News: Recent polls and stats on soccer popularity in the USA

Manchester United vs. Real Madrid, a friendly no less, drew 109,000 people in Michigan, breaking the record for soccer attendance in the United States.

You guys should see the vitriol in the Comments section after the news... The soccer haters are frightened and came out with all the guns firing, saying it must have been 109,000 illegal aliens, etc.

The truth is, soccer is here to stay, has succeeded, and it scares the hell out of baseball fans and the such.

 

Interesting, Wikipedia recognizes soccer as the 4th most popular sport in the United States, having displaced ice hockey from that position in all parameters, in all ways to look at it (including stats on what Americans call their favorite sport with soccer way ahead of ice hockey, and including other stats not included in the table below, such as average attendance and average TV viewership). Yes, soccer has breached the top 4.



The funny thing is that most people haven't realized yet this undeniable truth, including journalists for major sports magazines, TV shows, etc. People still talk about the "big four" meaning American football, basketball, baseball, and ice hockey, when they should include soccer and drop ice hockey from this denomination.

 

Well, then, someone needs to amend this Wikipedia article on this, since, 1- the article has outdated data with figures for MLS average attendance in 2010 (ever since there's been significant growth and now MLS average attendance is bigger than the NHL's according to the other Wikipedia article I've quoted) and 2- the article itself quotes as total attendance for the NHL about 2 million while total attendance for MLS is quoted as over 6 million (although I wonder if this is correct - we can't always trust Wikipedia since anyone can amend it). Also, now MLS has better TV viewership than the NHL, as well.

I don't know, total attendance figures seem strange in this article given that the NHL has many more games and 30 teams versus 19 (and soon 21) for MLS, but this will change as well once MLS expands more. There are plans to eventually reach 30 franchises for MLS as well although some execs say it should stop at around 25. With some soccer stadiums being bigger than hockey arenas, inevitably even if the above figures are wrong, MLS will beat the NHL in this parameter as well.

Another interesting piece of data I've seen, is that now TV viewership in the US for MLS is 50% bigger than US viewership of the EPL. In the past, soccer fans in the US used to dismiss MLS and watch foreign leagues, and this is now changing, which is excellent for the sport in the US (with viewership, contracts, ads and merchandise sales increase, putting more money in the sport which helps development and retention of athletes).

The reality is, both soccer has surpassed ice hockey in popularity, and MLS has surpassed the NHL (or is about to, depending on what figures are right and what parameters you look at), but opponents and haters will be slow to acknowledge it and will continue for a long time to pretend the NHL and hockey are bigger. The truth will slowly impose itself, though, since soccer popularity is growing and growing, and as MLS expands more and more to additional cities and markets the difference will become even more important.

The last step to finish crushing hockey and becoming a large and recognized 4th placed sport and league, is bigger profits and no salary cap so that athletes can earn as much money as NHL athletes do. Once soccer becomes profitable for athletes, the talent pool and the technical quality will improve, as more American youngsters will pick soccer for a professional career.

 

Oh, OK, then. I did suspect that the 2 million figure had to be wrong. But again, with expansion and bigger stadiums MLS will eventually take over the NHL in total attendance.

 

Sure, with 19 teams, but expansion does add not only more stadiums, but most importantly, more games, to increase total attendance. If the league expands eventually to 30 teams which matches the NHL, then the NHL's advantage will be almost over - they still play more games since unlike in soccer they play more than twice each opponent, but also, some soccer stadiums go way above the typical NHL arena capacity so one thing might offset the other, and some of the stadiums that artificially limit capacity by just not opening some of the stands when it's a soccer match, might start opening them if demand for tickets increase.

 

Bummer. So in one stat, MLS will not break into the top 4. Maybe we should, then, start advocating for the expression to change to top 5.

 

Like I said, in popularity soccer is already clearly #4, but in economic size of the league, it is #5.