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Hello all,
It is with great disappointment to announce I do not have a proper newsletter to deliver to you this month. When I sought out to write this article, I bit off way more than I could chew. As a result, my research was faulty and out of line with widely accepted research on the topic.
Ideas come in many forms– good or bad, but they say that your first idea is your worst. I have never felt something so strongly when investigating these long articles. When I began research on this month’s newsletter, I initially wanted to write how globalization has changed international soccer leagues– specifically how Americans have impacted the sport.
What I found was the curious case as to why it took so long for soccer to become a major sport in the United States. Despite our resources, history, and love for sport, soccer still fails to garner national attention like basketball, baseball, or American football. But why?
That is where I fell short. I didn’t realize just how much went into one single question. It was unfair to deliver that article to you, since it would be riddled with mistakes and incorrect assumptions. Instead, I give you a shortened and hopefully less wrong version of why I think soccer is not a major sport in the United States. Going forward, I hope to make my topics more specific so that research is more condensed and easier for me.
Our past relationship with soccer in the United States
To understand why soccer is not a major sport in the U.S., we have to understand why soccer is a global sport. In short, it brings three continents together – Europe, South America, and Africa – through a single art form. Many countries in these three continents all compete in soccer at the international level and participate in the World Cup as a fierce contender. On top of that, there is no presence of another team sport that has the history, cultural ties, and money pouring into leagues like soccer does. It is just soccer.
In the United States, soccer competes with three culturally important American sports: basketball, baseball, and American football for the attention of American sports fans. While the big three have leagues that exist outside the United States, they are not at the same level. The same way in which MLS exists in the U.S., but it is not nearly at the elite level as the Premier League, La Liga (Spain), or Ligue 1 (France).
I’ll get to this concept a bit later, but I wanted to bring forward an interesting article I recently read that emphasizes why soccer isn’t culturally significant in the United States. According to Ricard Jensen in his 2016 literature review “Soccer Fans’ Motivations, Attitudes, and Behavioral Intentions across Ethnicity and Gender Lines,” Jensen states that Caucasians in the United States have been hesitant to participate in soccer as they “have been socialized to place a greater value on traditional American sport.” This is one I think drives the American mind when it comes to choosing a sport to participate in, either by playing, watching, or being a loyal and devoted fan. Jensen states that Hispanic Americans and immigrants have different feelings toward American soccer.
Although this is a modern review, there could be some similarity with historical perception of soccer. However, that is not the only reason soccer failed to develop as a national sport. The Great Depression, wars, and a lack of infrastructure in leagues added to its demise.
This is where some of my research failed. The history is too comprehensive and I didn’t have the correct resources and understanding of it to deliver to you. That being said, if you’d like to know more about the history of soccer in the United States, I highly recommend you visit the Society for American Soccer History.
Our Current Relationship with Soccer: Winning and Major League Soccer
What is our current relationship with soccer? It’s hard to tell.
From my experience, Americans aren’t generally soccer fans. If they are, they are usually fans of European or South American league teams, or national teams.
While Major League Soccer claims that it’s the second most attended league in the world, right behind the Premier League, it’s important to note that we boast a seven times greater population than those we precede on the list. MLS also saw a 47% drop in broadcast audience for the final match between NY Red Bull and LA Galaxy. You can’t make a conclusion based on one number.
That being said, soccer in the United States has never been more popular than it is now. The amount of money, attendance, and attention toward MLS is growing each year, especially with the addition of Designated Players on the field, which we’ll talk about later. Despite soccer’s current popularity, stereotypes, generalizations, and associations with those who play the game are still very real. It’s not uncommon to hear that soccer is an ‘unmanly’ game, that players are ‘performers’ and that it is a ‘feminine sport.’
In the world of American soccer, there are two types of fans; a soccer fan and a non-soccer fan. The soccer fan perhaps dismisses the MLS for not being ‘real soccer’ or has a strong loyalty toward teams they support in the Premier League or other European leagues. The non-soccer fan dismisses soccer for being too boring, too slow, low scoring, or not a real sport.
But between the two, we can see a common theme, a distaste for MLS or lack of interest in American soccer.
Much of American identity is rooted in how successful the country is in terms of politics, geographical size, and culture (sport). The United States is good at sports. At the Olympics, the U.S. always finds itself winning either gold, silver, or bronze in many team sports like basketball, rugby, and golf.
On the other hand, when it comes to the FIFA World Cup, Americans do not expect to win and perhaps that is where some of the disconnect between fans and teams lies. Fans from France, Argentina, or the Netherlands all have some expectation for their national team to go far in the tournament. In soccer, the United States has never been at that level.
In a conversation with Professor Brenda Elsey, a professor of history at Hofstra University, she emphasized that Americans do not like losing and are not used to it. Because of that, fans’ interest in games where teams are not expected to go far is low. It is correct to say that more Americans are watching the FIFA World Cup and participating in soccer, however, the constant disappointment is enough to discourage fans from getting too close to a team or learning enough about the players to be emotionally committed to the game like they are with other sports. At the international level, we either win or lose. If we lose, (poorly, that is) fans do not feel the need to become interested in the sport. While Argentina, France, and the Netherlands might not win all the time, they still have won enough to feel comfortable with their relationship with soccer. Americans, not so much.
You might be thinking to yourself, well, Julliana, there are a ton of loyal fans for really bad MLB, NFL, and NBA teams. Well, you’re right. But I think our already weak relationship with soccer doesn’t help the fact that we do not like to lose.
In the same article, Jensen states that Hispanics might enjoy soccer and be passionate about their team because the team’s success reflects positively on the ethnic group as a whole. I’d say that the same logic could be applied to Americans and a reason why Americans do not participate in soccer. The lack of a strong team represents poorly and sometimes it is better not to get involved to prevent embarrassment.
Professor Elsey also mentioned that U.S. professional leagues are based on intercity and interstate rivalries– i.e. Boston versus New York and San Fran versus Los Angeles. While the NBA and MLB do have teams based in Toronto, that is the extent of their outside-of-the-USA leagues. This limited international competition results in Americans always being the underdogs, which Americans do not feel comfortable with.
According to a 2013 article titled “Sport Sponsorship: The Relationship Between Team Loyalty, Sponsorship Awareness, Attitude Toward the Sponsor, and Purchase Intentions” Biscaia et al. found that certain things such as success of a club, team history, atmosphere of the stadium, and even the loyalty of other fans (although one of the lower scoring factors) are all important factors that decide whether or not to participate in a fandom. In the case of the USMNT, these are all reasons why Americans do not participate in the league. The success of the team is low, team history is weak, the atmosphere is ok, but not exhilarating, and fans are not long standing.
Major League Soccer and Designated Players
Major League Soccer is the United States’ highest performing soccer league. As mentioned, in 2024, it surpassed legacy leagues such as La Liga in Spain and the Bundesliga in Germany in attendance.
I believe one of the reasons for this was Messi’s appearance at the game. The use of ‘star power’ – athletes with global recognition certainly brings more attention to the league. However, I think that the lack of American star athletes in the MLS is creating a disconnect for long lasting MLS and USMNT fans.
In 2007, David Beckham was the first Designated Player to play for LA Galaxy. The star was paid a whopping $8 million (counted for inflation) while his teammates were paid anywhere from $12,000 to $1 million. Fast forward 18 years later, Lionel Messi is another famous Designated Player playing on Inter Miami who pays him $12 million for the 2025 season. While his Spanish teammates and co-Designated Players Jordi Alba and Sergio Busquets, have had success on the field, Alba is being paid $1.25 million. Busquets’s 2025 salary has not been revealed, but in the 2024 season he was paid $8.5 million. The Designated Player Rule allows teams to have a max of three players outside MLS salary cap with the intention of bringing success and more attention to the league.
Designated Players do not have to be international, however, all but three in the 2025 season are from abroad. In all honesty, this is three more than I expected. I am pleasantly surprised, but not satisfied with the result. One can argue that the lack of elite American players in MLS creates a chain of events. Because there are not any elite American players, American fans cannot relate and do not have any interest in them. Resulting in a lack of USMNT players that American fans know come time for the World Cup.
But do American fans want or need to see an elite American player on the field? – you might ask yourself.
Yes, perhaps they do not realize this consciously, but subconsciously and for the growth of the game in the United States, it is an important factor.
In our conversation, Professor Elsey also added that American star player Christian Pulisic is not playing in MLS. What does that say about the quality of the American league that the most famous American player is not playing on his home turf? He could likely have anything he wants, play as much as he wants, or go anywhere he wants, yet he is playing abroad.
The Future of Soccer in the United States: 2026 FIFA World Cup
With the FIFA World Cup coming to the United States, Mexico, and Canada in 2026, it is interesting to think about how American fans will react to the spectacle. The FIFA organization is not doing much to market to American fans, not that it needs to. Most of the responsibility lies in the USMNT to realize that this is a great way to get a new set of American fans interested in the sport and commit to American soccer, American players, and MLS.
The goal moving forward is all about exposure. To grow the game, the USMNT and MLS need to prove elite American players exist in American leagues. As soon as American players go abroad, American fans who are already not interested in soccer will also lose interest with the player because they do not care to follow them in a league and sport they do not know.
To grow the game in the states, you have to give the fans something to care about. It might come to your surprise if I say that it has very little to do with being good, but showing that players are at least passionate about winning. Nationalistic pride is important when it comes to the World Cup and judging from the Four Nations game, we can see that the pride comes easy to American fans. However, the growth of the game is reliant on how the USMNT will market this experience to American fans– they should devote their time to cultivating a strong and loyal fan base by setting up a story for the men’s team, something that will give American fans a reason to care.