Sports hold a dear place in the hearts of many. They unite cities in collective misery or joy, as the emotions of a town can ride on the successes and failures of their respective teams. Throughout much of the world, the sport that these cherished teams play is soccer. However, in a nation founded by immigrants from all these other nations, soccer remains much more of an alien novelty than a mainstay attraction. Players from the top clubs in Europe, who normally cannot leave their homes without being hounded by fans and paparazzi, could walk the streets of Manhattan with only a handful of spectators realizing who they were looking at. What makes this even more puzzling is that the United States is the definition of a heterogeneous state, with virtually the entire population descending from immigrants in the past four hundred years. Immigrants poured into America at the turn of the 20th century and still come to America as a beacon for liberty, justice and hope. These immigrants bring with them their own cultures, and those cultures often become absorbed into the fabric of American culture. One piece of culture though, one that ironically nearly all these immigrants share, has not entered the American mainstream: a love of organized soccer at the professional level. It is not for a lack of trying, as several failed leagues and failed celebrity gimmicks over the decades have proved to be unsuccessful. The United States is now in a soccer renaissance, where the MLS celebrates its tenth (albeit tenth unprofitable) season and the Men’s National Team is at arguably its strongest point in its entire history. There are several young American players who are considered top prospects globally, and several older players who are considered good players in the top leagues in the world. Despite this advent of soccer popularity, most Americans are extremely naïve of the sport on any scale, call it a different name from the rest of the world and generally feel it is a game for children to play before they get ready for the real American sports of American football, baseball and basketball. This is, as Andrei Markovits puts it, another form of “American Exceptionalism” (Markovits 2). Due to its location, wealth, pervasive culture and unique status as effectively a state entirely formed by immigrants or the descendants of relatively recent immigrants, the United States will always be set apart from the world in many ways. But in the case of something like soccer, this is not so much an inevitable division but merely a desired one. Americans want their own sports to export to other nations, rather than have to compete with the rest of the world at the world’s game. The United States only cares about sports it can dominate, not just win and compete in, but a sport over which they can wield unmatched ability. With soccer, America would definitely emerge as a supreme world power if it was to become the country’s first sport, but America would be by no means the lone superpower it is on the actual global scene. The United States’ distaste for soccer stems from an innate American dislike for foreign imports and a desire to dominate at a complete level. This is why soccer never took off the ground in the nineteenth century when organized sports were gaining in popularity. Xenophobic American nativists pushed everything to the side of the “American” game of baseball (Markovits 25). The United States will not ever fully embrace a sport that they neither invented nor dominate at, and despite soccer’s growing popularity, it will not reach the same heights as American football, baseball or basketball for many decades, if ever.
Soccer isn’t as foreign to America as many of its detractors would like to believe. The first US soccer team was actually founded before the sports of American football or basketball were even invented. In 1861, the Boston Oneidas became the first professional soccer team in America. Before the distinguished Ivy League started playing each other in football games, there were soccer matches between them. The first official soccer match was between Princeton and Rutgers, and it took place in 1869, before the development of American football and twenty-two years before the invention of basketball (National Soccer Hall of Fame). These weren’t insignificant games, as the Boston Oneidas are commemorated in Boston Commons by having their own plaque and the original sporting competitions between colleges were soccer matches, not football. The first American professional soccer league, the American Soccer League (ASL), was founded in 1921, right at the same time as the first professional football league and the first professional basketball leagues (National Soccer Hall of Fame). This is in direct opposition to one of the many theories on why soccer hasn’t become popular in America, the theory that soccer came into the American sports lexicon too late, after football, baseball and basketball had dominated the landscape. Soccer had its roots in American sports culture before the games of football and basketball had even been invented, and it was played on a professional level at the same time. Soccer has been an integral part of the American sports landscape for just as long as any other sport and its relative lack of popularity today cannot be blamed on a lack of history.
The United States even enjoyed a small window of time where we were considered a soccer superpower. The first World Cup, the 1930 World Cup in Uruguay, saw the United States not only finish third, but perhaps more shockingly, start the tournament as favorites (National Soccer Hall of Fame). This would be the apex of American soccer might—third is the highest the United States has ever finished in the World Cup—and the United States’ team would leave the 1934 World Cup winless. On the international level, America would have only one major moment between the 1930 World Cup and the 1990 World Cup , and that would be the part they played in what is still considered to this day one of the greatest upsets in soccer history. In the 1950 World Cup, the United States faced England in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. England, only three weeks before, had faced an all-star team comprised of players from all across Europe, and they had beaten them 5-1. The United States, then as far from a superpower as it could be, shocked the world and got their only win of the tournament by beating England 1-0 (National Soccer Hall of Fame). This event entered sports folklore as a triumphant upset, with books and films being made of the event . This would be the last the international world would really hear from the United States for quite some time, as they would not qualify for the World Cup again until 1990, and would not another World Cup game until they hosted the tournament in 1994.
The second half of the twentieth century, while it didn’t have much success for the Men’s National Soccer team, was marked by the creation, merging, and folding of several leagues, as well as the imports of worldwide soccer celebrities, most notably Pele . The North American Soccer League (NASL) was created through the merging of the two new leagues at the time, the National Professional Soccer League (NPSL) and the American Soccer League (ASL), at the request of FIFA (National Soccer Hall of Fame). The NASL quickly expanded to eighteen teams, but they made their big splash when they were able to lure Pele out of retirement in 1975 to play for the New York Cosmos. This led to a slew of international soccer stars coming to play for various clubs in the NASL, though almost all of them came well after their prime as something of a victory lap at the end of an illustrious career. The NASL was not seen as a truly legitimate league , and after Pele retired in 1977, the league began a steady and steep decline until its eventual collapse in 1985. Throughout this time, there was also the Major Indoor Soccer League (MISL), which was founded in 1978. MISL was secondary to the NASL until the NASL began crumbling, and then four of the franchises from NASL were absorbed into MISL in 1984. MISL, after the demise of NASL, was now the top-flight league in the United States, and renamed itself the Major Soccer League or MSL in 1990. However, it would also cease operations in 1992, leaving the United States without a legitimate top league until the first season of Major League Soccer (MLS) was played in 1996(National Soccer Hall of Fame).
The state of soccer today in America is the most encouraging it has been in quite some time. The MLS, despite posting horrific losses during its first few years, is now in a state of expansion and has recently welcomed the most visible soccer star on the planet, David Beckham, to one its keystone franchises, the Los Angeles Galaxy. Furthermore, the United States has qualified in every World Cup since 1990, and shocked the world by progressing to the quarterfinals in the 2002 World Cup with wins over Mexico and Portugal, a team many pundits had predicted could win the entire tournament (Colin 15). The United States has won the last two CONCACAF Gold Cups and three of the last four . The United States Women’s National Team is currently ranked first in the World and has won two of the five Women’s World Cups (FIFA). In terms of individual players, there are dozens of Americans playing in the top leagues all over the world and a few American youngsters, namely Freddy Adu and Jozy Alitdore, are considered some of the top prospects in the world today. Coverage of major soccer events is now shown on major networks, as ESPN now airs full coverage of the UEFA Champions League . There are several channels dedicated to covering the sport, notably Fox Soccer Channel, Setanta Sport and GolTV. Soccer is played by Americans throughout the country, as it is one of the most popular sports for children in elementary school and junior high. By the last estimate, there are over nineteen million children aged six or older playing soccer in America (Andrews 267). Despite the success of American international teams and individual players, as well as the popularity of the game at a youth level, soccer as a spectator sport has struggled to become anything more than a novelty, and despite repeated attempts the United States has had difficulties maintaining a profitable and popular soccer league over a long period of time.
Soccer clearly has had a problem with staying power in America, and Americans realize this as well, and try to account for it nearly to a fault. The Women’s United Soccer Association (WUSA) folded after only three seasons of activity, mostly because its creators did not give the league a chance to succeed. The league was formed in 2001, building off of the success of the United States Women’s National Team’s success at the Women’s World Cup in 1999 (Jones 275). Instead of simply trying to create a league to celebrate soccer in its natural form, the league from the outset struggled to find a way to make the game appealing to Americans. Believing that the past failures proved that soccer in its normal form was unmarketable to a large-scale American audience, the creators of WUSA attempted to “Americanize” it. One WUSA public relations manager explained their idea:
“[It’s] a positive to make it like other [American] sports, because you don’t want to alienate the American fans, make them feel like they’re in another country watching a game. You want to make them feel like they’re home…and comfortable…It’s not the pitch; it’s the field. It’s not nil-nil; it’s zero-zero. [You don’t want to give them the] sense that they don’t know what’s going on. Soccer…has enough to overcome. You don’t want to overcome wording [too]…Look at this English sport, with pitches and nil-nils and (disdainfully) who cares? Give me the facts. It’s a field, it’s a ball, it’s one-nothing…And just make it as American as possible” (Jones 276).
In reference to terminology, this doesn’t seem particularly damaging. However, WUSA would take this ideology to extreme levels, and in their desire to reach fans they thought they could not reach with soccer, they ended up alienating the very fans they should have been courting. WUSA did not even view itself as a pure sporting event, but rather as a family experience. It is one thing to appeal to families, but WUSA viewed its main competitors not as other sporting events, but instead child-oriented restaurants like Chuck E Cheese’s, arcade parlors and amusement parks. Tony DiCicco, who coached the 1999 United States Women’s Soccer Team and later became the WUSA commissioner, even admitted that “We knew our demographic wasn’t going to be able to sit and just watch soccer games for two hours”(Jones 276-277). The atmosphere was seen as infantilizing and suffocating, as there were designated ‘funzones’ which were effectively large playgrounds for children to play in during the game as well as a dizzying array of merchandise giveaways, autograph sessions and loudspeaker noise and music being played throughout the course of the match (Jones 277). The same public relations manager explained this as well:
“To the average fan…zero-zero [means] we didn’t see any goals…Well…if you have the in-game promotions going and ‘Ho, look at that! That’s pretty funny going on up there!’ and you hear some music…in the background and it generates that exciting atmosphere, [then] I think…for the entire fan-base…it’s a better experience. If there was nothing going on, it would be bor-ING!...But if there’s something going on, something for you to tap your feet to, or laugh at, chances are you’re going to come back”(Jones 277).
The biggest flaw in the design of WUSA was the simple fact that they didn’t have enough faith in soccer to carry their league. They effectively were making the fact that it was a soccer league secondary to the fact that it was a place for parents to take their children for a day of family-friendly fun; a loud, buzzing carnival that happens to have a soccer game going on in the midst of it all. Despite the fact that there was a sizeable population of men who attended the matches, league officials figured that boys would eventually tire of watching girls play soccer and that men would only go to matches if dragged by their wives or daughters(Jones 280). This lack of faith doomed the league from its inception, as well as various bouts of mismanagement, and the dream of a professional women’s soccer league in America was not realized at any sort of long-term level.
Soccer had all the opportunities that other sports had in the beginning to succeed and to grab its own piece of the American sports landscape. The aforementioned Boston Oneidas slowly started merging soccer and rugby into a hybrid game called “The Boston Game” (Markovits, 17). Yale became the first Ivy League school to drop soccer as their intercollegiate sport and soccer was slowly overtaken by rugby and eventually American football. Soccer formed its own professional leagues around the same time as other major sports, but they were never able to capture the public imagination like other sports like baseball or American football. Football was the sport of the elite class, which was then transferred down to the growing middle class in America, while baseball had now become the sport of the working and lower classes (Markovits 20). Soccer was not able to plant itself into the identity of one of those socioeconomic classes and that was one of the main downfalls of its popularity in America. Basketball rose in popularity in the latter half of the twentieth century, when it was able to become the game of the urban poor in America, but the only group that soccer has become synonymous with in America are the ubiquitous “soccer moms” who shuffle their children from one game to another. Soccer, in this context, is seen much more of a harmless game in which parents do not have to worry about their children getting hurt, physically or emotionally (Andrews 270).
Baseball had established itself as the premier sport in America in the first half of the twentieth century, and the popularity of the sport “depended on its identity as American” (Markovits 25). The game’s initial supporters were intensely nativist, and combated any claim that baseball was merely a modified version of the British game of Rounders , and baseball was described as “Anti-Cricket.” What helped make baseball so appealing other than the natural American feel was the same reason soccer was so popular abroad: anyone could play it. “Baseball success was part based on the fact that virtually no equipment or special physical attributes were necessary to enjoy or excel at the game” (Markovits 28). Baseball was able to secure the crucial niche of the lower classes, and soccer, given its foreign roots, was never given a chance by that all-important group . The acceptance of baseball, and not of soccer, by the American working classes of the nineteenth century, is why historically baseball has been one of the most popular American sports, while soccer has been merely a footnote.
The future for soccer is as bright as it has ever been in America, and the scores of Latin American immigrants are slowly doing what could never be done before: establish soccer as a premier sport in America. Even though many Latin American immigrants, as well as many Americans and European immigrants, follow soccer in the more established professional leagues abroad , the fact that a growing segment of the American population is not only playing soccer but enjoying soccer as a spectator sport will only increase the sport’s significance. However, there is a cap. If one watches anything from ESPN to Fox News, they will be bombarded by either soccer hatred or ignorance. Jim Rome is one of the most popular sports commentators in America, and frequently goes on rants about all that he dislikes about soccer, from the fans to ties to diving and everything else in between . Rome represents a rather good example of the classic American anti-soccer fan. For a large segment of the American population, soccer will never be given a chance, no matter the strength of the domestic league or the national team. In a poll done by USAToday during the World Cup, the plurality of the votes for why soccer is not popular in America stated that “There is too little scoring” (USAToday). Soccer is mostly misunderstood by large segments of the population, and that is unlikely to change. Competitive cycling was able to build a successful niche in America, mostly capitalizing off the success of Lance Armstrong, but it will never surpass that level, as only 172,869 households tuned in to watch the Tour de France in 2007(MedaPost). This is in a sport that America has flat-out dominated over the course of the past decade, showing that even when America is able to be the best, that is no guarantee of popularity in America itself.
The ideal fate for soccer is hopefully a more successful version of the current state of hockey. Soccer already has better television deals, as soccer games are shown on ESPN, one of the most watched networks while NHL hockey games have been relegated to the relative obscurity of the Versus channel (along with the Tour de France). At best, soccer can achieve the popularity of basketball in America, which has always been a very popular, but at the same time a very distant third, sport in America. This is quite unlikely to happen in the next fifty years to any significant degree, as one thing combating the growth of soccer through immigrant communities is how the descendants of immigrants wish to integrate themselves into American culture and part of that is adopting “American” sports. Soccer was unable to establish itself early on in American history, and the hurdles it now has to overcome just to be considered a player in the American sports lexicon may be too difficult for any sport to overcome, even one with the worldwide appeal of soccer.
Time and time again, the United States has attempted to bring the world’s game to the forefront of American culture, and to remove the stigma of having the richest and third most populous country in the world being little more than an afterthought on such a global stage, and each time this has resulted in failure. Major League Soccer is the one shining beacon of hope, as the league continues to expand to now sixteen franchises with more on the way, but the league could fall prey to other leagues, such as the NHL, that over expanded and severely damaged their fan base. The popularity of soccer is falling prey to something far harder to overcome than initial skepticism towards the game; it is trying to get past a systematic discrimination towards foreign games. The three most popular sports in America, and the fastest-growing one, NASCAR, were all developed in America and America is home to the strongest and most prestigious league in the world in each sport. One aspect of that can never come true, as soccer was invented in England and the history and prestige is impossible for a fledgling league to match, and the amount of money required to make the MLS even in the conversation of wealthy leagues is stagger, as the most valuable franchises in soccer are now valued in the billions. MLS will never match the European leagues in term of history, and it would take several extremely wealthy owners who were able to finance the league through massive financial losses to make the league as high-profile and high-paying as other leagues. Soccer cannot overcome the innate cultural xenophobia that is ingrained in American culture, and the desire of immigrants to fit into the American lifestyle will lead most of them, like generations before, to abandon the world’s game in favor of one of the mainstream American sports. Soccer in America will continue to be relegated to the spot of a novelty item on the news, a sporting event worth mentioning only in the most important or bizarre of circumstances, and barring the relentless pursuit by a select group of high-powered Americans, the sport’s popularity can only climb so high, as it will inevitably hit the glass ceiling of cultural xenophobia and widespread ignorance and indifference.
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