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Will "Soccer Mom" help win the next World Cup for the United States?

by garyv
8 replies
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Just a curious observation. But the phrase "soccer mom" will be about 20 years old at the time of the next World Cup. Putting those kids right at the prime soccer playing age. The phrase became popular right after the 1994 WorldCup that was held in the United States.

And for those that don't believe in the popularity of soccer (football) here in the UnitedStates, do you realize that the United States still holds the record for the highest attended FIFA World Cup? Average attendance was nearly 69,000, which broke records that had stood since 1950, due to the bigger capacities of the American stadiums compared to those of Europe and Latin America. The total attendance for the final tournament of nearly 3.6 million remains the highest in World Cup history. Just an FYI

But what do you think? Will Soccer Mom save the World Cup for the USA?
  • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
    Originally Posted by garyv View Post

    And for those that don't believe in the popularity of soccer (football) here in the UnitedStates, do you realize that the United States still holds the record for the highest attended FIFA World Cup? Average attendance was nearly 69,000, which broke records that had stood since 1950, due to the bigger capacities of the American stadiums compared to those of Europe and Latin America. The total attendance for the final tournament of nearly 3.6 million remains the highest in World Cup history. Just an FYI
    Emphasis added.

    Due to the statement in bold, I don't really think you've demonstrated true popularity. If European and Latin American stadiums had larger seating capacities, would the U.S. still hold the record?
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    • Profile picture of the author garyv
      Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

      Emphasis added.

      Due to the statement in bold, I don't really think you've demonstrated true popularity. If European and Latin American stadiums had larger seating capacities, would the U.S. still hold the record?
      That is true, but if soccer was as unpopular in the United States as some claim. Then you'd not be able to produce those numbers. Even with a large stadium. You still have to have people. They weren't just counting the number of seats.
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      • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
        Originally Posted by garyv View Post

        That is true, but if soccer was as unpopular in the United States as some claim. Then you'd not be able to produce those numbers. Even with a large stadium. You still have to have people. They weren't just counting the number of seats.
        The U.S. population in 1994 was about 262 million.

        The final tournament was attended by 3.6 million people.

        3.6 million is 1.4% of the total population. Let's say that 15% of the population was interested in soccer. That'd be 39.3 million people. If only 9% of them attended the games, there's your 3.6 million people.

        So, popularity could be low, yet you could still fill stadia.
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  • Profile picture of the author Kenster
    People forget that US soccer is awesome. Almost every nation on the planet plays soccer, many of which soccer is the number one sport. In the US, its not even one of the top sports and we still rank in the world...thats impressive.

    People live and die soccer in third world nations and thats why they can produce great results. Ghana just beat US and it was a perfectly fair match.

    Just because we aren't number 1 in the world doesnt make our status not impressing. We are good. Round of 16 is a great achievement.


    my 2 cents
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  • Profile picture of the author garyv
    Just to put this into perspective. That 69,000 average attendance is about as high as our highest year in NFL average attendance. The NFL is our most popular sport. While soccer is no where near as popular as the NFL - it's definitely not as un-popular as some say it is.

    By the way, soccer (football) is supposed to be hugely popular in Africa, but have you seen some of the empty stadiums at those games? Of course we've only noticed the huge numbers of horns blaring. But there have actually been some noticeably sparse crowds in some of those games.
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    • Profile picture of the author Dan C. Rinnert
      Originally Posted by garyv View Post

      Just to put this into perspective. That 69,000 average attendance is about as high as our highest year in NFL average attendance. The NFL is our most popular sport. While soccer is no where near as popular as the NFL - it's definitely not as un-popular as some say it is.
      It was also the first World Cup held in the United States. For the average soccer fan in the U.S., that would/could have been a once in a lifetime event. So, they'd be more inclined to go. It was a BIG DEAL if you were a soccer fan.

      With NFL football, you can go any time, basically. There's not as large a draw there. Even if you want to factor in the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl happens pretty much every year in the U.S. The 1994 World Cup was the first time the World Cup was held in the U.S. in 64 years.
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      • Profile picture of the author garyv
        Originally Posted by Dan C. Rinnert View Post

        It was also the first World Cup held in the United States. For the average soccer fan in the U.S., that would/could have been a once in a lifetime event. So, they'd be more inclined to go. It was a BIG DEAL if you were a soccer fan.

        With NFL football, you can go any time, basically. There's not as large a draw there. Even if you want to factor in the Super Bowl, the Super Bowl happens pretty much every year in the U.S. The 1994 World Cup was the first time the World Cup was held in the U.S. in 64 years.
        Never the less, if it were unpopular it wouldn't bring in the numbers. Let's see you bring those kind of numbers to a world cup ping-pong tournament.

        Plus the World Cup is pretty much a once or twice in a lifetime event no matter where it goes. So explain how attendance elsewhere has never been as high as it has here. Because if you're trying to make the argument that it's not popular here, then you couldn't exclude the popularity of the sport everywhere else on the planet from your argument. Because the fact still remains that we hold the record for attendance.
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  • Profile picture of the author TLTheLiberator
    Soccer is catching on and within the next 3 or 4 world cups we will win one of them.


    TL
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    "It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled. -- Mark Twain

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