Comments on: Why Soccer Won't Succeed in the US

By: Dave Kellogg

Dave Kellogg — Sat, 22 Mar 2008 02:33:00 +0000

I’m keenly aware that kids today play soccer seemingly more than any other sport, and that the tradition of playing football, basketball, baseball as the “standard 3″ has long since past.But I have two comments: (1) as kids get into high school they seem to play soccer less; many seem to switch to the classics, and (2) far more important to my argument — how much soccer do they WATCH either live or on TV and how many ads is that exposing them too.By succeed, I mean commercial success and that means advertising.

By: coreopsis2

coreopsis2 — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:13:00 +0000

Soccer will prevail in the US in the mass market BECAUSE generations of real ordinary citizens young, old, students, professionals, career athletes, weekend strikers, goalies forwards are all playing and love to play this sport. No one is watching BECAUSE the people are PLAYING. Enjoy your “chaise en Francaise” fat bum!

By: Dave Kellogg

Dave Kellogg — Fri, 30 Jun 2006 14:45:00 +0000

Hi Nick,I guess success to me meant “become a major sport.” The great irony of soccer in the USA is that I believe it has become the #1 children’s sport (all my kids play it), but there is no real successful, high-quality soccer league in the USA to watch as a spectator. Success, for my purposes I suppose = commercial success.For example, in Silicon Valley we had the San Jose Earthquakes, who played in a sub-sized, dilapidated stadium. They won the MLS championship, and no one seemed to notice. I think a typical player makes $80K/year. They have since gone to Houson. The MLS is like triple-A baseball. The great players are either on their way down from Europe or hope to move there on their way up. But like triple-A no one, per se, wants to be there. I totally agree with your point that the more you change the game to Americanize it, the more you would alienate the traditional European / Latin American fan base. Hence, I don’t think those changes will happen.

By: Nick Patience

Nick Patience — Thu, 29 Jun 2006 15:03:00 +0000

Dave – I think it depends on how you define succeed? Will it ever displace baseball, basketball or ‘football’ ;)? I doubt it. But will it displace hockey in some parts of the country? Quite possibly. On the advertising question, it’s always a strange one, because the rest of the world manages to televise the game and make enormous profits from it. Murdoch’s Sky TV in the UK lives (or dies) based on its ownership of the rights to the Premier League. And now they have such things at European grounds as the electronic video-based advertising boards around the ground, that change through the game (and are very annoying from the spectator’s point of view, which no doubt makes them attractive to advertisers). Plus they sell large shirt sponsorhip deals, e.g. Man Utd’s deal with AIG that gets the club £56.5m over four years. The sport will probably move to thhings like RFID chips in balls eventually, but the inexactness of the sport is part of its appeal, I would argue. Hey the pitches aren’t all even the same size! If it gets highly regimented with all variables extinguihsed in the name of efficiency, it might appeal more to the US market, but I think the European market (the only other one I could claim to know about) might start to lose interest.

By: Humour and last laugh

Humour and last laugh — Wed, 28 Jun 2006 02:07:00 +0000

interesting blog. Who are your favorites for the cup?