The fact is, there are plenty of sports in the United States that occasionally capture the intermittent attention of the casual sports fan, but won't "break through" the sports zeitgeist until and unless the United States fields a successful national team.

I'm not so sure. Soccer's problems in the US mainly have to do with the fact that it is competing with not just three major sports that occupy almost the entire year as well as most of the existing sport television time, but with a whole host of second-tier stuff like professional hockey, etc that take up what's left.

Not to mention that if Americans want to watch a fast-moving game with coordinated ball-passing between players aiming for goals, they can watch basketball.

To add-

I forgot NASCAR, too. My bad.

But neither Olga Korbut nor Nadia Comaneci (sp?) were Americans, but they broke through to raise US gymnastics up a rung or two on the sports ladder. Of course, I'm showing my age.

Interesting, I just finished reading Evan Thomas' book on TR, Lodge, et.al., the emphasis on muscularity, as embodied in football.

There are PLENTY of people to watch the game with. Half of our IT dept. is dragging the network down because we are all streaming the games. We don't have to encourage many to watch it around here because even the trade floor changed one of their Foxnews/MSNBC TV screens to the game.

Houston is unique in this respect due to the large amount of multi ethnic and cultural influences we have here. So far the only 2 people that have complained have been over the age of 45.

I thought someone will bring up that standard connection - diversity of American population (in terms of folks coming from different countries) and popularity of sports.

People are fool not to understand how many Americans are interested in Soccer, including myself and all my American brought up co-workers.

Meanwhile, as South Asian Sub-continent population grows in USA (and Indian Cricket immolates itself by corruption); I see so much more interest in Cricket in Silicon Valley and pockets in USA. Indian and Pakistani communities are working over time to promote Cricket here.

Same way obviously all of Hispanic, South American and many Europeans living in America are also promoting Soccer.

I can only believe that the world cup is generating any interest in the US if people stopped calling it soccer, it is FOOTBALL people

"Any honest assessment of soccer would have to acknowledge that the game can be boring for long stretches"

Oh I'm glad you prefixed that with "honest". So obviously it is dishonest of me to point out that this assessment is made by people that don't understand football, and who tend to think that "nothing happening" equals "no goals" and vice versa.

I agree with the rational ignorance argument. It's been a particularly bad World Cup in terms of quality of play so far. You can't expect much out of group play, when it's often world class teams pitted against teams ranked in the 50s or 60s worldwide. Things get much more exciting in the Round of 16. Hopefully the US makes it that far and continues.

Maybe international relations theory could help us figure out how to get rid of these terrible new balls...

Looking at Americans' understanding of Soccer in the context of the World Cup is a bit misplaced. In my experience Americans really don't understand the concept of a national team outside of an Olympic context. The one question I've heard most often about World Cup football in the US is "Is Manchester united the same as England?" and a friend was recently expressing concern to me that a trip to Spain might be disrupted if Barcelona and Real Madrid should face each other in the World Cup. I've tried over and over to explain the difference between club teams and national teams. But Americans tend not to get it. And when they actually do seem to get it, they're then puzzled as to why anyone cares about the national team. For instance, when I explain that Manchester United is to the England team what, say, The NY Yankees are to the team that the US sends to the "World Baseball Classic" - baseball fans get it, but then they're doubly puzzled as to why anyone cares about the World Cup, as they couldn't care less about the World Baseball Classic.

I would say they are all messed up..What is the point of calling any of them American teams when they import foreign nationals on the baseball, basketball and hockey teams. Particularly how can they say it is the American team playing when it isn't even all Americans playing...Whatever....its all fake now..no sense in watching any of it..its all a bunch of hype to sell more beer.

Has anyone noticed the very strong connection between soccer and fascism? Almost all of the top soccer countries in the world have had a strong fascist element in their politics in the past century. Italy, Germany, Spain, Portugal, Argentina, Brazil are all good examples. That kind of politics or idea of national identity simply doesn't exist in the US, or in a country like India.
Can anybody really deny that there's not a hint of fascism in the massive celebrations and outpourings of nationalistic fervor that happen in these countries after World Cup games' victories?

Most sports journalists are at heart baseball fans--their primary sport may be football, but when interviewed by the sports editor they can gas on at length about how much they care about baseball, as sport about as exciting as watching paint dry. Yes, it is really of interest in Japan--because it is a zen type of activity.

But look at your local school. Nowdays, in most high schools, it is way easier to get on the baseball team than the soccer team. Because baseball is boring.

Yes, there are sports much more exciting than both that don't get media attention--mens field hockey and lacrosse come to mind. Both of which require more endurance than soccer and certainly than baseball (and let's face it, baseball hardly requires more endurance than golf).

The secondary problem is that sports journalists (sic) don't write for paticipants but for watchers of sports. Consider running. In most communities there is large particiapation in 5k's, 10k's and the like. But very unusual to see any coverage.

So we have to listen to journalists steeped in baseball telling us how boring soccer is. And I grant you it is often very boring. But no more boring than football, with it's many time outs let alone baseball, the definition of boredom. Oooh, he ran..............now for more boring stuff.

We in the United States, living as we do in the middle of what is still a pretty sparsely populated continent, have been both privileged and cursed to be left alone by the world for much of our history. Off in our corner, we simply missed the rise of football/soccer, since the British left before they could introduce it to us.

So we started to play and watch our own games -- some of which, like American football and baseball, have origins in English games themselves -- on a year-round schedule that can occupy all of our attention if we let it.

Football/soccer (whatever you prefer to call it) has had an uphill climb in this country because of established watching habits, but compare its profile here to what it was fifty years ago. Its popularity will continue to rise, particularly now that there are so many TV channels that anyone who wants to watch it can. In coming years, more and more Americans will take to soccer, which is not to say that a lot of people here will continue to have no use for it.

Just like every sport in every country.

Soccer will succeed here for two reasons:

(1) Immigration--this is THE world sport and even if your usual run-of-the-mill 4th generation (or more) Americans don't start watching, the sport will continue to grow faster than the established sports. It will create revenue...and America loves, above all else, revenue.

(2) We will win the World Cup...someday. I think you're 100% right about "rational ignorance" -- we love winners. The problem is how the U.S. mainstream sports fan defines success, and how that doesn't square with other "soccer nations." In 2002 we were in the final 8 of the World Cup and were knocked out by Germany in a tough game (1-0, including a controversial handball). Last year we beat Spain and gave Brazil a scare in the Confederations Cup...great result. Unfortunately, the typical U.S. fan doesn't see this as great progress. It is unbelievable progress from 15-20 years ago. Aside from the elite of the sport, most countries would have been ecstatic to have a 8 years like we just had.

After something like 10 years, the MLS is talking about expansion instead of folding. Eventually, more kids choose soccer over the traditional U.S. sports and the talent pool will get bigger. I don't think there's any way to avoid the fact that soccer will jump to the top 3 or 4 sports in the U.S. over the next 20 years. That's 5 more World Cups...and if we manage to win one of those, our bandwagon will be over-flowing.

But much depends on style of play. It CAN be boring, and two sides reluctant to take the attack for fear of conceding a goal that would almost surely spell defeat (e.g., Ivory Coast and Portugal yesterday) can closely resemble that Simpsons parody at times. The flopping and injury faking are also major problems.

That said, anyone replica IWC who like baseball has no grounds for complaining that there's no action in soccer. And basketball is proof that just because a game is high-scoring, doesn't mean it's necessarily exciting. More than a few NBA teams play offenses that consist of four guys standing around while one guy dribbles the ball in place while the shot clock winds down, then drives into the lane and tries to shoot.

Football/soccer (whatever you prefer to call it) has had an uphill climb in this country because of established watching habits, but compare its profile here to what it was fifty years ago.sazky Its popularity will continue to rise, particularly now that there are so many TV channels that anyone who wants to watch it can. In coming years, more and more Americans will take to soccer, which is not to say that a lot of people here will continue to have no use for it.