A lot has been written this past month about the tremendous crowds and fervent fan support of soccer in the US. Mark Zeigler of the San Diego Union-Tribune echoes some of the recent articles about the contridiction between 'American support of soccer' and 'support of American soccer (MLS)'-
Over the past month, there have been 13 crowds of 40,000 or larger to see soccer matches in America. That number will swell to 15 when Barcelona completes its U.S. tour with stops in Seattle tonight and San Francisco on Saturday. In one dizzying nine-day stretch, nine games drew an average of 65,272.
“The summer of soccer,” Major League Soccer has billed it.
So what do we make of it?
Is it a sign that soccer has turned some sort of corner, smashed through a glass ceiling, and won its eternal battle for respect in the consciousness of mainstream America?
Or is it merely evidence that the soccer fan here has attained a certain level of sophistication and pretension, recognizing the difference between AC Milan and DC United?
Are they soccer fans, or soccer snobs?
It is important to note another statistic: Over the past month, Major League Soccer attendance has largely been flat. Last Saturday, the six regular-season games drew 72,329. Total. That's an average of 12,055, and that's with the league's well-documented history of artificially inflating crowd figures.
Meaning: People aren't watching Chelsea play Mexico City's Club America at Cowboys Stadium (57,229 did) and then, bitten by the soccer bug, rushing out to catch the Kansas City Wizards at FC Dallas the following weekend (announced crowd: 10,317).
There are two ways to digest this.
One is that any soccer interest is good soccer interest, the old rising-tides-float-all-boats theory. “To me,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said at halftime at the Rose Bowl, “anything that raises the popularity or awareness or excitement of the sport is positive for us.”
The counterargument is that flooding the market with high-quality soccer only further educates spoiled American fans, making it harder to convince (or fool) them that MLS is a viable contender for their precious viewership hours. That they should tune into Colorado Rapids-Columbus Crew, where both rosters combined make less than $5 million per season, when they just as easily can see Arsenal-Manchester United, where a backup forward makes that in six months.
“The sport is slowly building up its core,” said Garber, who celebrated his 10th anniversary as commissioner yesterday. “The international following has sort of taken off with incredible, incredible speed, faster than we thought it would . . . I think slowly that core fan base is going to grow and then you'll start seeing some of that transfer over (to MLS)."
“I don't think there's any quick switch. There's nothing today that says, 'If we do X, it changes.' But it's certainly getting better.”
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/05/1s5socpage22159-its-hard-rate-impact-summer-soccer/?sports/soccer&zIndex=144205
Over the past month, there have been 13 crowds of 40,000 or larger to see soccer matches in America. That number will swell to 15 when Barcelona completes its U.S. tour with stops in Seattle tonight and San Francisco on Saturday. In one dizzying nine-day stretch, nine games drew an average of 65,272.
“The summer of soccer,” Major League Soccer has billed it.
So what do we make of it?
Is it a sign that soccer has turned some sort of corner, smashed through a glass ceiling, and won its eternal battle for respect in the consciousness of mainstream America?
Or is it merely evidence that the soccer fan here has attained a certain level of sophistication and pretension, recognizing the difference between AC Milan and DC United?
Are they soccer fans, or soccer snobs?
It is important to note another statistic: Over the past month, Major League Soccer attendance has largely been flat. Last Saturday, the six regular-season games drew 72,329. Total. That's an average of 12,055, and that's with the league's well-documented history of artificially inflating crowd figures.
Meaning: People aren't watching Chelsea play Mexico City's Club America at Cowboys Stadium (57,229 did) and then, bitten by the soccer bug, rushing out to catch the Kansas City Wizards at FC Dallas the following weekend (announced crowd: 10,317).
There are two ways to digest this.
One is that any soccer interest is good soccer interest, the old rising-tides-float-all-boats theory. “To me,” MLS Commissioner Don Garber said at halftime at the Rose Bowl, “anything that raises the popularity or awareness or excitement of the sport is positive for us.”
The counterargument is that flooding the market with high-quality soccer only further educates spoiled American fans, making it harder to convince (or fool) them that MLS is a viable contender for their precious viewership hours. That they should tune into Colorado Rapids-Columbus Crew, where both rosters combined make less than $5 million per season, when they just as easily can see Arsenal-Manchester United, where a backup forward makes that in six months.
“The sport is slowly building up its core,” said Garber, who celebrated his 10th anniversary as commissioner yesterday. “The international following has sort of taken off with incredible, incredible speed, faster than we thought it would . . . I think slowly that core fan base is going to grow and then you'll start seeing some of that transfer over (to MLS)."
“I don't think there's any quick switch. There's nothing today that says, 'If we do X, it changes.' But it's certainly getting better.”
http://www3.signonsandiego.com/stories/2009/aug/05/1s5socpage22159-its-hard-rate-impact-summer-soccer/?sports/soccer&zIndex=144205
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