https://twitter.com/#!/courtemancheMLS/status/175989170953658368/photo/1 Pro soccer is now the 2nd most popular sport in this country in the 12-24 demographic. Even MLS has gotten quite a bit more popular over the last 10 years. What happens 10 years from now when that 12-24 demographic becomes the new 24-34 demographic? MLS will take off like a rocket, as i have been predicting.
I'm trying to figure out what's going on with the dip in popularity in 2009. You'd think 3 years of world cup deprivation would have caused it, but it doesn't seem to be a trend in previous years.
I'm curious about the authenticity of this poll. How did they survey these teens? Did they go to schools and gave them a multiple choice questions to fill-up?
They probably used the internet. However, the illiteracy rate amongst people that watch other sports could have skewed the numbers a bit.
I think they did it by phone. Someone gave a link to the source of the poll and it was through Luker on Trends. This is from their website: I found it on this thread: http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showpost.php?p=25265038&postcount=47
I'm not sure about taking off like a rocket, continued growth I can envision. Anti Soccer rhetoric is often upfront and obnoxious, just read any comments section after a Soccer article on Yahoo, but there are also subtle anti Soccer jabs that wear the less than die-hards down and so it will our current teens to a certain extent. Plus you have all the parental brainwashing. I remember when one of my boys was on an all-star baseball team at 9 years old, a boy was saying to him, "my dad says Soccer is boring and it sucks". The fact that they don't show Soccer highlights for MLS teams on the local news along with most other media's ignoring of Soccer, hurts the sport in the general publics eye. They will not think it's a legitimate sport if it's not on the news, regardless of all the "third world countries" loving the game. Even the use of "Futbol" instead of Football, is a way of saying it's not American and another jab at the sport. Soccer was jabbed at in the Simpsons, King of the Hill, Two and a half men, just a few of the ones I have seen, can't imagine how many I haven't. I have never seen jabs at American Football(other than portraying Football players as stupid), Baseball, Basketball or Hockey. There are still many hurdles for Soccer. I think Lacrosse even has fewer hurdles than Soccer does.
Whatever. That's those shows' loss. As for that Simpsons ep, wasn't that from a couple decades back? I'm fairly certain that ep was not made in the 2000s.
Didn't the Simpsons suggest that soccer was the future of American sports recently? I guess that shows how the times are changing. I think in the next 25 years, soccer has a chance to overtake Baseball. I wouldn't bet on anything else though.
uhh...so? Even if it was .6% behind the NBA, that would still be very high. That said, I have serious doubts about the results of this poll. Personally I'd rather have H1N1 than "bracket fever", but I realize I'm in the minority. You don't have to conduct a poll to realize that NCAA basketball is far more popular among young adults and teenagers in this country than soccer. But the poll shows soccer being 3 times more popular? Not buying it.
If that's true, then that would be a rarity among American tv shows, to have an episode where they mock the sport to its core, only to call it implicitly the future in a later TV season. Again, I'm sure a die-hard Simpsons fan on the board can elaborate if they've seen that recent ep better than I.
Ok, taking off like a rocket may be a bit optomistic but I wouldn't call you dillusional either. The big thing is this generation will be the first to grow up with pro soccer in the US. To them it's something that's always existed not some new sport that may not last. It is this 3 generation of fans (I'd count myself in the 2nd gen) that has the chance to move soccer out of the niche sport category and into the realms of the big 4.
In order for soccer to get bigger here, the quality of the mls needs to increase. I'm not saying its a bad league, but its just a league that many american soccer fans blow off.
What is this nationwide boycott you speak of? I must not have the same internet with the same information that you do.
