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Twenty years after the United States hosted a World Cup and Major League Soccer made it’s debut, professional soccer remains an extremely marginal product in the marketplace of U.S. spectator sports.
There are many obstacles to soccer becoming substantially more prominent. However, I believe most of them can be overcome, and the key is better marketing.
Let’s begin with a quick rundown of perceived major obstacles to soccer becoming more popular in the United States.
- The U.S. marketplace for spectator sports is already saturated
- Soccer is low scoring and Americans hate low scoring sports
- Most Americans don’t really understand soccer
- Most Americans won’t embrace soccer because they perceive it as “foreign”
After briefly assessing each of these obstacle to soccer’s popularity in the United States, I will make a case that they can all be overcome, and that in many instances, the key is better marketing to American consumers.
1. The U.S. Marketplace for Spectator Sports Is Already Saturated
This is a very real obstacle to professional soccer becoming more popular in the United States. However, it can be overcome, as recent history shows.
Soccer labors in the shadow of what are effectively the NFL, MLB, NBA, NHL, as well as two other professional football and basketball leagues masquerading as “college amateur” athletics: NCAA football and basketball. There’s also professional golf and tennis. Add special events like the biennial Olympics, and the marketplace for spectator sports in the United States seems saturated; it’s difficult to imagine carving out more space in an American sports calendar is fairly well full.
But recent history suggests it is possible. First, the advent of cable TV and the internet has greatly expanded the U.S. marketplace for spectator sports during the last quarter-century, which helps to explain why it’s so large to begin with. Americans consume far more spectator sports than they did in the 1980s.
Furthermore, it is important to remember that, like any market, the American spectator sports marketplace is dynamic. It changes over time. Products rise and fall. Older products falter and new products displace them. Football eclipsed baseball during the 1970s and 1980s. New products can also break through, as attested to by the more recent success of NASCAR and MMA. Meanwhile, horse racing and boxing have been diminishing as popular spectator sports for years now.
Yes, the U.S. marketplace is crowded. But, with its small foothold already established, professional soccer can grow. But as we will see, in order to do so it will need better marketing.
2. Soccer Is Low Scoring and Americans Hate Low Scoring Sports
Although a widely accepted truism, I think this is a phantom obstacle for the most part. This bit of folksy, conventional wisdom is based on an ahistorical understanding, and I flatly reject the notion that Americans won’t embrace soccer because it’s a low scoring game. For fuck sake, millions of Americans watch golf. And auto racing. And fishing. There are people in this country who watch fishing!
And lest we forget, football and baseball were both relatively low scoring during the the late 20th century. From the mid-1960s to the early 1980s, baseball was a fairly low scoring game, dominated by pitching and defense. And from the late 1960s to the early 1970s, American football was also a 
relatively low scoring affair; if you counted a TD as 1, the typical NFL game back then was something like 3-1 with a few disappointing field goals added in for good measure.
Scoring has increased in all American sports since then, but it wasn’t the consequence of some natural, Darwinian process. Rather, it is actually the result of marketing. All four U.S. professional sports leagues have changed numerous rules, tinkering with the games to heighten scoring.
Americans have enjoyed low-scoring sports before. They can do so again. There is nothing inherent in the “American character” that demands high scoring in spectator sports. It’s a marketing contrivance that can be countered with better marketing for soccer.
3. Most Americans Don’t Really Understand Soccer
This is absolutely true. It is a very real obstacle, but one that can be addressed through, you guessed it, marketing. After all, what is marketing other than the delivery of a preferred, well-crafted message?
4. Most Americans Won’t Embrace Soccer Because They Perceive it as “Foreign”
This unfairly panders to stereotypes of American xenophobia while also actually getting at the real heart of the issue.
No one other than screeching racists like Anne Coulter cares that they didn’t invent soccer. Americans embrace cultural products from other cultures like food, music, and fashion all the time. They take it and make it their own, as does any ethnic group that is importing a cultural product.
Rather, the main obstacle to the soccer’s popularity is that most Americans do not perceive it see it as an American sport. The still see it as something decidedly foreign, and that’s a marketing problem.
Think of pajamas. And Chinese food. Or Arnold Schwarzenegger. They’re all from somewhere else. But Americans took that clothing, food, and freakish Austrian, and embraced all of them as their own. They can do the same with soccer, but it requires better marketing.
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The marketing of soccer in America has always been tepid at best. Aside from the World Cup, it has a relatively minuscule presence in advertising and other marketing schema. Word of mouth has been very slow to grow an audience lo these past several decades. There is a small, loyal audience of American soccer fans, but that’s it. More aggressive marketing would help.
But more than marketing aggressively, soccer needs to be marketed smartly. And I dare say, the marketing of soccer as a cultural product to Americans has usually been, and continues to be, astoundingly inept. As in, you probably couldn’t do a worse job.
As a cultural product, soccer can’t be marketed the same way among different ethnic groups and nations. For a cultural product to tran
slate across cultural boundaries, it needs to be flexible. Cultural products need, at least to some degree, to reflect local concerns and interests if they are going to be successful on a large scale. Cultural products must be marketed in ways that appeal to local populations, instead of a rigid one size fits all marketing that is likely to constrict its appeal.
Yet soccer has been and is continues to be marketed in America as a foreign cultural product, usually a British one specifically. Just look at the current World Cup.
ESPN and ABC are broadcasting all of the games in the United States. Yet they can’t even be bothered to hire American play-by-play announcers most of the time, or American color commentators in many cases. Many of the studio analysts are from elsewhere, as is at least one of the studio hosts.
I’m not being xenophobic. Rather, I’m talking about marketing a cultural product to Americans.
Most Americans still see soccer as a foreign sport. But it needs to be presented to the American audience, and accepted by them, as an “American” sport if it is going to have greater success.
In and of itself, there’s nothing wrong with using British announcers for games, of course. Maybe British and other foreign national announcers and commentators are the best in the business. But good marketing doesn’t call for the best announcers. Rather, it requires the best sales people.
The accents, some of them quite thick, are very difficult for many Americans to understand. Meanwhile, foreign idioms, like announcing the temperature in celsius instead of fahrenheit, just serve to subtly alienate most Americans. The issue isn’t whether or not Americans should learn celsius; it’s about appealing to the marketplace.
Furthermore, media need to take the lead on educating American audiences about the workings of soccer. Most Americans really don’t understand the sport. Something as basic as the game clock counting up instead of down can be jarring. And most Americans are in an utter fog about more complex issues like the offsides rule.
But the media currently often talk over their audience’s head. In fairness to foreign announcers, it’s hard for them to realize what he average American understands.
But all of this begs the question: Are there not any qualified American announcers who sound like they’re from Nebraska? I don’t know. If there are, use them. If not, develop them. Christ, how many tens of millions are ABC and ESPN spending on this tournament?
Actually, about $50 million to broadcast it. And Fox will pay a combined $425 million for the U.S. rights to the 2018 and 2022 World Cups.
With that kind of money on the line, spend a little more and develop some announcers if you need to.
But enlarging soccer’s U.S. market share through increased accessibility goes beyond the use of British announcers. The media should also stop using British sports jargon.
Nearly all American soccer announcers and commentators use Brit-speak to discuss soccer. This builds a wall between themselves and their potential audience by continuing to define soccer as a foreign cultural product instead of an American one.
Say “field” instead of “pitch.” “Zero” or “nothing” instead of “nil.” “Speed” instead of “pace.” “Clete” instead of “boot,” and so forth.
American culture has a very established sports vocabulary. When the mass media start using it, soccer will become more accessible to the American audience. Imposing foreign jargon just maintains barriers. It’s not about right or wrong. There’s nothing “wrong” with calling the playing surface a “pitch” instead of a “field.” It’s just god-awful marketing.
Taken together, what does all this mean? That the American media generally, and ESPN and ABC in particular, have been going about it all wrong, quite frankly. They’ve marketed soccer to potential American audiences as a fairly impenetrable and very foreign product.
Another way good marketing can help “Americanize” soccer is on the issue of diving. Players blatantly faking injuries, and the crybaby histrionics that often ensue, are a real turnoff to most American consumers of spectator sports.
Most Americans want their athletes to be tough, hard sonsabitches. American sports are macho. We admire players who play through injuries and don’t complain.
So faking injuries, much less rolling around like a fucking four year old, is a big problem for many Americans. But this too can be overcome with smart marketing, particularly in the MLS.
The MLS should make a concerted effort to market their players as macho. As strong men who play through pain and overcome obstacles. This is exactly the kind of thing that resonates deeply with the American audience.
For example, consider the recent marketing opportunity offered by Clint Dempsey’s broken nose and black eye, sustained in the United States’ opening game against Ghana. That’s exactly the kind of thing the American media should be playing up. Mix in Dempsey’s quietly menacing demeanor, and you’ve got a natural tough guy Americans will admire.
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On the one hand, there is no question that slowly but surely, soccer is gaining some popularity here in the States. The recent nail biter between the U.S. and Portugal was the highest rated soccer game in American television history, eking past the Spain-Netherlands World Cup final of fours years ago. No doubt, airing on Sunday evening helped.
But then again, those numbers barely exceed the ratings for a generic, mid-season Sunday night NFL game. And the rest of the World Cup games are nowhere near those numbers.
Soccer is still also the butt of complaints and jokes by Americans in a way that established sports are not, a sign that it has not been fully accepted yet.
For Americans, soccer in the form of the World Cup, is now a global athletic spectacle, nearing the Olympics in popularity. Millions will indeed rally around the U.S. team so long has it has success on the international stage.
But after that, most will quickly return to utterly ignoring soccer as a spectator sport. The vast majority of American sports consumers still have little or no interest in soccer beyond the quadrennial spectacle. If that is to change, improved marketing of soccer as a cultural product will be the key.