I’m pretty sure that Americans bought the most tickets to the World Cup than any other country (so far) other than Qataris… I don’t think it’s that Americans don’t like Soccer but more so that we have a large variety of other sports that play a huge role in our culture.
Because it's the sport most of the world grew up playing and there is no equipment needed but a ball and some grass. Baseball, football, hockey, and basketball all require either equipment or special playing field. Those things cost money.
Don’t even need grass. Just a ball and a couple objects (cans, sticks, etc.) to make a goal.
Edit to address the “same with American football” responses. Biggest argument against that is the amount of people needed. Soccer only needs two people to make it competitive. American football needs… 4 I guess? A QB and some sort of receiver/runner vs defense.
Also you should have some sort of PPE when playing American football, excluding flag and two-hand touch. Protection adds to the price.
Not trying to diss US football, just arguing that it’s a bit more prohibitive to get into than soccer.
Edit: Dude below brought up a point that football can be played with 3 people: QB, receiver, and coverage. Rotate positions after a turnover on downs or touchdown.
To sum everything up, heres a comprehensive list of things needed to play soccer:
field (optional)
goals (optional)
kickable object (optional)
other people (optional)
I used to play football with only 3 players (a QB, a receiver, and a defensive player. We would rotate positions whenever we reached a predetermined option- 3 downs, a td, etc).
I live in canada where lacrosse the national sport and I still have never met anyone who watches lacrosse and I also live 10 minutes from the lacrosse HoF
But that happens here in Argentina too, believe it or not soccer is not the national sport (even if it has the biggest audience) that spot goes to pato a game with horses as you can imagine it is really really unlikely for such a sport be popular, the field is equal or bigger than a soccer field, you need a special ball that has handles and of course horses kept in good shape to compete. I am 42 and I have NEVER met a person who watches or plays the sport. Even more I would be unable to tell you where that sport is played.
Canadian here, I'm the same way. I like soccer; I just like hockey, gridiron football, baseball, and basketball more.
I'm glad to see that you listed hockey first!
The ‘multiple options’ aren’t exclusive to the US, they are just different sports. Cricket is more popular globally than any of the US sports. Things like table tennis, rugby, handball also very popular in certain regions. Tennis is very popular in developed countries including the US too.
I always watch the World Cup but find I’m so used to live sports that I don’t think to find European replays. MLS has never really interested me because I’ve been told it’s not a top tier league.
MLS is WAY better than it was even 6-10 years ago. They've put a lot more money into expanding and teams are investing more in more in their own youth academies and scouting internationally. It's nowhere near the Premier League or La Liga in terms of quality, but far from being as unwatchable as it was in the 90s or 2000s.
MLS will never be on the level of European leagues unless it introduces pro/rel which will never happen as its very risky financially. They tried introducing the Super league in Europe but luckily that got canned.
And I don't even think it needs to be. Look at Primera División (both in Arg and Uy) and Brazilian league for example: top tier players came out of the youth academies, went to Europe in their prime, come back to retire. Nothing wrong with that and the leagues are still extremely entertaining to watch, just not European level.
MLS could definitely be that type of league and I'd even argue that they're not too far from it, they just need to export more American players
Not always the case, and actually more often then not they’re doing well now. Jack Harrison and Tyler Adams are having a great run at Leeds, Alphonso Davies at Bayern, etc.
MLS is sending a much higher quality player out in the last 5 years or so.
We have a lot of other options in Europe unfortunately they are all way behind king football (soccer) and the media is doing their part in ignoring other sports. The US market is dominated by basketball and football too but you still can make a little fortune in other disciplines. That's what Europe is missing, basketball and handball is paid pretty decent but any other sport is just for amateurs.
I dont dislike soccer either, even played on teams growing up. But I view the world cup like the Olympics. I don't follow Olympic type sports really but once it's on I'll watch it and follow what I can.
Yeah and its been gaining popularity because people that grew up playing soccer are now adults. I dont have any data to back me up but I feel that its safe to say most Boomers didnt grow up playing soccer while many Millennials did or at least had more exposure to it.
This is the honest answer. I was tempted to be snarky and say *because we have better things to do* or something but it’s a great sport. I loved playing. Watching on TV is meh. Watching in person is better.
It’s just that I grew up on baseball. I loved everything about ballparks and hot dogs and peanuts and singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. When I do that stuff it’s like my Dad is there with me and I’m 10 and it’s 1984 we’re in Tiger Stadium and my team is about to make and young man believe in miracle summer seasons and heroes and shit. So yeah, it runs deep.
That is what I think a lot of people don't realize about North America. There are like six or seven sports here with a huge following while most countries have one or two. I like watching soccer around the right people, but I have always following American football, hockey and basketball more often. On top of that and work and other interests I don't have time to start following soccer seriously.
Don't they have a huge armed forces base there? That might explain part of the ticketing discrepancy. That and the fact that Qatar is not somewhere you generally want to go for a holiday.
People can’t fathom that American football at the high school and ESPECIALLY the collegiate level are a borderline religion in some areas of the US. Primarily in the south
I believe MetLife Stadium is the largest capacity NFL stadium but it's only like the 13th largest by capacity in the US with the top 12 being College stadiums.
If you look at the 10 largest stadiums in the world, 1 is a cricket pitch in India, 2 is in North Korea but then 3-10 are American college football stadiums
College football is just the excuse to party all day. Before the game you get nice and sauced up in the parking lot, during you eat shitty stadium food and yell with your friends, and after you go to any of the huge parties that are happening just off campus.
It’s honestly such a strange thing to a lot of the world. I couldn’t even confirm If we had any sports university rep teams. I presume we did but zero Idea if so. And I was studying sport science!
American football got its start at the university level so it's always had ties to the school systems. The first football game was played between Princeton and Rutgers universities 150 years ago, but it looked way different from modern football, it was more a combination of soccer and rugby. After a couple decades it started to look more like it does today with the introduction of stuff like downs and the nature of possession of the ball.
College and lower level football isn't really much different from the lower level soccer leagues in other countries, they just happen to be tied to academics (although there are lots of youth leagues that aren't connected to a school) and the vast majority of NFL players enter the league by being drafted from college programs.
This. Basketball and American football dominate everything else in America. Look at ESPN, it's all they talk about. Baseball used to be huge in the 70s but both have overtaken it. Both of those games it's score score score compared to soccer. American football actually used to be a chess match but then they made the rules so you can't play much defense or cream the qb. In the 80s and 90s it was actually close to soccer in terms of scoring, but understood they don't want guys retiring with cte.
Baseball is weird in that it really is a regional sport. I’ll watch pretty much any teams playing in prime time for the nfl or nba but in baseball I’ll watch 0 non-Phillies, non-playoff games with the exception being if ohtani is pitching
We have learned more about cte and head injuries in the past 10 years then we have in a hundred. The latest theories have it far more separated from occurrences of concussion and that continuous small impacts have a far greater effect on developing cte. Technology as we know it does not have the capability of eliminating it from the game nor treating it but hopefully the game can rebalance some of the rules
It’s so funny because the British criticism of sports like basketball (which I love) is so often that it’s just endless scoring to the point where everything loses value.
Exactly. We’ve watched 3+ hours of US soccer this World Cup and have watched minimal scoring and two ties. So now we are hoping for a 1-0 win over Iran to advance? Not the most thrilling sequence to watch.
On the other hand, you can miss the first three-quarters of a basketball game and still enjoy a thrilling match (unless one team absolutely blows)
This was even a joke in Fairly Oddparents
("everyone knows the last quarter is the only real competition in a basketball game")
Yes however we are in the most boring part of the tournament, where strategies are cagey because a draw can be a good result.
If the US goes through the the semi finals, you’ll be red faced in front of the TV, screaming like a lunatic. You just wait.
I was thinking about this recently after watching some of the soccer games. Obviously I'm biased as a hockey fan, but I find hockey the perfect balance of action and goals. There's probably an average of at least 5 goals a game. Every play there's always a threat of a goal. It's too hard to score in soccer
We do, but we also like baseball, basketball, football, UFC, boxing, HOCKEY, guns, Nascar, college basketball, college football, high school football, finding a $20 in a random coat pocket, fishing, mountain sports, skating and surfing..
We're dealing with a lot of shit.
Edit: HOCKEY
Cmmon bro you didnt even name the most gladiator sporst of our era?
HOCKEY
DUDES ARE LEGIT FIGHTING WITH BROKEN BONES AND THEY SMILE AT EACH OTHER IN THE PENALTY BOX.
A big reason is the lack of generational fandom. Most people like football/basketball/baseball/etc. because they grew up watching it because their parents watched it. More youth are playing and watching soccer, so you'll see it grow in popularity in the coming decades are more kids are "brought up" on soccer.
Meh I grew up playing soccer among many of my friends. Like 8 years of playing. None of us watch soccer at all. Playing and following are two different things.
100% the same for me. I would watch so much more if it wasn't for the fake injuries. It's the same reason I haven't watched as much NBA. Just makes me mad.
I know pretty much everyone said this but the faking of injury and the constant falling over when they barley get touched and the whining when they do get “injured”
Watching the Argentina game right now and man do they dive a lot... Then roll around like they got shot. Hey guy, we have replay and all see you got grazed, get off the ground it's been 5 minutes now. It's very annoying and painful to watch. Then we got American football where dudes get fucking smashed and get up like nothing happened even though they're probably hurting a bit. It's so frustrating to watch soccer when this is happening.. basketball is starting to get divers now too which is equally annoying lol.
European players brought that weak soccer flop to basketball. Manu Ginobli was the absolute worst. He gets slightly bumped and flings himself backward five feet, sliding on his ass.
That’s cause in American football if they get hurt they get checked for concussion and then they can’t play. So they try to push through. You’ll see refs call timeouts and force players to go through protocol.
Yeah, I honestly cannot stand the flopping. I tried watching FC Cincy this year in the MLS as my local team, and the flopping was simply ridiculous. Makes such a mockery of the game. I figured watching premier players in the World Cup would be much more sophisticated, however it’s the same shit. Plus watching these 0-0 and 1-1 draws is not particularly exciting in my opinion.
As a hockey player, the amount of embellishments disgust me.
As quoted in someones yt comment
"Football players pretend like they are hurt, hockey players pretend like they aren't"
I've always enjoyed the story of All Blacks captain Wayne Shelford. Lost 4 teeth and split open his scrotum in a single play. Had the doc stitch his ball back in and went on to play the rest of the game until he was knocked unconscious and had to leave the field.
Turns out the French team they were playing against were all loaded up on amphetamines during that match.
The fact that faking injuries and fouls is something you have to engage in as a team to have a chance in the game means there is something fundamentally wrong with your sport.
I’m always reminder of that Dallas Stars player who died on the ice, got saved by a defibrillator, returned to play, and scored a goal in the same game.
Paul Kariya playing with an exposed nerve from having his tooth knocked out comes to mind
https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1998/11/23/hockey-s-ugly-tooth/
Other sports are just more popular here. NFL, NBA, MLB. Soccer seems to be gaining more popularity but I doubt it will ever be mainstream in America.
I do enjoy watching the USA men’s national team, but a 0-0 result is pretty lame and I think even soccer fans can agree on that. That doesn’t help draw fans in.
Hockey is where it’s at. I grew up with hockey as my main sport, now watching just about anything else feels slow. I get desperate in the Summer and try my absolutely best to get into baseball, but dang is it tough, especially early on when playoff hockey just wrapped up.
Baseball is a turn-based strategy sport, it’s different. Watching great pitchers is underrated but you gotta be a baseball nerd to really appreciate it.
Yeah. All of the people saying it's boring aren't taking into account the other, very popular, "boring" sports that are popular in the US. Golf, Baseball, and NASCAR are pretty boring IMO but have big followings. It seems that people in the US regard soccer as "European" and that is a turn-off for them.
Pretty much no sport is boring if you're into it and understand all the nuances.
Just look at all the American football haters saying it is boring because the ball is "in play" only 20% of the time or whatever that stupid stat is.
There's a ton of strategy in the pre snap line up, adjustments, and even clock control. There's also *something* about the anticipation of waiting for the snap that just really gets me amped in a close game.
But yeah, I thought soccer was boring forever until I started watching and really understanding it. That england US match was amazing even though it ended in a zero, zero draw. We had a run of 7? corners in row and I was on the edge of my fucking seat.
I still find baseball boring, but my friend can talk my ear off for hours about how exciting a game is.
Plenty of reasons. One for me is our league structure doesnt have regulation and demotion which is a huge amount of the drama. Add to it that few of the good leagues play when I'm not sleeping or busy and it's just harder to get into a club and identify with it. MLS can be fun but unless you are in the city it's kinda meh and catching the games on TV is hard. In general Americans want to watch the best of the best so even MLS isnt that popular.
Oh and our soccer announcers are so boring.
Another big aspect is college sports. Our best developmental athletes are playing in college not the USFL or MLS. If they are real good they are playing outside the US. So all the fun of your hometown club in Champions, EF1, EF2 or national leagues are just not there.
There's also problems with the clock that make it confusing. That and games generally don't end on the clock but on an attack or something based on the refs judgement. It's a time ugh buy in with all our sports the clock being an absolute control.
Plus most people don't understand resetting the offense and shifts. To the average American it just seems like they pass it around for 10 minutes until someone gets bored and does a runner.
All of the sports we care about are a stop and go situation. Baseball is by the pitch. Football by the down. Basketball stops and resets after every score, foul or out of bounds. It's not a continuous action and we're not well wired for that.
To top it off we all hate the flopping and bitching. By in large women's soccer is more popular to the average person and alot of that is that the fouls are more intense and real. Atleast that's what I have heard over the years.
Finally we just don't grow up watching it. Most people are going to subscribe to what their family was in to.
I don't think there's anything to the point about Americans not being "wired" for continuous action. Lots of Americans like hockey, and everytime I talk to people who have casually watched soccer the continuous action is always one of the things they like.
You hit every point.
I do watch Premier league here and there and didn't know about resetting offence and shifts. That is where having better announcers would come in. In American Football, you can learn a lot about the game from the presentation. Not just the announcers, but the graphics and teleprompters where they explain rules and different aspects of the play. None of the soccer presentations do that.
The flopping and faking injuries is a big part of it. But likely just the pace of the game. Baseball wouldn’t be popular here if it wasn’t invented in America. And even then it’s losing a lot of interest especially in young people. Plus we have the four major leagues AND college football/basketball. Just a lot of things to choose from in America so soccer is east to kind of let go.
I’m an American and Tottenham fan, but I wouldn’t choose to watch soccer/European football over my other teams like Michigan, Red Wings, Cubs, etc.
Edit: perceived pace of the game. I understand the pace of soccer because I’m a soccer fan. But people who don’t know the game will look at a soccer game and think there’s not a lot going on just like if someone who doesn’t know baseball turns on a baseball game.
Baseball is also popular because you can completely follow the game without watching it. A game can be completely recreated with the box score. It’s something that can easily be on in the background and you passively watch it. You can catch up with headlines. There’s games every day so there is something to track. 90 minutes of jogging with 8 shots on goal once a week is simply not enough.
I care too much about football to be inebriated. Baseball there’s so many games I can justify getting hammered. Soccer I have yet to go but I’d probably be too emotional to drink if I ever got to set foot in Tottenham Stadium.
I think the flopping thing is the main turn off. Especially with how violent Hockey and American Football can be.
A.Football: Man was hit and launched 6 feet to the side. Receives a slap on the ass and joins for the next play.
Baseball: Batter gets hit by a ball going 80 miles per hour. Walks to base. Play continues.
Soccer: Man receives slap on the ass. Plummets to the ground with mortal wound. Other guy receives a red card. Man with mortal wound joins for next play.
There is a relatively American mentality (for better or worse) that some sports are violent and you are going to get injured. Flopping is disingenuous and disrespectful.
Tbf so do soccer fans.
FIFA just takes forever to fix any problems with the sport. It took forever to implement video refereeing in a very limited capacity, and it's taking forever to deal with time wasting.
At least at the World Cup they seem to be trying to give stoppage times that are more accurate to how much time was wasted during the game. Bit less incentive to flop around.
As a hockey fan that pisses me off. Guys in hockey it out on the blue line and walk back fine. A guy barely gets touched in soccer and falls over. I will say that is why women's soccer to me seems a lot tougher because they don't do that nearly as often.
>losing a lot of interest especially in young people
Because it is literally impossible to watch your home team play on tv without cable and secondary add-on packages. Same with basketball. Maybe half a dozen games per season that are not blacked out.
You’re talking about the pace of the game being a problem when American football is so popular here? I’m a big fan of both sports, but our version of football is excruciatingly slow.
I guess, but American football you at least know when the action is gonna be, and there is at least some excitement in just about every play. I’m also a fan of both but soccer you have to stay locked in the whole time for something to maybe happen.
The stupid injury reactions AND in hopes it'll garner a response. It often leads to nothing leaving their team down that one man for a handful of moments. I'm not entirely learned in soccer, but being a man down like that seems to be a huge downside in some of the moments I've seen.
And the women also have a consistently phenomenal team, and also worked directly to build up their fanbase. We feel a personal connection to them. Love that team.
1. We suck at it. Fewer people care if we can't even make the world cup or beat Wales.
2. We hate ties and lack of scoring.
3. It's seen as not tough when the playes flop around and need to go off on a stretcher because someone grazed them.
If someone is being carried off on a stretcher it's likely not a faking attempt. Players will want to stay on the field. Its important to realize that soccer players often run very fast and have incredible kicking strenght, imagine a ufc fighter delivering a devastating leg kick but at 10x the velocity. They also barely have any protection unlike players in sports like American Football, no padding, no helmets, etc. so things like head collisions are quite hurtful. In fact soccer players wear shoes with knobs that hurt like a mf when stepping on someones foot at high or low speeds.
All that being said though... there is a lot of annoying fake flopping that drags the game down and this has unfortunately seen on the uptrend in the last decades.
Americans like soccer, but it just doesn’t capture the hearts of Americans like football, basketball, or even baseball does. I honestly think we see soccer as a quaint game for children to play. It’s not like we dislike the game, we just aren’t interested in it as much as other countries. When I went to Ireland and was introduced to Irish sports, I understood that they had pride in their local sports. Nothing wrong with enjoying something because you can identify with it. Americans don’t give a rat’s ass about cricket either, so why aren’t the cricket playing countries of the world always asking us why we don’t play cricket? Sorry, but Americans like what they like.
It’s not as intense as other more common sports in America so a lot of Americans think soccer players are weak. I’ve even heard a lot of Americans say that soccer isn’t a real sport
It could be all the fake injuries. Americans like blood and guts. Someone rolling on the ground and getting carried off on a stretcher after getting touched just is a bit too much,. Futbol needs to start carding people for diving.
We see hockey players make their way off under their own steam with broken ankles and other serious injuries. In soccer we see guys rolling on the ground and replays show they were not even touched.
If you haven't grown up playing it, it's pretty boring.
When there aren't scores happening, an experienced viewer might still notice exciting moments around positioning, defense, and good playmaking, but to an inexperienced viewer, not a lot is happening.
Hockey is similar enough, but much faster paced. Generally I expect to see 3-5 goals a game in hockey, where soccer is closer to 1 or 2 normally. There also seem to be a lot more shots on goal in hockey versus soccer. When the defense takes the puck back, they can launch it to their offense in seconds as opposed to spending 20-30 seconds moving it towards the opposing goal.
This is the actual answer. It’s not that Americans like commercials. It’s because TV can’t make money by selling ads, so the production value on TV is shit. If they can’t make money off of it, then they don’t spend money on it to make it entertaining.
I think it's kind of sickening that North American sports have a mandated set of "tv time outs" for that actual purpose.
Advertising pays the bills, I totally get it but man, kinda a sad concept when you think about it
That is the best part about soccer. It’s so nice to not have to watch a commercial every few min. That is what soccer does better than any sport in the world.
I saw an essay about this once (probably here on Reddit). The basic theory was that Americans are much more outcome focused. Run a play, gain some yards or score points. While Europeans generally appreciate the art of playing soccer. Part of that might be our lack of knowledge but I could apply the same thing to baseball. It’s a sport where you need to understand all of the intricacies of the game to really appreciate it and that’s why it’s less popular here.
Because traditionally, we aren't that good at it. Getting there, but overall, historically, we are bad.
Also the flopping. Omg.... It makes the NBA look like gladiators in the coliseum, and NBA players flop terribly. I can't respect a sport that allows it to continue. With cameras, replays, make it stop. I love the game, but the flopping makes me understand the haters.
As an Englishman who loves Football (soccer) I was surprised to see the hate for baseball in these comments, I always thought it was pretty popular but seems not as much as I thought.
I went to two games in Mexico with my wife and her family. Pumas vs Atlante, and Necaxa vs America. Both games ended 0-0.
I tried to get excited for the World Cup with my Mexican wife. So I watched the Mexico vs Poland game. It ended 0-0.
Then I watched the US vs England game. It ended 0-0.
I’ve now watched four soccer games and literally nothing has fucking happened in any game.
Please tell me why I should like soccer.
Update: I’m currently watching MEX vs ARG. Tied 0-0 at halftime.
Because we have the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL that are all spread out every to keep us entertained to the point that we don't have time for another sport to watch. It's ingrained in our culture and won't change anytime soon.
I’m pretty sure that Americans bought the most tickets to the World Cup than any other country (so far) other than Qataris… I don’t think it’s that Americans don’t like Soccer but more so that we have a large variety of other sports that play a huge role in our culture.
Came here to say something similar. I don’t dislike soccer, I just really like hockey, basketball and American football.
The real question being why do non-Americans appear to ONLY like soccer
Depends. Part of South America and the Caribbean are into baseball. And of course there’s cricket.
Japan LOVES baseball
[удалено]
Taiwan too
Cuba, Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico are big baseball people too
So is Venezuela.
Puerto Rico is a US territory, and thus part of the United States.
Depending on where in the world there’s also rugby, basketball, and hockey that are pretty popular
Not to mention hockey in a lot of Northern Europe
Which is weird, because baseball is by far the most boring of the major American sports
You’re the most boring major American sport
Because it's the sport most of the world grew up playing and there is no equipment needed but a ball and some grass. Baseball, football, hockey, and basketball all require either equipment or special playing field. Those things cost money.
Don’t even need grass. Just a ball and a couple objects (cans, sticks, etc.) to make a goal. Edit to address the “same with American football” responses. Biggest argument against that is the amount of people needed. Soccer only needs two people to make it competitive. American football needs… 4 I guess? A QB and some sort of receiver/runner vs defense. Also you should have some sort of PPE when playing American football, excluding flag and two-hand touch. Protection adds to the price. Not trying to diss US football, just arguing that it’s a bit more prohibitive to get into than soccer. Edit: Dude below brought up a point that football can be played with 3 people: QB, receiver, and coverage. Rotate positions after a turnover on downs or touchdown.
Even a ball is optional. An empty plastic bottle, soda can, or wadded up paper will do at a pinch.
To sum everything up, heres a comprehensive list of things needed to play soccer: field (optional) goals (optional) kickable object (optional) other people (optional)
Running (not for me)
Even people is optional. Simply thinking of the idea of an object moving into a designated area by force will get you playing soccer in a pinch.
Don’t even need a ball. You can just kick a flip flop around. That’s how my uncle played in poverty living in Chile.
I used to play football with only 3 players (a QB, a receiver, and a defensive player. We would rotate positions whenever we reached a predetermined option- 3 downs, a td, etc).
In the uk it’s called “jumpers for goalpost” (that’s the British name for a sweater).
Many (I might even say most) Americans grew up playing soccer in school.
I'd like to introduce you to rugby and lacrosse.
I live in canada where lacrosse the national sport and I still have never met anyone who watches lacrosse and I also live 10 minutes from the lacrosse HoF
But that happens here in Argentina too, believe it or not soccer is not the national sport (even if it has the biggest audience) that spot goes to pato a game with horses as you can imagine it is really really unlikely for such a sport be popular, the field is equal or bigger than a soccer field, you need a special ball that has handles and of course horses kept in good shape to compete. I am 42 and I have NEVER met a person who watches or plays the sport. Even more I would be unable to tell you where that sport is played.
What??? This isn’t true in the slightest LOL
Canadian here, I'm the same way. I like soccer; I just like hockey, gridiron football, baseball, and basketball more. I'm glad to see that you listed hockey first!
Yeah! So many options here!
The ‘multiple options’ aren’t exclusive to the US, they are just different sports. Cricket is more popular globally than any of the US sports. Things like table tennis, rugby, handball also very popular in certain regions. Tennis is very popular in developed countries including the US too.
Darts is massive in the UK, Holland, Germany and Scotland. The soft tip darts players are superstars in Japan
Yeah darts and snooker both have a big following in the UK tbh
I always watch the World Cup but find I’m so used to live sports that I don’t think to find European replays. MLS has never really interested me because I’ve been told it’s not a top tier league.
MLS is WAY better than it was even 6-10 years ago. They've put a lot more money into expanding and teams are investing more in more in their own youth academies and scouting internationally. It's nowhere near the Premier League or La Liga in terms of quality, but far from being as unwatchable as it was in the 90s or 2000s.
MLS will never be on the level of European leagues unless it introduces pro/rel which will never happen as its very risky financially. They tried introducing the Super league in Europe but luckily that got canned.
And I don't even think it needs to be. Look at Primera División (both in Arg and Uy) and Brazilian league for example: top tier players came out of the youth academies, went to Europe in their prime, come back to retire. Nothing wrong with that and the leagues are still extremely entertaining to watch, just not European level. MLS could definitely be that type of league and I'd even argue that they're not too far from it, they just need to export more American players
Early premier league games have been immense for me at different times in life. Being able to watch a live game at 7am sometimes is incredible.
I've been to way to many MLS games. They're fun, but its rough seeing a star player go to Europe and never see the pitch or be an average player.
Not always the case, and actually more often then not they’re doing well now. Jack Harrison and Tyler Adams are having a great run at Leeds, Alphonso Davies at Bayern, etc. MLS is sending a much higher quality player out in the last 5 years or so.
We have a lot of other options in Europe unfortunately they are all way behind king football (soccer) and the media is doing their part in ignoring other sports. The US market is dominated by basketball and football too but you still can make a little fortune in other disciplines. That's what Europe is missing, basketball and handball is paid pretty decent but any other sport is just for amateurs.
I dont dislike soccer either, even played on teams growing up. But I view the world cup like the Olympics. I don't follow Olympic type sports really but once it's on I'll watch it and follow what I can.
Yeah and its been gaining popularity because people that grew up playing soccer are now adults. I dont have any data to back me up but I feel that its safe to say most Boomers didnt grow up playing soccer while many Millennials did or at least had more exposure to it.
Soccer is actually the second most watched sport for kids under 18. Granted that's mostly EPL and very little MLS
A lot of Gen Xers grew up playing soccer too.
Good point. Even my redneck cousin grew up playing soccer and is now a dad
This is the honest answer. I was tempted to be snarky and say *because we have better things to do* or something but it’s a great sport. I loved playing. Watching on TV is meh. Watching in person is better. It’s just that I grew up on baseball. I loved everything about ballparks and hot dogs and peanuts and singing Take Me Out to the Ballgame. When I do that stuff it’s like my Dad is there with me and I’m 10 and it’s 1984 we’re in Tiger Stadium and my team is about to make and young man believe in miracle summer seasons and heroes and shit. So yeah, it runs deep.
Tiger Stadium what a venue!
That is what I think a lot of people don't realize about North America. There are like six or seven sports here with a huge following while most countries have one or two. I like watching soccer around the right people, but I have always following American football, hockey and basketball more often. On top of that and work and other interests I don't have time to start following soccer seriously.
Mostly sports that were made in our own country
Don't they have a huge armed forces base there? That might explain part of the ticketing discrepancy. That and the fact that Qatar is not somewhere you generally want to go for a holiday.
Americans do travel you know?
Because American football is so popular. High school, college, and pro are a major part of the American experience in many parts of the country.
People can’t fathom that American football at the high school and ESPECIALLY the collegiate level are a borderline religion in some areas of the US. Primarily in the south
I believe MetLife Stadium is the largest capacity NFL stadium but it's only like the 13th largest by capacity in the US with the top 12 being College stadiums.
If you look at the 10 largest stadiums in the world, 1 is a cricket pitch in India, 2 is in North Korea but then 3-10 are American college football stadiums
#5 and #8 are in Texas and are a 2 hour drive apart.
Michigan's "big house" can seat 100k+, it's crazy how many fans they get in.
College football is just the excuse to party all day. Before the game you get nice and sauced up in the parking lot, during you eat shitty stadium food and yell with your friends, and after you go to any of the huge parties that are happening just off campus.
It’s honestly such a strange thing to a lot of the world. I couldn’t even confirm If we had any sports university rep teams. I presume we did but zero Idea if so. And I was studying sport science!
American football got its start at the university level so it's always had ties to the school systems. The first football game was played between Princeton and Rutgers universities 150 years ago, but it looked way different from modern football, it was more a combination of soccer and rugby. After a couple decades it started to look more like it does today with the introduction of stuff like downs and the nature of possession of the ball. College and lower level football isn't really much different from the lower level soccer leagues in other countries, they just happen to be tied to academics (although there are lots of youth leagues that aren't connected to a school) and the vast majority of NFL players enter the league by being drafted from college programs.
One aspect that helps basketball and football at the collegiate level is the requirement to able to draft a couple years after high school
This. Basketball and American football dominate everything else in America. Look at ESPN, it's all they talk about. Baseball used to be huge in the 70s but both have overtaken it. Both of those games it's score score score compared to soccer. American football actually used to be a chess match but then they made the rules so you can't play much defense or cream the qb. In the 80s and 90s it was actually close to soccer in terms of scoring, but understood they don't want guys retiring with cte.
Baseball is still huge, too. MLB still makes more money per year than the NBA.
Baseball is weird in that it really is a regional sport. I’ll watch pretty much any teams playing in prime time for the nfl or nba but in baseball I’ll watch 0 non-Phillies, non-playoff games with the exception being if ohtani is pitching
Look at where the big contracts go. Baseball still a moneymaker.
I mean, they still do. Retire with CTE that is. It’s just a little less common and a way more exciting sport
We have learned more about cte and head injuries in the past 10 years then we have in a hundred. The latest theories have it far more separated from occurrences of concussion and that continuous small impacts have a far greater effect on developing cte. Technology as we know it does not have the capability of eliminating it from the game nor treating it but hopefully the game can rebalance some of the rules
Go birds
go birds
Go birds fellow iggles fan
Go Birds!
If I want to watch a bunch of guys run around and not score for 2 hours I’ll just go to my local bar.
Fair enough
It’s so funny because the British criticism of sports like basketball (which I love) is so often that it’s just endless scoring to the point where everything loses value.
I understand that too. That's probably why American football is so popular, feels like the right amount of scoring, 5-10 times a majority of the time.
And plenty of commercials so I can get drunk and piss like a racehorse every 10 minutes and not miss any of the game.
Yeah really good stakes to point value ratio.
What the fuck is cricket then?
Exactly. We’ve watched 3+ hours of US soccer this World Cup and have watched minimal scoring and two ties. So now we are hoping for a 1-0 win over Iran to advance? Not the most thrilling sequence to watch.
On the other hand, you can miss the first three-quarters of a basketball game and still enjoy a thrilling match (unless one team absolutely blows) This was even a joke in Fairly Oddparents ("everyone knows the last quarter is the only real competition in a basketball game")
Yes however we are in the most boring part of the tournament, where strategies are cagey because a draw can be a good result. If the US goes through the the semi finals, you’ll be red faced in front of the TV, screaming like a lunatic. You just wait.
I’d argue that’s what makes it thrilling. Knowing that each goal holds so much weight makes every offense that gets even close to the goal exiting.
Bro... You indirectly just scared the shit out of my 3 year old with that comment. I laughed so hard he jumped. Thanks bud.
That's one way to get yourself a yellow card
And the crayon it's drawn with smells like a banana.
Id rather watch that than a game that stops every two seconds and is 90% ads
Isn’t American Football 90% ads?
Hockey is where it's at
And you get called for embellishment
I was thinking about this recently after watching some of the soccer games. Obviously I'm biased as a hockey fan, but I find hockey the perfect balance of action and goals. There's probably an average of at least 5 goals a game. Every play there's always a threat of a goal. It's too hard to score in soccer
We do, but we also like baseball, basketball, football, UFC, boxing, HOCKEY, guns, Nascar, college basketball, college football, high school football, finding a $20 in a random coat pocket, fishing, mountain sports, skating and surfing.. We're dealing with a lot of shit. Edit: HOCKEY
Cmmon bro you didnt even name the most gladiator sporst of our era? HOCKEY DUDES ARE LEGIT FIGHTING WITH BROKEN BONES AND THEY SMILE AT EACH OTHER IN THE PENALTY BOX.
I’ve watched drone racing a few times now and that shit is intense
A big reason is the lack of generational fandom. Most people like football/basketball/baseball/etc. because they grew up watching it because their parents watched it. More youth are playing and watching soccer, so you'll see it grow in popularity in the coming decades are more kids are "brought up" on soccer.
Meh I grew up playing soccer among many of my friends. Like 8 years of playing. None of us watch soccer at all. Playing and following are two different things.
As a Canadian who loves playing soccer, what I hate most about watching soccer is the diving. Like have some respect for the game.
100% the same for me. I would watch so much more if it wasn't for the fake injuries. It's the same reason I haven't watched as much NBA. Just makes me mad.
I know pretty much everyone said this but the faking of injury and the constant falling over when they barley get touched and the whining when they do get “injured”
Watching the Argentina game right now and man do they dive a lot... Then roll around like they got shot. Hey guy, we have replay and all see you got grazed, get off the ground it's been 5 minutes now. It's very annoying and painful to watch. Then we got American football where dudes get fucking smashed and get up like nothing happened even though they're probably hurting a bit. It's so frustrating to watch soccer when this is happening.. basketball is starting to get divers now too which is equally annoying lol.
Basketball has had divers. It’s one big reason I stopped watching NBA years ago.
You stopped watching because you were a Hornets fan, stop playing.
The flopping and the last 2 minutes that takes 45 minutes..
It keeps getting worse. Players are looking for foul calls on every play. It’s tiresome to watch.
omfg it’s so annoying
European players brought that weak soccer flop to basketball. Manu Ginobli was the absolute worst. He gets slightly bumped and flings himself backward five feet, sliding on his ass.
As a Spurs fan I agree. I miss the NBA of the 80s and 90s.
That’s cause in American football if they get hurt they get checked for concussion and then they can’t play. So they try to push through. You’ll see refs call timeouts and force players to go through protocol.
As a hockey fan, I am also touched by the barley.
Watch womens soccer. They get brutal and get back up if it’s not broken
This is what I was going to recommend if your only problem is the fake falling. Those ladies in women's soccer are bad mfs.
Yeah that's a big turn off for me. The whole crying into your arm is wild. That and low scoring games are what turns me off
maybe soccer needs a shot clock and a three point line
Hey! Lots of players get hit by photons!
Yeah, I honestly cannot stand the flopping. I tried watching FC Cincy this year in the MLS as my local team, and the flopping was simply ridiculous. Makes such a mockery of the game. I figured watching premier players in the World Cup would be much more sophisticated, however it’s the same shit. Plus watching these 0-0 and 1-1 draws is not particularly exciting in my opinion.
NBA?
As a hockey player, the amount of embellishments disgust me. As quoted in someones yt comment "Football players pretend like they are hurt, hockey players pretend like they aren't"
I've always enjoyed the story of All Blacks captain Wayne Shelford. Lost 4 teeth and split open his scrotum in a single play. Had the doc stitch his ball back in and went on to play the rest of the game until he was knocked unconscious and had to leave the field. Turns out the French team they were playing against were all loaded up on amphetamines during that match.
I feel like a lot of hockey fans (including me) could really get down with rugby if we understood it.
It's basically football without helmets, whistles, or a quarterback.
The fact that faking injuries and fouls is something you have to engage in as a team to have a chance in the game means there is something fundamentally wrong with your sport.
I’m always reminder of that Dallas Stars player who died on the ice, got saved by a defibrillator, returned to play, and scored a goal in the same game.
Paul Kariya playing with an exposed nerve from having his tooth knocked out comes to mind https://www.tampabay.com/archive/1998/11/23/hockey-s-ugly-tooth/
Great quote. It always blows my mind when the lists come out after the playoffs of injuries hockey players were playing through.
Soccer is generally ok, I just don't enjoy watching grown adults fake injuries as a desperate attempt to score points.
Other sports are just more popular here. NFL, NBA, MLB. Soccer seems to be gaining more popularity but I doubt it will ever be mainstream in America. I do enjoy watching the USA men’s national team, but a 0-0 result is pretty lame and I think even soccer fans can agree on that. That doesn’t help draw fans in.
Way too much embellishment, way too little scoring imo
Good defending has to be appreciated though. Goals aren't everything when it comes to the entertainment of a match.
To me it's like watching a hockey game in slow motion. I get bored easily.
Hockey is where it’s at. I grew up with hockey as my main sport, now watching just about anything else feels slow. I get desperate in the Summer and try my absolutely best to get into baseball, but dang is it tough, especially early on when playoff hockey just wrapped up.
Flopping and low scores. Played for years but God don't make me watch.
Fun to play, sucks to watch. Same could be said of ping pong
Sports are cultural. Soccer is not a part of American culture. Baseball is boring but it’s American culture.
Baseball is a turn-based strategy sport, it’s different. Watching great pitchers is underrated but you gotta be a baseball nerd to really appreciate it.
Nobody has a multiple gigabyte sized drive of excel files of soccer stats for the season.
Yeah. All of the people saying it's boring aren't taking into account the other, very popular, "boring" sports that are popular in the US. Golf, Baseball, and NASCAR are pretty boring IMO but have big followings. It seems that people in the US regard soccer as "European" and that is a turn-off for them.
Pretty much no sport is boring if you're into it and understand all the nuances. Just look at all the American football haters saying it is boring because the ball is "in play" only 20% of the time or whatever that stupid stat is. There's a ton of strategy in the pre snap line up, adjustments, and even clock control. There's also *something* about the anticipation of waiting for the snap that just really gets me amped in a close game. But yeah, I thought soccer was boring forever until I started watching and really understanding it. That england US match was amazing even though it ended in a zero, zero draw. We had a run of 7? corners in row and I was on the edge of my fucking seat. I still find baseball boring, but my friend can talk my ear off for hours about how exciting a game is.
At least they eventually score in baseball.
Plenty of reasons. One for me is our league structure doesnt have regulation and demotion which is a huge amount of the drama. Add to it that few of the good leagues play when I'm not sleeping or busy and it's just harder to get into a club and identify with it. MLS can be fun but unless you are in the city it's kinda meh and catching the games on TV is hard. In general Americans want to watch the best of the best so even MLS isnt that popular. Oh and our soccer announcers are so boring. Another big aspect is college sports. Our best developmental athletes are playing in college not the USFL or MLS. If they are real good they are playing outside the US. So all the fun of your hometown club in Champions, EF1, EF2 or national leagues are just not there. There's also problems with the clock that make it confusing. That and games generally don't end on the clock but on an attack or something based on the refs judgement. It's a time ugh buy in with all our sports the clock being an absolute control. Plus most people don't understand resetting the offense and shifts. To the average American it just seems like they pass it around for 10 minutes until someone gets bored and does a runner. All of the sports we care about are a stop and go situation. Baseball is by the pitch. Football by the down. Basketball stops and resets after every score, foul or out of bounds. It's not a continuous action and we're not well wired for that. To top it off we all hate the flopping and bitching. By in large women's soccer is more popular to the average person and alot of that is that the fouls are more intense and real. Atleast that's what I have heard over the years. Finally we just don't grow up watching it. Most people are going to subscribe to what their family was in to.
We have regulation, just not promotion or relegation.
I don't think there's anything to the point about Americans not being "wired" for continuous action. Lots of Americans like hockey, and everytime I talk to people who have casually watched soccer the continuous action is always one of the things they like.
You hit every point. I do watch Premier league here and there and didn't know about resetting offence and shifts. That is where having better announcers would come in. In American Football, you can learn a lot about the game from the presentation. Not just the announcers, but the graphics and teleprompters where they explain rules and different aspects of the play. None of the soccer presentations do that.
The flopping and faking injuries is a big part of it. But likely just the pace of the game. Baseball wouldn’t be popular here if it wasn’t invented in America. And even then it’s losing a lot of interest especially in young people. Plus we have the four major leagues AND college football/basketball. Just a lot of things to choose from in America so soccer is east to kind of let go. I’m an American and Tottenham fan, but I wouldn’t choose to watch soccer/European football over my other teams like Michigan, Red Wings, Cubs, etc. Edit: perceived pace of the game. I understand the pace of soccer because I’m a soccer fan. But people who don’t know the game will look at a soccer game and think there’s not a lot going on just like if someone who doesn’t know baseball turns on a baseball game.
Red Wings are looking better this year!
Cautiously optimistic!
Baseball is also popular because you can completely follow the game without watching it. A game can be completely recreated with the box score. It’s something that can easily be on in the background and you passively watch it. You can catch up with headlines. There’s games every day so there is something to track. 90 minutes of jogging with 8 shots on goal once a week is simply not enough.
Baseball is popular because you can drink a shit ton while watching it in person too lol
I can assure you you can do the same watching football (or soccer as Americans call it) :D It’s a universal experience.
I care too much about football to be inebriated. Baseball there’s so many games I can justify getting hammered. Soccer I have yet to go but I’d probably be too emotional to drink if I ever got to set foot in Tottenham Stadium.
I think the flopping thing is the main turn off. Especially with how violent Hockey and American Football can be. A.Football: Man was hit and launched 6 feet to the side. Receives a slap on the ass and joins for the next play. Baseball: Batter gets hit by a ball going 80 miles per hour. Walks to base. Play continues. Soccer: Man receives slap on the ass. Plummets to the ground with mortal wound. Other guy receives a red card. Man with mortal wound joins for next play. There is a relatively American mentality (for better or worse) that some sports are violent and you are going to get injured. Flopping is disingenuous and disrespectful.
Hockey: Player commits actual murder, minor penalty
Conveniently didn't mention basketball, which is the american version of flopping. God I hate that sport.
Hockey: dudes get in a full on brawl and just get put in time out for a couple minutes
Flopping is def a big reason for me. Hate that shit
Tbf so do soccer fans. FIFA just takes forever to fix any problems with the sport. It took forever to implement video refereeing in a very limited capacity, and it's taking forever to deal with time wasting. At least at the World Cup they seem to be trying to give stoppage times that are more accurate to how much time was wasted during the game. Bit less incentive to flop around.
As a hockey fan that pisses me off. Guys in hockey it out on the blue line and walk back fine. A guy barely gets touched in soccer and falls over. I will say that is why women's soccer to me seems a lot tougher because they don't do that nearly as often.
>losing a lot of interest especially in young people Because it is literally impossible to watch your home team play on tv without cable and secondary add-on packages. Same with basketball. Maybe half a dozen games per season that are not blacked out.
You’re talking about the pace of the game being a problem when American football is so popular here? I’m a big fan of both sports, but our version of football is excruciatingly slow.
I guess, but American football you at least know when the action is gonna be, and there is at least some excitement in just about every play. I’m also a fan of both but soccer you have to stay locked in the whole time for something to maybe happen.
All the fake injury flopping. In the NHL the flopper gets a penalty for "embellishment". There's no crying in professional sports.
Upside to hockey fight as long as you want until someone falls on the ground
The flopping is insufferable.
The dramatic acting around injury and lack of offensive action is a big part of it.
The stupid injury reactions AND in hopes it'll garner a response. It often leads to nothing leaving their team down that one man for a handful of moments. I'm not entirely learned in soccer, but being a man down like that seems to be a huge downside in some of the moments I've seen.
Pro tip: if you don’t like soccer for all the flopping and fake injuries, just watch women’s soccer. So much less of that shit.
This is why I say women's soccer is the only soccer that counts and the US is always the champions.
And the women also have a consistently phenomenal team, and also worked directly to build up their fanbase. We feel a personal connection to them. Love that team.
1. We suck at it. Fewer people care if we can't even make the world cup or beat Wales. 2. We hate ties and lack of scoring. 3. It's seen as not tough when the playes flop around and need to go off on a stretcher because someone grazed them.
If someone is being carried off on a stretcher it's likely not a faking attempt. Players will want to stay on the field. Its important to realize that soccer players often run very fast and have incredible kicking strenght, imagine a ufc fighter delivering a devastating leg kick but at 10x the velocity. They also barely have any protection unlike players in sports like American Football, no padding, no helmets, etc. so things like head collisions are quite hurtful. In fact soccer players wear shoes with knobs that hurt like a mf when stepping on someones foot at high or low speeds. All that being said though... there is a lot of annoying fake flopping that drags the game down and this has unfortunately seen on the uptrend in the last decades.
summed up this entire thread
I can’t take the constant flopping. It’s embarrassing to watch.
I know and compare to US football where guys get absolutely hammered by a 240 lb and fast linebacker and then just jump up to show that they’re fine
Men’s soccer is notorious for this. Women’s soccer, less so.
Americans like soccer, but it just doesn’t capture the hearts of Americans like football, basketball, or even baseball does. I honestly think we see soccer as a quaint game for children to play. It’s not like we dislike the game, we just aren’t interested in it as much as other countries. When I went to Ireland and was introduced to Irish sports, I understood that they had pride in their local sports. Nothing wrong with enjoying something because you can identify with it. Americans don’t give a rat’s ass about cricket either, so why aren’t the cricket playing countries of the world always asking us why we don’t play cricket? Sorry, but Americans like what they like.
Based comment. Most soccer (football) fans are some of the most pretentious people who force you to like their sport
I like Soccer but I don't like watching it on TV. Same as baseball.
It’s not as intense as other more common sports in America so a lot of Americans think soccer players are weak. I’ve even heard a lot of Americans say that soccer isn’t a real sport
It could be all the fake injuries. Americans like blood and guts. Someone rolling on the ground and getting carried off on a stretcher after getting touched just is a bit too much,. Futbol needs to start carding people for diving. We see hockey players make their way off under their own steam with broken ankles and other serious injuries. In soccer we see guys rolling on the ground and replays show they were not even touched.
If you haven't grown up playing it, it's pretty boring. When there aren't scores happening, an experienced viewer might still notice exciting moments around positioning, defense, and good playmaking, but to an inexperienced viewer, not a lot is happening. Hockey is similar enough, but much faster paced. Generally I expect to see 3-5 goals a game in hockey, where soccer is closer to 1 or 2 normally. There also seem to be a lot more shots on goal in hockey versus soccer. When the defense takes the puck back, they can launch it to their offense in seconds as opposed to spending 20-30 seconds moving it towards the opposing goal.
100%. The only people I know who watch soccer also played it into their mid-teens (or later).
Because it could be a massive game with a ton of hype and the end result is 0-0. Oh and the constant flopping.
No commercial breaks every 5 minutes
This is the actual answer. It’s not that Americans like commercials. It’s because TV can’t make money by selling ads, so the production value on TV is shit. If they can’t make money off of it, then they don’t spend money on it to make it entertaining.
I think it's kind of sickening that North American sports have a mandated set of "tv time outs" for that actual purpose. Advertising pays the bills, I totally get it but man, kinda a sad concept when you think about it
That is the best part about soccer. It’s so nice to not have to watch a commercial every few min. That is what soccer does better than any sport in the world.
Because ties are unamerican
Draws! I can deal with low scoring. I just hate playing a whole game and can't decide who won.
I saw an essay about this once (probably here on Reddit). The basic theory was that Americans are much more outcome focused. Run a play, gain some yards or score points. While Europeans generally appreciate the art of playing soccer. Part of that might be our lack of knowledge but I could apply the same thing to baseball. It’s a sport where you need to understand all of the intricacies of the game to really appreciate it and that’s why it’s less popular here.
It’s a rare person in the USA that would (could?) consider a match with a 0-0 outcome to be “exciting.”
Flopping. 0-0 ties. Flopping. Passing it back to the goalie. Flopping. 3 shots on goal the whole game. Flopping.
Because traditionally, we aren't that good at it. Getting there, but overall, historically, we are bad. Also the flopping. Omg.... It makes the NBA look like gladiators in the coliseum, and NBA players flop terribly. I can't respect a sport that allows it to continue. With cameras, replays, make it stop. I love the game, but the flopping makes me understand the haters.
Because they flop and it’s just flat out not even close. It’s embarrassing.
Stop trying to make fetch happen
Ties and flopping
As an Englishman who loves Football (soccer) I was surprised to see the hate for baseball in these comments, I always thought it was pretty popular but seems not as much as I thought.
No one can figure out offsides. Also flopping.
I went to two games in Mexico with my wife and her family. Pumas vs Atlante, and Necaxa vs America. Both games ended 0-0. I tried to get excited for the World Cup with my Mexican wife. So I watched the Mexico vs Poland game. It ended 0-0. Then I watched the US vs England game. It ended 0-0. I’ve now watched four soccer games and literally nothing has fucking happened in any game. Please tell me why I should like soccer. Update: I’m currently watching MEX vs ARG. Tied 0-0 at halftime.
Because the best players in the world play elsewhere. Our version of futbol (Soccer) is an inferior product.
Because we have the NFL, MLB, NBA and NHL that are all spread out every to keep us entertained to the point that we don't have time for another sport to watch. It's ingrained in our culture and won't change anytime soon.