In 2022, the United States will be competing at their eleventh men’s World Cup.
They have never advanced beyond the quarter-finals, but USMNT players are increasingly
making an impact in European football. The US women’s national team is a four-time
world champion and four-time Olympic gold winners, and has consistently featured not
only some of the finest players in the world, but also athletes who transcend the sport itself.
So, what does this all mean for soccer in the US – how big has it become?
Now, we’re not asking how big MLS has become in the US, because that’s a different question.
We’re concerned with the popularity of the sport as a whole, rather than the
growth of the domestic league. And the numbers are encouraging:
football is the quickest growing team sport in the United States. According to a poll conducted
by Gallup, in 2019 in comparison to 2012, 52% more US adults considered themselves soccer fans,
versus the 47% increase in ice hockey, 27% for basketball, just 8% for baseball,
and negative -7% for American Football. Participation has grown significantly also.
According to the same Gallup poll, between 2002 and 2019, high school participation
in soccer grew by 32%, far ahead of baseball (6%), ice hockey (7%), basketball (-6%) and
American Football (-2%). In terms of viewership and preference,
soccer still lags behind the three traditional US powerhouses – and by some distance. Around 37% of
Americans describe American Football as their favourite sport, 11% prefer basketball and 9%
say baseball. Just 7% described soccer as their favourite sport, only enough for fourth place.
Interestingly though – although perhaps not surprisingly – when adjusted to include only
America’s Hispanic population, that number rises significantly. 57% of Hispanics polled
described themselves as soccer fans, and 59% claimed to be fans of American football,
making the two sports a close first and second. The Hispanic population is also by far the US’s
fastest growing. In fact, according to work conducted by the Pew Research Centre,
it reached 62.1m in 2020, which represented growth of 23% across the previous decade
and was significantly more than the US’s 7% of total population growth during the same period.
But there are other factors at play in the game’s growing popularity. According to The
Athletic’s Paul Tenorio, accessibility to games and leagues has been a major factor:
“we can turn on the television on a Saturday morning and watch games from
the Premier League, the Bundesliga and LaLiga.” Unlike fans based in the UK who are subject to
the 3pm Saturday blackout law, American viewers also have a choice of every Premier League game
each weekend. They can watch what they want, rather than simply what’s been scheduled.
It’s very different to the US television landscape of the 1990s.
Paul was a big Francesco Totti fan during his teens and he remembers having to buy individual
Roma games on PPV for $30 a time. He also recalls having to learn about the Premier League through
year-end VHS tape reviews, rather than via the live coverage that the current and next
generation of US soccer fans experience today. The quality of that coverage matters too,
as does the publicity supporting it. When it was announced that NBC had spent €250m over
three years on acquiring the Premier League rights beginning in 2013, part of the marketing for the
deal involved a vast billboard of Gareth Bale in New York’s Time Square. The most
recent renegotiation of that contract, which was announced in late 2021, saw NBC commit to paying
$2bn over six years for the Premier League, which helps quantify the growing interest.
During the 2021-22 season, NBC announced that – across all platforms – it was averaging 507,000
viewers per Premier League match. For context, in the UK and according to Nielsen Research, matches
shown on Sky Sports during the 2019-20 season – prior to the pandemic – averaged 1.9m viewers.
The game also enjoys some advantages over other American sports, which helps partially explain
its growing popularity with younger people. In research published by Morning Consult,
47% of Generation Z respondents to a survey – i.e. those born after 1997 - identified as soccer fans,
higher than all other sports with the exception of American football.
One reason for that might be that, while baseball and American football games often vary in length,
a football game – with its continuous clock – will only last for 90 minutes.
That suits a generation for whom there’s much more choice within entertainment and
perhaps are willing to give up less of their day to either watch sport.
FIFA matters too – the video game, as opposed to the governing body! The EA Sports title is
typically second only to the Madden NFL Series in units sold in the USA. It provides an important
gateway to the sport, and initial contact with teams many thousands of miles away.
Together, all the factors present an encouraging picture. Soccer is nowhere close to challenging
the dominant US sports and, most likely, it won’t do any time soon, but its growth
potential and the extension of trends it continues to benefit from should only see
its popularity accelerate ahead of the 2026 World Cup, which it will host with Canada and Mexico.