re: Sitting in a bar at O'Hare with a MAGA bartender

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Laugh all you want. But Forbes knows more than you.

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A Gallup poll released last week found that 7% of Americans named soccer as their favorite sport to watch in a survey completed during December. While that may not sound like much, the figure represents a significant, three-percentage-point gain from just four years ago. Soccer is the only sport to post such a large increase. Football (37%, down from 39%), basketball (11%, down from 12%) and baseball (9%, down from 13%) all showed declining numbers. Hockey was at 4%, up from 3%. The arrows are clearly pointing in definitive directions, and it is very likely that soccer will surpass baseball in this survey the next time such a poll is taken. Even more telling are the demographics behind those numbers: Only 1% of those polled by Gallup aged 55 or over named soccer as their favorite. But among adults aged 18-34, soccer was the favorite sport of 11%, tying basketball; only 6% of younger adults chose baseball as their favorite sport. Self-defined liberals also showed a greater preference for soccer. Among that political group, the gap between football and soccer was just 15 points.

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Looks like 3rd favorite - at best - for that cohort.

Also...

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There are several important caveats that should be mentioned regarding these numbers. For one thing, Gallup did not ask participants to list their favorite sports in descending order. Perhaps few respondents who chose football as their No. 1 sport even bother to follow soccer at all, and might follow basketball or baseball. And none of the top three sports appear on their death bed. Major League Baseball, in particular, has made strides in attendance and TV ratings recently, demonstrating some zip in the old pastime after all.

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And then there’s this...

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Self-defined liberals also showed a greater preference for soccer. Among that political group, the gap between football and soccer was just 15 points.

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Even libs prefer football to soccer more than 2:1.

Until there is no restriction on coaching time, the NCAA model isn't good enough for what we need. It wouldn't hurt if we had the youth system to provide both college players and professional players, but we don't. By a quick count, out of the 55 players who've been involved in our U-20 system, only 5 are playing in college right now. The rest are playing at various professional levels or are involved at European youth systems. Outside of the title IX limitations, the time limitation kills the ability of colleges to serve as academies.

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You're telling us rich kids in other countries don't play soccer? At least you're confident in your ignorance, I'll give you that.

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In some places it is a class-based sport. Rugby is generally played by the upper-class in France. In England cricket and rugby are the game of the middle and upper classes, with soccer seen as a working-class sport. It's a very working-class sport everywhere but America.

The collective ignorance and stupidity of Trumpcucks is on full display yet again.

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It's cringe worthy the way soccer is marketed at times. I guess it's how some feel they have to do it to get in the mix, but it often looks like the little kid trying to get his big brother's attention.

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It’s the same way they marketed hockey in Nashville.

They sell it to the sport ‘outsiders’ who don’t like the other sports because they’re too anti-establishment or whatever their cause. They present it as this couner-culture non-sport and hope it appeals to folks who don’t currently follow any teams.

Also...soccer fans like to be martyrs and tell themselves soccer is the ‘most popular game in the world’.

It’s really as pathetic as watching grown men flop.

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They sell it to the sport ‘outsiders’ who don’t like the other sports because they’re too anti-establishment or whatever their cause. They present it as this couner-culture non-sport and hope it appeals to folks who don’t currently follow any teams.

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It doesn't help that American soccer culture is pretty weak and so much of it seems like a blatant ripoff of European fan culture.

I'm convinced that a sizable portion of US soccer fans became so after watching Green Street Hooligans. I've been to a couple Sounders games and half the crowd seemed far more preoccupied with organized singing and chanting than they were with actually watching the game.

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It doesn't help that American soccer culture is pretty weak and so much of it seems like a blatant ripoff of European fan culture.

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Of course. It isn't organic. From the way the league is structured to the fan chants and team names, the MLS is cringeworthy in terms of its marketing. The reason why soccer developed in Europe was that it moved from sailors and students to working class people who played the game for enjoyment. When the sport was professionalized in 1863, the sport became a way to express neighborhood, city, or regional pride. It's why you have so many clubs so closely affiliated with political parties, factories, various unions and student groups. US franchises, save for very few, aren't based at all on this.

An organic culture will develop and has developed around the US national team, but it will take generations for franchises to develop something organic.

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Of course. It isn't organic.

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True. It's a foreign sport.

The big 3 here in the states started here.