Soccer is all the buzz in the US right now as the USMNT has made their presence felt at the 2014 World Cup in Brazil. Heading into the tournament not many people had given the US a chance to make it out of the group stage, as they had been placed in Group G which was dubbed ‘the group of death’ because of level of talent and the high improbability that the US would make it out. Joining them in the group of death were two of the top four ranked teams in the world in Germany and Portugal, and also Ghana who had eliminated the US in the past two World Cup’s. Before World Cup play began, the US was given just a 37% chance of advancing out of group play to the round of 16.
Obviously they defied those odds by going 1-1-1 in the opening round, which was enough to land them second place in their group and a spot at the table for the round of 16. The US now looks ahead to Tuesday where they will face a Belgium team who has yet to lose in this World Cup. This is the first time in USMNT history that the team has advanced out of the group stage in two consecutive World Cup’s. The US has qualified for every World Cup since 1990, and before that they hadn’t played in a World Cup match since 1950. Which begs the question, has soccer finally gained enough traction in the US to compete with the ‘top 4’ American sports?
With the United States vs. Portugal match drawing the highest television ratings in US history for a soccer game, there is no denying that people in the US are paying more attention to soccer than in the past. With that being said, I still don’t think that soccer is even remotely close to challenging any of the ‘top 4’ sports in the United States when it comes to popularity. I believe that this kind of attention towards soccer will be short lived and won’t be back again until 2018 when Russia plays host to the World Cup. I think that this hype can be compared to the attention that some sports receive here in the United States when the olympics come around. It is more a sense of nationalism rather than an actual interest in the sport itself.
However, the amount of soccer exposure Americans are getting certainly can’t hurt the growth of the sport here in the States. I think that we may begin to see more Americans following teams overseas, such as teams in the English Premier League rather than the MLS simply because the product is far superior. Especially because of the Premier League games being broadcasted on NBC Sports, which makes the games more readily available to the United States. Thats not to say that the MLS doesn’t have a chance to grow in the United States, seeing as how they recently signed a television contract with ESPN, FOX, and Univision worth $720 million. Soccer still has a ways to go before being categorized as a major American sport, but if the USMNT continues their trend and keeps improving, I don’t see how the popularity of soccer in the US has anywhere to go but up.
jchapsports 