Why American's Dont Care About Soccer And Never Will

 Why Americans don't care about soccer and never will

Soccer is a sport you play when your a kid because it is shockingly easy and costs a ball to play. The good players all move up to division III or I and then play for the high school teams. A lucky few get to play college and even fewer get signed by an MLS squad for next to nothing since most teams have a pay roll under 5 million. 

So lets review the numbers.

75% of us have played soccer as a kid

50% of those played for more than 3 seasons

20% of those played higher level competitive amature soccer

1% of them will ever get paid to play it

This means the one quarter of our population already doesn't care, 37% stop caring by age 14. Therefore 10% of the general population will be potentiality interested in watching soccer, but most of them would rather play a pick up game at a local park.

So using these generous estimates we can determine that about 1.5% of the population would be interested in watching MLS soccer or a non american team in the world cup.

But why do people stop caring

In short, its not soccers fault that is an irrelevant part of our culture, its the fact that Americans being the richest per capita populous on the planet can afford to but equipment needed to play better sports.

Baseball requires a lot of people with a lot of mitts, a bat (which aren't cheap), and a few balls (no one plays with one ball). Football is extreamly expensive to play as is hockey, basketball and golf. Four of these sports (not golf) are great spectator sports and all are more fun to play than soccer because they each require a lot of hard work to be good and are much more consistently rewarding to play.

Ever notice that every time a goal is scored, the shooter acts like this is the first goal ever scored in history and is reason to spend 10 minutes hugging and dancing with their entire team? (except Landon, who is a class act.) Ever notice that after a touchdown, they guy does a little jig, high fives the QB and the linemen, and then sit there asses down. The whole process takes 15 seconds. Basketball players don't have time to celebrate unless the beat the buzzer in which case they get a license to do whatever makes them happy. Same with baseball, only a walk off requires a full team celebration. I wont mention hockey because that wouldn't support my argument.

That all proves why soccer is bad, but why are these sports good?

Football is the greatest team sport ever played. 11 men need to execute there roles in order for the whole team to move forward. Basketball is a great combination of superhuman athletes and strategy coming together to either out-score your opponent (Warriors, Suns) or to be more efficient on defense and use plays to get high percentage shots (Spurs, Celtics). Baseball, admittedly, is not an inherently good spectator sport. It is the same in soccer in that the more you like the sport, the more fun it is to watch. But even baseball includes the hardest thing to do in all of sports. Not just hitting a ball forward with a cylinder of wood, but have that ball not get caught by the 9 fielders who are strategically placed to cover the whole field, and then run your ass to a base before some one throws a ball to where your running to. I don't watch enough hockey, but the fact that a position called "Enforcer" exists speaks for its self.

And last but not least, only Basketball rewards flops, and even then your not going to get and automatic foul, and its looked down upon by fans, I'm looking at you Paul and Pau. Any sport that has its players consistently stretchered off because of a near fatal tug of the jersey will not stand up to the raw excitement, athleticism and strategy on display in American sports.