast aside from the very beginning. The common critic may ask how is the U.S. Women’s National Team (USWNT) so successful on the international stage. The answer is actually quite simple: The U.S. invests more money into women’s sports compared to other countries. The range of opportunities in the U.S. is much wider compared to other countries abroad.
On a structural scale, professional soccer in the U.S. differs from other leagues abroad. The Major League Soccer (MLS) is one of the only first-division professional soccer leagues that does not use a promotion and relegation system. For those unfamiliar with promotion and relegation, professional leagues abroad utilize a performance-based system where the top performers within their respective divisions are rewarded or promoted to the next higher-up division, and the worst performers within their division will be relegated or demoted to the division below for poor performance. It would be as if the two National Basketball Association (NBA) teams with the worst records got demoted to the G-League, and the two G-League teams with the best records got promoted to the NBA.
It should be acknowledged that professional soccer has not been as stable in the U.S. in comparison to overseas counterparts. The MLS was founded in 1993 after the North American Soccer League collapsed and the National Women’s Soccer League (NWSL) was only established in 2012 after two failed attempts at league organization. Additionally, the size of the United States compared to other foreign countries makes travel a costly expense. It is not as convenient compared to other countries that are significantly smaller in land size. Still, the lack of a relegation and promotion system can make the game seem less exciting to some audiences because there is less pressure on teams to perform well or restructure the club since there is no accountability factor.
Television timeout is another major barrier to exposure that prevents soccer from reaching the masses. The capitalistic greed of American broadcasting networks is not cohesive with the continuous pace of the game. With only a 15-minute break at halftime, there aren’t as many opportunities for broadcasting networks to generate ad revenue compared to a sport such as basketball, which requires two time-outs per quarter for the purpose of airing advertisements. Four quarters in one game brings a total of eight time-outs at minimum.
As American sports fans begin to embrace the world’s most popular sport, the growth and expansion of soccer remain to be seen as structural and systemic barriers exclude a significant portion of the population. On top of that, soccer will have to compete with football and basketball for a spot in the limelight.
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