re: Lets talk about americas lack of interest in soccer

There are tons of reasons why a sport is popular or not in a particular location. Some of them are external to the sport such as tradition and history, support by others in the community, availability, etc. These things tend to work together to keep older sports popular and prevent newer sports from taking hold.

Then there are the factors that actually deal with how much people like the actual sport itself. IMO one of the biggest reasons football is so popular is b/c the scoring amount seems "right" to us. In soccer (and to a lesser degree hockey and baseball) there is not enough scoring. Casual fans especially remember the scores, those are the highlights. With those sports there is just not enough highlight material to justify 2-3 hours of time. I'd argue that basketball goes too far in the other direction. Scores are too easy to come by and that makes them not special. With football every score is important, and they come often enough to keep us happy (football is also somewhat different in that there are multiple ways to score that are worth very different amounts of points). A TD is more than twice as valuable as a field goal.

IMO no sport is perfectly designed for current tastes. Soccer, hockey and baseball don't have enough scoring. Baseball is too slow. Soccer and hockey don't have breaks to catch your breath...you have to pay attention the whole time. Football has too many breaks and takes too long between the action, and the game is slightly too long overall. Basketball has cheapened the value of points and the end of basketball games (which should be the most exciting) tends to grind to a halt with excessive timeouts and free throws. Tennis is too repetitive and the time of matches is too variable (you don't know whether to schedule two hours or five for a match).