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Few things, tv viewing means nothing. Chart doesn't show participation numbers which are the number one criteria. And finally no consideration of women in the professional league column or their preferences.
Fair enough. The immage is only there to help illustrate the picture, though. My main point is in the text, which is getting the perceptions of people about the growth of football is the US. Is it happening as strongly as media indicates, or is it blow out of proportion?
Point taken, I think it is happening but not necessarily in the men's game. Women's football is both popular in participation and in international competition. But is yet to be reflected in tv viewership. Gridiron remains massively popular due to its cultural dominance and because it is supported by huge vested interests and has been developed solely as an entertainment spectacle. But as US society changes demographically it will decline as football grows. Gridiron like US professional wrestling is sport entertainment, football is an actual sport that people can participate in at various levels.
Honestly, with all respect, I just dont care. Why are we always wondering when they will see it? When, if ever, they will love the thing we love the most? The only reason they are investing, in my opinion, is money. They probably realised that football makes their sports look like change money. Probably some people, mostly inmigrants, have a geniunly intereat I judt distrust it as whole thing
I'm simply interested in the growth of football as a whole, across all confederations. I believe that if USA is able to develop it's national leagues it would have a positive impact in the global scene of the sport.
I dont see the usa bringing anything positive, ive seen how they handle Concacaf and is mostly sh*tting on other countries, without giving as much of a chance. They arr worst and most corrrupt than actual fifa wich is a lot
Maybe not now but someday it will be as popular as in Europe. National team big success can speed it up though. It can definately overtake baseball soon.
The popularity is growing but you might not see it depending on where you are in the US, which is a big country.
Here in Atlanta, no one can deny the meteoric rise of interest in football (soccer). Atlanta United banners and flags are everywhere! The atmosphere is great. The stadium is amazing. The football is … well … it’s not Europe or South America, but it’s okay.
The other place you can see it, oddly, is in schools. I visit elementary schools for my work and see lots of kids wearing jerseys of famous players — and not just Messi but various starting players for premier league clubs etc.
This was never the case 15-20+ years ago.
Honeslty getting really tired of hearing this take. Yes it should be called football. But do you not realize American football has been called football here for 150 years. This is a circle jersey topic on this sub.
Why does the rest of the world care so much about Americans, Canadians, and Australians using the word soccer. Get over it, we all know its called football.
Same, its like people forget that other countries have names for it that is not futbol too. Personally if we are going to change it I say we join the Italians with calcio.
Every world cup we have this discussion, every time the answer turns out to be no. The problem is the dreaded 0-0. The rules really need to be changed with how ties are handled. First of, there should not be any extra time in the event of a tie. It should go straight to penalty kicks. Second, if the tie is 0-0 we should really consider a way of adding a rule that both teams lose in that situation as they have wasted everyone's time and should be punished for that. I have not forgotten Netherlands Vs Argentina in 2014, one of the worst world cup football matches of all time. Such a rule would have the effect of making teams much more offensive in their strategies instead of defensive as they know they have to get a goal in order to avoid a loss. It would definitely have created a much better Spanish team. This will in turn make matches much more fun to watch.
Penalty kicks are a travesty imo. Obviously you can't just play golden goal in extra time because the game could be never ending, but ending a game on PK doesn't fit for me.
I'll disagree here. In football a 0 x 0 can be very fun to watch if the match is open and the teams are actively creating chances. Maybe the problem is when both teams display apathy, which could happen in any sport and, in my experience, doesn't happen too often.
I think European leagues starting back up first during 2020 and the resurgence of the USMNT will help it grow. Messi coming to FC Miami will as well but I doubt we see it even top the NBA in my lifetime.
A successful 2026 World Cup could catapult the momentum further as well.
Only if they win something big, perhaps. Netherlands got hooked on darts because of Barneveld in the 90s. Now Max Verstappen in F1.
If you have someone that's a top 5 player in the world, it'll help gain a lot of traction.
Yeah, where is tennis on this list?
When I’m in Spain and Rafa Nadal is playing in a grand slam, maybe close to winning another, everyone in the pubs and xiringitos is watching football.
I suspect it likely won't since the men's team here sucks. If I had to take a guess based on my own practices, that 7% is probably immigrant individuals or children of recent immigrants who come from countries with actually good teams. Go Brazil 🇧🇷
Unless team USA becomes really good I don’t see it happening. Why would people wanna play for a sub par country when you can play basketball or football and get more notoriety and a bigger following
Every time I see American football I think about how annoying it is to watch. How can Americans bitch about soccer being boring when literally every 30 fucking seconds is a commercial?
It’s all that money that the commercials bring in that make NFL so powerful and I doubt they will ever let (real) football get too popular. I mean look how they spent all that money to try and brush CTE and minimize the risk of multiple concussions.
I’ve learned to like it (hand-egg) but I do prefer football because of the lack of commercials. Btw, if you watch college hand-egg you’ll find that there are significantly less comercial breaks and the game flows a lot better.
The commercials are good for bathroom/beer breaks. That’s what my friends tell me anyways.
If I were to say definitively why football is more popular than soccer, I’d say it’s the rules and play style. Football has a very simple formula and progression is strictly linear. The ball goes forward? That’s good. Ball goes backwards? That’s bad. Ball stops? New play. Not enough yards? Turnover.
Soccer doesn’t have these strict transitions, they’re a lot more seamless and take a level of knowledge/appreciation for the game to understand. Forward does not always equal good and backwards does not always equal bad. “Plays” don’t exactly have a strict start and stop with some exceptions.
This can make the game appear boring as it just looks like dudes kicking a ball around in circles for 90 minutes, but if you break it down to a play-by-play format it becomes a lot more exciting.
It's one of my few complaints about soccer... There are generally no safe times to go take a piss. Not that I actually want commercials.
We've got a (weird) obsession with scoring here as well. I see it over and over. Soccer isn't "exciting" because it's low scoring. It's the opposite for me: each point is so much more impactful and the tension at the end of these games. It's just a better experience.
Soccer will never even approach football in popularity, but I could see the World Cup bumping it up to 3rd or even 2nd place. The 1994 WC sparked the creation of the MLS which has seen increasing success. 2026 could be another big boost to MLS and soccer popularity in general.
Let’s just hope whatever singer kicks the opening goal actually makes it in. Whitney Houston set US soccer back another 10 years with that whiff.
Not gonna happen. There's only one mainstream sport here and that's gridiron football. All others (even baseball and basketball) are niche. That's never going to change. NFL just set an all time viewing record for a regular season game this past Thanksgiving (big American holiday when everyone eats turkey and watches football). Gridiron football is wildly popular on every level here. Anyone who says America has no culture should check out a high school (ages 14-18) football game in California or Texas or a college football game in the south. The atmosphere at some of those games blow soccer fans out of the water. Do yourself a favor and look up Tennesse vs Alabama 2022. Those fans are on another fucking level. 8 of the top 10 largest stadiums in the WORLD are on United States university campuses, built specifically for gridiron football. All this to say: association football is a fun sport to enjoy in America and it is certainly growing, but gridiron football will always be far and away the dominant sport here because it is completely engrained in our entire culture.
And Forbes is wrong. They do a lot of clickbait. Like I said, they are breaking viewership records this year. It is growing.
Edit: Or are you talking about soccer? I actually don't know the numbers on that, but anecdotally it appears to be gaining popularity.
Thanks for that panorama. From you pov, do you reckon association football could surpass baseball and basketball to become the second most popular major sport in the US, considering the national team recent results, which were great, and the anticipation for the 2026 world cup cohosting?
Really hard to say. I don't see it happening soon because basketball and baseball also have their distinct cultures here, but maybe. Our women are world champions, the men just need to catch up. And there are a lot of sports for the MLS to compete with here.
I'm Australian and cannot comprehend people going to watch a high school sports match. Pretty sure the coach was our only spectator. And he only showed up because the school made him....
Yeah school sports are really popular here and I guess that's pretty uniquely American? I don't know that any other countries have something on that level.
The equivalent for Association Football would be people watching matches from the 5th division from their local club. There's a lot of "localised club" culture, so for many people their favourite club is the club from their local 8k people village.
american football takes an extreme amount of athletic ability. not necessarily skill or talent but only certain ppl have the dog in them to play american football professionally, it is something ppl must respect imo
Americans don't necessarily suck at soccer, it's just that most people who could be good at it are encouraged to play other more popular sports. Also this is ridiculous, if Premier League or La Liga came to the US they'd just crash and burn like the NASL did. MLS has succeeded because instead of trying to import the sport they've tried to Americanize it. The entire League system is fundamentally different. Soccer will never beat football in popularity, and I don't believe it will ever beat basketball or baseball either. Soccer is the sport that people send their little kids to play and that immigrants really seem to be into. Soccer in the US is about the same as Ice Hockey in popularity, and I'm pretty sure it'll stay that way.
I wouldn’t say American’s suck at soccer as much as I would say it’s lack of popularity drive the best athletes to other sports. Look at women’s soccer. The US owns that sport and go figure, it’s one of the top 3 sports played for US women.
The fact that women are good at European football is a result of the fact that the US has built an infrastructure where women are allowed to compete in sports, has nothing to do with talent. If women in other countries had the same opportunities in the US, then perhaps I would give some respect but that’s not the case. You got women still dressed in blankets in other countries
I live in Portland and Timbers fans think they are watching Man U, lol.
They have chants and organized everything and huge flags, it's big here, while hilarious "FUCK SEATTLE!!" 😂
The USWNT/NWSL erasure here is ridiculous. The last world cup championship, US v Netherlands had 82 million viewers and the last super bowl had 99 million viewers.
It might make it to #3, but will never pass basketball and American Football. My biggest complaint about the MLS is they use different rules than the rest of the world and don’t have a relegation/promotion system. That and until they get some top tier talent they will always be viewed as a developmental league at best. I’d rather just watch the EPL.
I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but it might take a few centuries to reach Brazil levels of love for the sport (46%).
Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1221006/most-popular-sports-brazil/
All sports leagues in the US sucks.
Because the teams are there not because they deserve, but because they paid for it. It's like that anoying kid in your block that the other kids had to let play with them because his father bought the ball (only poor kids can relate).
Only RELEGATION AND PROMOTION can solve that. But to it would be necessary a change of culture of the american people harder than the necessary to adopt the metric system.
Mmmm yes and no. Both have wealthy owners that buy the better players and coaches. Big franchise fees are paid to be in US leagues so they won't do relegation however nice it would be to see that. Promotion in futbol is very difficult if the big clubs won't share enough of the revenue.
Tell me you don't understand American sports without telling me. There is no relegation of teams, but players are constanly being drafted, signed, traded, cut, sent down, called up, basically always on the move. We have multi-tiered leagues and only the best of the best make it to the top league (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL all have these systems or something similar in place) and only the best of those, the very elites, get the long term contracts. Relegation of entire teams would make zero sense when you consider every team in the top leagues has an already established market. News flash for ya: all pro sports are about money. Those leagues I mentioned are at the top because they can afford the best talent. It makes the competition incredible. There is so much parity in the NFL right now, I have never had so much fun watching it! How can you say that sucks?
I didn't know that! Very interesting. So every year the exact same teams compete in the top leagues, and only the player base changes? There's no opportunity for new teams to join in if they're doing well?
It might suck, but so much of our team plays in Europe, so it's not as big a problem as it might seem. Brazil's team also mostly play in Europe. Most of the French team doesn't play their club football in France either. As long as we can get scouts, and have our best players playing in top tier teams, we can improve.
It will probably pass baseball, but it’s unlikely to pass basketball and it will never come close to football, USA will cease to exist before football is not the #1 sport
Nope. I think 3rd is likely, given how incompetent the MLB is at attracting new viewers to the sport, and if the NBA makes some similar mistakes, that might be a possibility too. But soccer is just never gonna surpass football in popularity. It’s too ingrained in American culture.
At the high school level, you have a better chance of playing in a game on a football team than on a soccer team. You can be pretty out of shape and still have a spot on a football team, but that's not the case in soccer. So football will always more viewership, unless major changes are made to rules in the name of safety that fundamentally change the game
Hell jumping up above baseball and reaching 13-15% though the average talent level of the USA team and it’s players across the country would certainly increase.
As someone that used to watch a ton of baseball as a kid, if improvements to this sport aren't implemented soon (pitch clocks, etc.), soccer will absolutely take over 3rd place. Beating out the NBA will be tough and it will never beat out the NFL.
I don't know. I think part of the problem is that any American sports pyramid doesn't include Relegation so once the team is out of playoff contention the entertainment value becomes limited as the team doesn't put much energy in.
Besides gambling with friends.... it pretty much forces people to pay attention to every team if you want to be competitive against your friends. Trust me man, the NFL has a fucking stranglehold on its product. They make you become loyal to the team, not the players the way they set it up.
I'm actually planning to go to my first MLS game this year. Never in a million years did I think I would want to go to a soccer game but I really enjoy the sport.
It's even more amazing if you try to play some soccer beforehand. You get a better idea of just how precise and hard some of their skills are. I was hard to describe how much better the playing looked in IRL than on tv. Also after coaching some kids soccer.
Im American and the main draw for football for me is the lack of constant ads. I love basketball and American football but half of the game is spent watching ads for insurance companies or cars and I’m so tired of it. Soccer football lets me just watch a dam game without getting interrupted
Not to mention it's easy to be a casual soccer fan. You don't need to memorize an entire NFL rule book of obscure game scenarios to understand and enjoy what you see
This is the main reason it’s the most popular sport in the world and exactly what fifa are doing wrong recently. It’s so simple a monkey could understand it - very few rules and only really the offside rule that isn’t completely common sense - you boot someone and it’s a foul, you can’t touch it with your hands and that’s about it.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s becoming more and more complex with different interpretations and taking away from what made the game so good - the simplicity of it all
I found the offside rule simple enough once I saw a particularly good commentator explaining it:
An offside happens when, at the exact moment of a forward pass, a player who participates in the move has any part of his body that is permitted to touch the ball (basically the whole body excluding arms and hands) positioned so that there is only one or less players of the opposite team ahead of it.
In Argentina's game the attacker's shoulder was positioned so that only one player of the opposing team was ahead of it (the goalkeeper in that case). As it's permitted for players to touch the ball with their shoulders, that was an offside.
I know what offside is, I’m English, we’re taught this with salt and pepper bottles when still in nappies.
My point is that it’s the only real “technical offence” that you could liken to the hundreds of such things in NFL for instance. It’s the only one that isn’t common sense - ie he kicked me instead of the ball so it’s obviously a foul. And considering 99.99999% of amateur games don’t even play offside, you can see how a culture of playing the game without any real rules that can be self-refereed in a sense could develop a lot more easily than say cricket, or NFL or even basketball. And that is why it is such a popular game. And I’m not talking about adults either - you get 2 year olds all over Europe outside playing penalty shootouts, and then it becomes habit to play and not something you get into when you’re older.
Me and my friends used to be outside from 2/3 year old kicking a ball around - doubt there’s many 3 year olds with a basketball or an American football or whatever.
Tbh if you're not from a country that has a very strong league, not a lot of people watches the nations football league. Like in Hungary football is extremely popular, the no 1 sport, but very little people watches NB1, our national league, because it's bad. Most people watches the Premier League, LaLiga, Seria A, Bundesliga and of course the Champion's League. Nobody really cares about the Hungarian NB1. So I think there needs to be either a better national league, or a good North American league to follow for football to get popular in the US. Basketball isn't that popular (to watch) in Europe because our european leagues are not that strong, it's nothing compared to the NBA. And the NBA is so late at night that normal people can't follow it, and why would we want to watch a weaker, not so developed league, so it's not a watched sport. I think the same goes to football in America.
Brazil doesn't have a strong league compared to Premiere League or Bundesliga, yet the team is pretty solid. South American leagues are quite poor compared to European ones.
I know almost every Brazilian plays in European leagues, but still.
Brazil doesn't have a strong league compared to Premiere League or Bundesliga, yet the team is pretty solid. South American leagues are quite poor compared to European ones.
I know almost every Brazilian plays in European leagues, but still.
The cool part about the Brazilian league is that’s where their young talent develops. You get to see the next Neymar there, etc. Neymar played with Santos for years, for example.
The MLS is getting a little better about homegrown talent but it’s just not even comparable. The best youth clubs here are still largely not MLS clubs, and they send the best off to Europe or university before they set foot in the MLS.
But Brazil proves that it's possible to have a strong national team without having the best league. Even if MLS never gets as good as the big European leagues, they can get good enough to develop high quality players, and hopefully a decent national team. And look at even France: the vast majority of their players play their club football outside of France!
The best American players *are not* coming out of the MLS is what I am saying.
Take Pulisic for example, he played with PA Classics, which is not affiliated with an MLS team.
If you want soccer to get really popular in the US, the best professional league needs to get better at developing home grown talent.
Brazil has a popular league in Brazil, in part because they see world class talent go through it, like Neymar and many others.
We don’t have that in the US, to a large extent anyhow.
I guess, first what I would say is that as far as youth programs go it is MLS that is largely the second tier.
See https://www.usyouthsoccer.org/news/soccer_americas_top_30_youth_clubs_named/.
As you can see, most are not affiliated with an MLS team. A few are in there though.
And I think it does matter as far as it relates to increasing interest in or popularity of soccer in the United States.
You want people to be excited about going to see an MLS game, as it’s our top professional league. Talented players coming up through the MLS is one way to do that. Think about if the next Neymar or whoever was playing at an MLS club right now. People would go watch. But, that would never happen here because the next Neymar would be playing at another club then moving to Europe to play, like Pulisic did. He went straight to the Bundesliga from his youth club. Nobody here tuned into the MLS to watch him. Thus, professional soccer remains unpopular in the United States. Our best professional league can’t develop the talent needed for more people to tune in.
Yeah, that makes sense. From what I've read, Croatia has a bit that too: their best sometimes get snatched up before they even make the senior team debut. So while what you say may be true, and helpful, it's not necessarily a killer problem.
How do we break the cycle of foreign clubs pay more, play better, and so make more money, and MLS keeps average players, average gameplay, and very moderate salaries, thus perpetuating the cycle?
I started following the Premier League in high school, about 2004, when it became available on my moms cable and when a buddy suggested it for me based on the atmosphere and intensity of the league. I was hooked right away, ended up following Spurs after a couple years because I just took to them: White Hart Lane, N17, Park Lane in full voice, attractive football even if we were shit back then.
I have tried to convert as many people as possible over the years and have been pretty successful with family and close friends. We are gonna win!
Basketball is the US main international sport.
Also could be that American Football is sorta the default casual sport in the US - they'll have to correct me on this, but if Sunday there's nothing to do with the TV you just turn it on in the football game, it's better suited for casual conversation, it's more available on free TV, things like that it would be the standard American time killer both in terms of watching and in terms of small talk.
Idk
I think soccer will grow in popularity as more parents don’t want their kids playing football. The potential likelihood for brain injuries are too great of concern for me as a parent.
This is definitely the case with us and our kids, soccer or baseball seem like the best competitive sports to encourage given the dangers of American football.
Basketball is great too, also lots of running and teamwork. Luckily for kids they're opposite seasons in school in the US. However basketball requires lots of height to be great, and soccer doesn't.
I don't have children but agree completely. I would never let a child with a developing brain play tackle football. Soccer is such a great alternative for a lot of reasons.
If the US puts a good showing out in 2026 both on the pitch and off, it could definitely grow into a bigger deal here. We're currently seeing a large growth cycle by cycle that comes from those of us that grew up playing having kids and passing it on to them. You will likely never see soccer overtake basketball or football here, but it can be the third big sport in years to come.
At least they score. In Ball Jogging , the goal is the size of a 2 car garage and no one can score… a game for F1 fans… nothing much happens there either.
sorry, nothing personal . . . I'm just so sick of the endless soccer/football thing and all the stupid ads. I don't see why it's a big deal that people use different terms for the same thing.
Huh I live in US but didn’t realize so many people love American football. If you go to a random park in New York normally you see people play soccer. In my social circle probably only a few have played American football. Well I guess New York is New York.
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Only if the MLS can produce some world-class players
It's possible, but it won't happen overnight
I'm serious when I say that MLS will hit maturity point in 20 years. It will continue to grow slowly during that span.
It all depends on how the US team performs in future tournaments
No, because this sport is actually played by other countries. So they wouldn't dominate it
No. They like using hands for “football”… wtf is soccer…!?!?
Few things, tv viewing means nothing. Chart doesn't show participation numbers which are the number one criteria. And finally no consideration of women in the professional league column or their preferences.
Fair enough. The immage is only there to help illustrate the picture, though. My main point is in the text, which is getting the perceptions of people about the growth of football is the US. Is it happening as strongly as media indicates, or is it blow out of proportion?
Point taken, I think it is happening but not necessarily in the men's game. Women's football is both popular in participation and in international competition. But is yet to be reflected in tv viewership. Gridiron remains massively popular due to its cultural dominance and because it is supported by huge vested interests and has been developed solely as an entertainment spectacle. But as US society changes demographically it will decline as football grows. Gridiron like US professional wrestling is sport entertainment, football is an actual sport that people can participate in at various levels.
Women can’t play sports
Honestly, with all respect, I just dont care. Why are we always wondering when they will see it? When, if ever, they will love the thing we love the most? The only reason they are investing, in my opinion, is money. They probably realised that football makes their sports look like change money. Probably some people, mostly inmigrants, have a geniunly intereat I judt distrust it as whole thing
I'm simply interested in the growth of football as a whole, across all confederations. I believe that if USA is able to develop it's national leagues it would have a positive impact in the global scene of the sport.
I dont see the usa bringing anything positive, ive seen how they handle Concacaf and is mostly sh*tting on other countries, without giving as much of a chance. They arr worst and most corrrupt than actual fifa wich is a lot
Maybe not now but someday it will be as popular as in Europe. National team big success can speed it up though. It can definately overtake baseball soon.
The popularity is growing but you might not see it depending on where you are in the US, which is a big country. Here in Atlanta, no one can deny the meteoric rise of interest in football (soccer). Atlanta United banners and flags are everywhere! The atmosphere is great. The stadium is amazing. The football is … well … it’s not Europe or South America, but it’s okay. The other place you can see it, oddly, is in schools. I visit elementary schools for my work and see lots of kids wearing jerseys of famous players — and not just Messi but various starting players for premier league clubs etc. This was never the case 15-20+ years ago.
No. Bad soccer fans in the US
I could see hockey jumping soccer before soccer even comes close to the big 3.
Only if they accept that it’s called football. And rename their sport egg hand ball.
Honeslty getting really tired of hearing this take. Yes it should be called football. But do you not realize American football has been called football here for 150 years. This is a circle jersey topic on this sub. Why does the rest of the world care so much about Americans, Canadians, and Australians using the word soccer. Get over it, we all know its called football.
Same, its like people forget that other countries have names for it that is not futbol too. Personally if we are going to change it I say we join the Italians with calcio.
you can say soccer within the US, just use the word football when its international
Every world cup we have this discussion, every time the answer turns out to be no. The problem is the dreaded 0-0. The rules really need to be changed with how ties are handled. First of, there should not be any extra time in the event of a tie. It should go straight to penalty kicks. Second, if the tie is 0-0 we should really consider a way of adding a rule that both teams lose in that situation as they have wasted everyone's time and should be punished for that. I have not forgotten Netherlands Vs Argentina in 2014, one of the worst world cup football matches of all time. Such a rule would have the effect of making teams much more offensive in their strategies instead of defensive as they know they have to get a goal in order to avoid a loss. It would definitely have created a much better Spanish team. This will in turn make matches much more fun to watch.
This has got to be one of the worst takes of all time.
Penalty kicks are a travesty imo. Obviously you can't just play golden goal in extra time because the game could be never ending, but ending a game on PK doesn't fit for me.
I'll disagree here. In football a 0 x 0 can be very fun to watch if the match is open and the teams are actively creating chances. Maybe the problem is when both teams display apathy, which could happen in any sport and, in my experience, doesn't happen too often.
I think European leagues starting back up first during 2020 and the resurgence of the USMNT will help it grow. Messi coming to FC Miami will as well but I doubt we see it even top the NBA in my lifetime. A successful 2026 World Cup could catapult the momentum further as well.
Nevermind football. What about cricket? The fun part being needing a degree in the game to understand what is happening.
BROOOO BASEBALL IS OVER FOOTBALL. btw, i thought NFL and NBA were quite on the same level, this shows NFL carries.
Oblong Football is king in America. 40+ of the 50 most watched broadcasts are NFL games every year.
American football has nothing to do with football. It is a type of rugby.
Probably not for a very long time, but the popularity of the sport is rising here in recent years.
Only if they win something big, perhaps. Netherlands got hooked on darts because of Barneveld in the 90s. Now Max Verstappen in F1. If you have someone that's a top 5 player in the world, it'll help gain a lot of traction.
USA has had generations of top tennis players but still no one watches
Yeah, where is tennis on this list? When I’m in Spain and Rafa Nadal is playing in a grand slam, maybe close to winning another, everyone in the pubs and xiringitos is watching football.
Lol, not a chance.
Baseball were coming for you!!!
I suspect it likely won't since the men's team here sucks. If I had to take a guess based on my own practices, that 7% is probably immigrant individuals or children of recent immigrants who come from countries with actually good teams. Go Brazil 🇧🇷
Unless team USA becomes really good I don’t see it happening. Why would people wanna play for a sub par country when you can play basketball or football and get more notoriety and a bigger following
Football isn't the most popular sport in every country outside the US, this statement isnt even true looking at 2022 world cup qualifiers.
That was never stated.
Is nascar not consider here?
Nop. This table shows only the most popular team sports in the US. No motorsports included in this particular study.
If this were south Korea, the most popular team sports would be: League of Legends> StarCraft> Association football
Who cares?
Yeah, that’ll happen when we finally get universal health care. (Never)
Seniors do get universal healthcare in the form of Medicare, so perhaps soccer can become the favorite sport of retirees?
Every time I see American football I think about how annoying it is to watch. How can Americans bitch about soccer being boring when literally every 30 fucking seconds is a commercial?
It’s all that money that the commercials bring in that make NFL so powerful and I doubt they will ever let (real) football get too popular. I mean look how they spent all that money to try and brush CTE and minimize the risk of multiple concussions. I’ve learned to like it (hand-egg) but I do prefer football because of the lack of commercials. Btw, if you watch college hand-egg you’ll find that there are significantly less comercial breaks and the game flows a lot better.
The commercials are good for bathroom/beer breaks. That’s what my friends tell me anyways. If I were to say definitively why football is more popular than soccer, I’d say it’s the rules and play style. Football has a very simple formula and progression is strictly linear. The ball goes forward? That’s good. Ball goes backwards? That’s bad. Ball stops? New play. Not enough yards? Turnover. Soccer doesn’t have these strict transitions, they’re a lot more seamless and take a level of knowledge/appreciation for the game to understand. Forward does not always equal good and backwards does not always equal bad. “Plays” don’t exactly have a strict start and stop with some exceptions. This can make the game appear boring as it just looks like dudes kicking a ball around in circles for 90 minutes, but if you break it down to a play-by-play format it becomes a lot more exciting.
It's one of my few complaints about soccer... There are generally no safe times to go take a piss. Not that I actually want commercials. We've got a (weird) obsession with scoring here as well. I see it over and over. Soccer isn't "exciting" because it's low scoring. It's the opposite for me: each point is so much more impactful and the tension at the end of these games. It's just a better experience.
Doesn't american football have infinite rules? But yeah Association Football has a very free flowing format
Agreed.
Soccer will never even approach football in popularity, but I could see the World Cup bumping it up to 3rd or even 2nd place. The 1994 WC sparked the creation of the MLS which has seen increasing success. 2026 could be another big boost to MLS and soccer popularity in general. Let’s just hope whatever singer kicks the opening goal actually makes it in. Whitney Houston set US soccer back another 10 years with that whiff.
>Whitney Houston set US soccer back another 10 years with that whiff. And she paid for that blunder with her career... Then her life
Sort by viewership, not favorite sport!
Is your point that a lot of futbol fans in the US don't watch the MLS and watch other futbol leagues?
Yes, can't just go by the ratings for Minor League Soccer. Many more of us are watching the games from Europe and Latin America.
Not gonna happen. There's only one mainstream sport here and that's gridiron football. All others (even baseball and basketball) are niche. That's never going to change. NFL just set an all time viewing record for a regular season game this past Thanksgiving (big American holiday when everyone eats turkey and watches football). Gridiron football is wildly popular on every level here. Anyone who says America has no culture should check out a high school (ages 14-18) football game in California or Texas or a college football game in the south. The atmosphere at some of those games blow soccer fans out of the water. Do yourself a favor and look up Tennesse vs Alabama 2022. Those fans are on another fucking level. 8 of the top 10 largest stadiums in the WORLD are on United States university campuses, built specifically for gridiron football. All this to say: association football is a fun sport to enjoy in America and it is certainly growing, but gridiron football will always be far and away the dominant sport here because it is completely engrained in our entire culture.
Forbes disagrees, see "The Decline Of Football Is Real And It’s Accelerating"
And Forbes is wrong. They do a lot of clickbait. Like I said, they are breaking viewership records this year. It is growing. Edit: Or are you talking about soccer? I actually don't know the numbers on that, but anecdotally it appears to be gaining popularity.
Thanks for that panorama. From you pov, do you reckon association football could surpass baseball and basketball to become the second most popular major sport in the US, considering the national team recent results, which were great, and the anticipation for the 2026 world cup cohosting?
Really hard to say. I don't see it happening soon because basketball and baseball also have their distinct cultures here, but maybe. Our women are world champions, the men just need to catch up. And there are a lot of sports for the MLS to compete with here.
You are really the first one to specify the word “football”.
Are you even American lol who says gridiron here
lol I'm trying to make it easy for the foreigners to understand.
I'm Australian and cannot comprehend people going to watch a high school sports match. Pretty sure the coach was our only spectator. And he only showed up because the school made him....
Parents don't watch their kids play? Or their other siblings and friends?
Not that I remember. Maybe some parents made it to games. But for me personally my parents were at work.
Yeah school sports are really popular here and I guess that's pretty uniquely American? I don't know that any other countries have something on that level.
The equivalent for Association Football would be people watching matches from the 5th division from their local club. There's a lot of "localised club" culture, so for many people their favourite club is the club from their local 8k people village.
Possible? Sure. Anything is possible with enough time and money. But likely? Nah unfortunately.
Yeah but we need them to spell it right (Football) and less embarrassing fan chants (club level)
The Ohio Manchester United fan club has a good chant.
For people not from the US this might seem trivial but approaching baseball in popularity is HUGE.
In five years Soccer surpass baseball and basketball in popularity.
Baseball quite possibly but not basketball unless soccer manages to make major inroad among black Americans.
It’s inevitable for the most beautiful sport to overcome any of the talentless sport of the US (except basketball)
Talentless? Baseball and football are full of people with no talent? Is that what you’re saying?
No point in giving you a real response, because your comment is so ignorant and stupid.
NFL is the US is a monster and closely integrated with culture it’s not going anywhere only growing
american football takes an extreme amount of athletic ability. not necessarily skill or talent but only certain ppl have the dog in them to play american football professionally, it is something ppl must respect imo
Not necessarily skill or talent? Tf are you talking about?
sometimes u have to say a little bit of what they want to hear for the ignorant to agree with the bigger picture
no.
If the premier league or la liga came to America it would dominate all other sports by miles, it’s just MLS sucks and Americans suck at soccer lol
Americans don't necessarily suck at soccer, it's just that most people who could be good at it are encouraged to play other more popular sports. Also this is ridiculous, if Premier League or La Liga came to the US they'd just crash and burn like the NASL did. MLS has succeeded because instead of trying to import the sport they've tried to Americanize it. The entire League system is fundamentally different. Soccer will never beat football in popularity, and I don't believe it will ever beat basketball or baseball either. Soccer is the sport that people send their little kids to play and that immigrants really seem to be into. Soccer in the US is about the same as Ice Hockey in popularity, and I'm pretty sure it'll stay that way.
Nothing is passing gridiron football here. A lot of folks in this thread fail to grasp just how popular it is here. It is literally our culture.
I wouldn’t say American’s suck at soccer as much as I would say it’s lack of popularity drive the best athletes to other sports. Look at women’s soccer. The US owns that sport and go figure, it’s one of the top 3 sports played for US women.
*American men Women are world champions so defo are good at football
The fact that women are good at European football is a result of the fact that the US has built an infrastructure where women are allowed to compete in sports, has nothing to do with talent. If women in other countries had the same opportunities in the US, then perhaps I would give some respect but that’s not the case. You got women still dressed in blankets in other countries
Damned if we do, damned if we don't. Y'all want soccer to be successful here or not?
I live in Portland and Timbers fans think they are watching Man U, lol. They have chants and organized everything and huge flags, it's big here, while hilarious "FUCK SEATTLE!!" 😂
I live in Seattle and love the rivalry and passion between the Timbers and Sounders! Always a great atmosphere! It feels like a proper derby
I was really surprised! Every game I went to in NYC was so tame.
The USWNT/NWSL erasure here is ridiculous. The last world cup championship, US v Netherlands had 82 million viewers and the last super bowl had 99 million viewers.
No.
Best answer by far.
It might make it to #3, but will never pass basketball and American Football. My biggest complaint about the MLS is they use different rules than the rest of the world and don’t have a relegation/promotion system. That and until they get some top tier talent they will always be viewed as a developmental league at best. I’d rather just watch the EPL.
Rather a AtTheEndOfMyCareer league.
I'm not sure about the rest of the world, but it might take a few centuries to reach Brazil levels of love for the sport (46%). Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1221006/most-popular-sports-brazil/
Mls sucks
All sports leagues in the US sucks. Because the teams are there not because they deserve, but because they paid for it. It's like that anoying kid in your block that the other kids had to let play with them because his father bought the ball (only poor kids can relate). Only RELEGATION AND PROMOTION can solve that. But to it would be necessary a change of culture of the american people harder than the necessary to adopt the metric system.
Mmmm yes and no. Both have wealthy owners that buy the better players and coaches. Big franchise fees are paid to be in US leagues so they won't do relegation however nice it would be to see that. Promotion in futbol is very difficult if the big clubs won't share enough of the revenue.
lol wat
Tell me you don't understand American sports without telling me. There is no relegation of teams, but players are constanly being drafted, signed, traded, cut, sent down, called up, basically always on the move. We have multi-tiered leagues and only the best of the best make it to the top league (NFL, MLB, NBA, and NHL all have these systems or something similar in place) and only the best of those, the very elites, get the long term contracts. Relegation of entire teams would make zero sense when you consider every team in the top leagues has an already established market. News flash for ya: all pro sports are about money. Those leagues I mentioned are at the top because they can afford the best talent. It makes the competition incredible. There is so much parity in the NFL right now, I have never had so much fun watching it! How can you say that sucks?
I didn't know that! Very interesting. So every year the exact same teams compete in the top leagues, and only the player base changes? There's no opportunity for new teams to join in if they're doing well?
That is correct. Sometimes the leagues "expand" and add teams as popularity grows over time, but there is no relegation system at all for teams.
It might suck, but so much of our team plays in Europe, so it's not as big a problem as it might seem. Brazil's team also mostly play in Europe. Most of the French team doesn't play their club football in France either. As long as we can get scouts, and have our best players playing in top tier teams, we can improve.
I’ll keep growing but I’ll never catch up to the other sports
Is that a serious question? No.
It will probably pass baseball, but it’s unlikely to pass basketball and it will never come close to football, USA will cease to exist before football is not the #1 sport
It will grow because of the next world cup
Nope. I think 3rd is likely, given how incompetent the MLB is at attracting new viewers to the sport, and if the NBA makes some similar mistakes, that might be a possibility too. But soccer is just never gonna surpass football in popularity. It’s too ingrained in American culture.
At the high school level, you have a better chance of playing in a game on a football team than on a soccer team. You can be pretty out of shape and still have a spot on a football team, but that's not the case in soccer. So football will always more viewership, unless major changes are made to rules in the name of safety that fundamentally change the game
Hell jumping up above baseball and reaching 13-15% though the average talent level of the USA team and it’s players across the country would certainly increase.
As someone that used to watch a ton of baseball as a kid, if improvements to this sport aren't implemented soon (pitch clocks, etc.), soccer will absolutely take over 3rd place. Beating out the NBA will be tough and it will never beat out the NFL.
I think if it can be a solid 3rd, that can be ok.
No
Americans love there socialist sports, so probably not
I don't know. I think part of the problem is that any American sports pyramid doesn't include Relegation so once the team is out of playoff contention the entertainment value becomes limited as the team doesn't put much energy in.
That's balanced with drafts from the college systems. So if you suck you get first dibs at the fancy new prospects
But it would still be more entertaining if teams had to fight for their place in the League right?
Nah they solved that with fantasy sports. So people still follow along to see that RB get points lol.
But what's the point of Fantasy Sports?
Besides gambling with friends.... it pretty much forces people to pay attention to every team if you want to be competitive against your friends. Trust me man, the NFL has a fucking stranglehold on its product. They make you become loyal to the team, not the players the way they set it up.
But that's the same as football though (or soccer as you Americans call it).
Somehow I think Ted Lasso (the TV show) helped to make football/soccer a tad more popular in the US. At least that's what I want to believe. ⚽
I hope so! It's such a fun show.
I love it! Football is life!
MLS needs a Roger Goodell
It'll continue to get bigger but i doubt it will ever get bigger than handegg or the other stick one
Once they stop calling it Soccer, it will
It has the potential to be..but MLS need to monetize and improve their product..
I’d say no, as the yanks generally like easy to access and win things. And they won’t be truly competitive in “soccer” for decades.
I'm actually planning to go to my first MLS game this year. Never in a million years did I think I would want to go to a soccer game but I really enjoy the sport.
It's even more amazing if you try to play some soccer beforehand. You get a better idea of just how precise and hard some of their skills are. I was hard to describe how much better the playing looked in IRL than on tv. Also after coaching some kids soccer.
MLS is a lot of fun. Enjoy!
Thank you! I plan on going to many more. Going to see the Sounders. I'm starting to learn the chants already
The vibe of a soccer game is truly amazing. Pick a good match and you'll certainly enjoy!
Im American and the main draw for football for me is the lack of constant ads. I love basketball and American football but half of the game is spent watching ads for insurance companies or cars and I’m so tired of it. Soccer football lets me just watch a dam game without getting interrupted
Not to mention it's easy to be a casual soccer fan. You don't need to memorize an entire NFL rule book of obscure game scenarios to understand and enjoy what you see
This is the main reason it’s the most popular sport in the world and exactly what fifa are doing wrong recently. It’s so simple a monkey could understand it - very few rules and only really the offside rule that isn’t completely common sense - you boot someone and it’s a foul, you can’t touch it with your hands and that’s about it.
And VAR is not really helping. Being offside because of the shirt sleeve seems way too much for me (happened in Argentina's first game)
Bloody Hell, another long VAR break. It's becoming like American sports with the replays and TV ads. Don't do that to our game.
Couldn’t agree more. It’s becoming more and more complex with different interpretations and taking away from what made the game so good - the simplicity of it all
I found the offside rule simple enough once I saw a particularly good commentator explaining it: An offside happens when, at the exact moment of a forward pass, a player who participates in the move has any part of his body that is permitted to touch the ball (basically the whole body excluding arms and hands) positioned so that there is only one or less players of the opposite team ahead of it. In Argentina's game the attacker's shoulder was positioned so that only one player of the opposing team was ahead of it (the goalkeeper in that case). As it's permitted for players to touch the ball with their shoulders, that was an offside.
Also offside is only if you pass forward, if you pass backwards it's not offside
Thanks! Added that to my reply for completion's sake.
I know what offside is, I’m English, we’re taught this with salt and pepper bottles when still in nappies. My point is that it’s the only real “technical offence” that you could liken to the hundreds of such things in NFL for instance. It’s the only one that isn’t common sense - ie he kicked me instead of the ball so it’s obviously a foul. And considering 99.99999% of amateur games don’t even play offside, you can see how a culture of playing the game without any real rules that can be self-refereed in a sense could develop a lot more easily than say cricket, or NFL or even basketball. And that is why it is such a popular game. And I’m not talking about adults either - you get 2 year olds all over Europe outside playing penalty shootouts, and then it becomes habit to play and not something you get into when you’re older. Me and my friends used to be outside from 2/3 year old kicking a ball around - doubt there’s many 3 year olds with a basketball or an American football or whatever.
My husband are looking at getting season tickets for NYCFC which we have never done before so we’re doing our little part to support MLS
Might as well get Redbull season tickets also considering nycfc play most of their home games there.
I don’t see many people watching the MLS here tho
Because it’s pretty bad if we’re being honest.
Tbh if you're not from a country that has a very strong league, not a lot of people watches the nations football league. Like in Hungary football is extremely popular, the no 1 sport, but very little people watches NB1, our national league, because it's bad. Most people watches the Premier League, LaLiga, Seria A, Bundesliga and of course the Champion's League. Nobody really cares about the Hungarian NB1. So I think there needs to be either a better national league, or a good North American league to follow for football to get popular in the US. Basketball isn't that popular (to watch) in Europe because our european leagues are not that strong, it's nothing compared to the NBA. And the NBA is so late at night that normal people can't follow it, and why would we want to watch a weaker, not so developed league, so it's not a watched sport. I think the same goes to football in America.
Brazil doesn't have a strong league compared to Premiere League or Bundesliga, yet the team is pretty solid. South American leagues are quite poor compared to European ones. I know almost every Brazilian plays in European leagues, but still.
Brazil doesn't have a strong league compared to Premiere League or Bundesliga, yet the team is pretty solid. South American leagues are quite poor compared to European ones. I know almost every Brazilian plays in European leagues, but still.
The cool part about the Brazilian league is that’s where their young talent develops. You get to see the next Neymar there, etc. Neymar played with Santos for years, for example. The MLS is getting a little better about homegrown talent but it’s just not even comparable. The best youth clubs here are still largely not MLS clubs, and they send the best off to Europe or university before they set foot in the MLS.
But Brazil proves that it's possible to have a strong national team without having the best league. Even if MLS never gets as good as the big European leagues, they can get good enough to develop high quality players, and hopefully a decent national team. And look at even France: the vast majority of their players play their club football outside of France!
The best American players *are not* coming out of the MLS is what I am saying. Take Pulisic for example, he played with PA Classics, which is not affiliated with an MLS team. If you want soccer to get really popular in the US, the best professional league needs to get better at developing home grown talent. Brazil has a popular league in Brazil, in part because they see world class talent go through it, like Neymar and many others. We don’t have that in the US, to a large extent anyhow.
Does it matter if its MLS or if its second-tier leagues that get better at it? As long as someone's doing it, and doing it well.
I guess, first what I would say is that as far as youth programs go it is MLS that is largely the second tier. See https://www.usyouthsoccer.org/news/soccer_americas_top_30_youth_clubs_named/. As you can see, most are not affiliated with an MLS team. A few are in there though. And I think it does matter as far as it relates to increasing interest in or popularity of soccer in the United States. You want people to be excited about going to see an MLS game, as it’s our top professional league. Talented players coming up through the MLS is one way to do that. Think about if the next Neymar or whoever was playing at an MLS club right now. People would go watch. But, that would never happen here because the next Neymar would be playing at another club then moving to Europe to play, like Pulisic did. He went straight to the Bundesliga from his youth club. Nobody here tuned into the MLS to watch him. Thus, professional soccer remains unpopular in the United States. Our best professional league can’t develop the talent needed for more people to tune in.
Yeah, that makes sense. From what I've read, Croatia has a bit that too: their best sometimes get snatched up before they even make the senior team debut. So while what you say may be true, and helpful, it's not necessarily a killer problem. How do we break the cycle of foreign clubs pay more, play better, and so make more money, and MLS keeps average players, average gameplay, and very moderate salaries, thus perpetuating the cycle?
Hopefully the new apple TV deal changes that. My cable provider dropped the network that showed the games.
I'd say it's definitely on the rise. I don't know how long it would take to become dominant though.
I don't know that we'll ever become dominant, but a perennial contender and to win once would be great.
It might be #2 behind basketball once all the Boomers die Might be #1 when all Gen X and Millenials die Just the natural course of things 😂
I started following the Premier League in high school, about 2004, when it became available on my moms cable and when a buddy suggested it for me based on the atmosphere and intensity of the league. I was hooked right away, ended up following Spurs after a couple years because I just took to them: White Hart Lane, N17, Park Lane in full voice, attractive football even if we were shit back then. I have tried to convert as many people as possible over the years and have been pretty successful with family and close friends. We are gonna win!
30 more percent to go!
I really thought basketball was more popular than this, considering a lot basketball players has reached Hollywood celebrity status idk though
Basketball is the US main international sport. Also could be that American Football is sorta the default casual sport in the US - they'll have to correct me on this, but if Sunday there's nothing to do with the TV you just turn it on in the football game, it's better suited for casual conversation, it's more available on free TV, things like that it would be the standard American time killer both in terms of watching and in terms of small talk. Idk
Might be because it's popular worldwide, not as much as football but more than handegg
I think soccer will grow in popularity as more parents don’t want their kids playing football. The potential likelihood for brain injuries are too great of concern for me as a parent.
This is definitely the case with us and our kids, soccer or baseball seem like the best competitive sports to encourage given the dangers of American football.
Basketball is great too, also lots of running and teamwork. Luckily for kids they're opposite seasons in school in the US. However basketball requires lots of height to be great, and soccer doesn't.
Yeah, basketball is great. My kids play both soccer and basketball.
Good point!
I don't have children but agree completely. I would never let a child with a developing brain play tackle football. Soccer is such a great alternative for a lot of reasons.
[удалено]
..... uh isn't that what basketball is
If the US puts a good showing out in 2026 both on the pitch and off, it could definitely grow into a bigger deal here. We're currently seeing a large growth cycle by cycle that comes from those of us that grew up playing having kids and passing it on to them. You will likely never see soccer overtake basketball or football here, but it can be the third big sport in years to come.
Not making the cup in 2018 was a blow to the continued progress, but a solid showing on American soil in 2026 would really help change the tide.
Jogging with a ball is a game for Birkenstock wearing vegans. It will NEVER be a major sport.
Fuck yeah! American handegg ball!! MURICA
If I wanted to be an idiot, you would be my model.
Your brain must be extra smooth.
Running with a ball is pretty much what basketball and American football is as well lol
At least they score. In Ball Jogging , the goal is the size of a 2 car garage and no one can score… a game for F1 fans… nothing much happens there either.
Its not soccer, its football and another is American football...the real football is football
oh for gods sake everyone gets it
Don't get it serious lmao
sorry, nothing personal . . . I'm just so sick of the endless soccer/football thing and all the stupid ads. I don't see why it's a big deal that people use different terms for the same thing.
I am football/soccer player...i also face this situation often...just chill lol
Huh I live in US but didn’t realize so many people love American football. If you go to a random park in New York normally you see people play soccer. In my social circle probably only a few have played American football. Well I guess New York is New York.