American Sports and Pastimes

If we observe the sports and pastimes that we could define as “American”, very few would place soccer in this category. Perhaps this is justified; a majority of the world refers to this sport as football, or some variant thereof.

American “football”; A much more common choice for an American pastime

We are heavily in the minority in referring to the sport as soccer, choosing to reserve the term football to denote a much more prototypal “American” sport and pastime. So why have I chosen soccer as an American sport and pastime worth discussing? Many would scoff at this notion: saying that baseball, football, basketball, or possibly even lacrosse are much more “American” than soccer ever will be. But if we examine the more recent history of soccer in the US, we could argue that recent developments make soccer nothing but American.

Perhaps a brief history of soccer in the States is necessary. The US Men’s National Soccer team has qualified for 10 World Cups since the inaugural World Cup in 1930. Their best result occurred in this inaugural World Cup, being awarded 3^rd place out of 13 teams: at this fact alone, some may already be dismissing my argument that soccer will ever be considered an American pastime when competing against the likes of football and basketball in which we excel (or are the lone competitor) in all international competitions.

The passion for soccer seen world-wide puts even our most exciting American sporting events to shame

At this point, some may also be questioning my methodology; why haven’t I discussed women’s soccer? What competitions am I going to scrutinize, as there are many international and domestic tournaments the US is involved in? For the sake of brevity, the focus of the discussion will be on Men’s soccer. This is because, however unfortunately, men’s sports in the US surpass women’s sports in popularity, both televised and otherwise – look at the NBA vs. WNBA as just one possible example. Furthermore, the sports that dominate American viewership are all Men’s sports (football, baseball, and hockey immediately come to mind); this gender discrepancy is unfortunate, but not the point of my discussion – so we will table that debate for another time. Similarly, we will focus on the World Cup as our tournament of choice, this is because in soccer, there is no better indicator of popularity and success: any other tournament is alike to comparing the NFL’s preseason with the Super Bowl.

So returning back to our discussion before this digression, soccer in the US started off with an impressive result, but had somewhat embarrassing showings on the international stage since then. If we observe the last three World Cups – in other words, chronicling soccer as an American sport and pastime over the last twelve years – we begin to see a different story develop. In 2006,17.0 million people watched the final of that World Cup – surpassing the World Series viewership of that year by 1.2 million and surpassing the previous World Cup’s final viewership by almost 6 million. This data alone shows a trend of improved popularity. More importantly, the viewership for the finals of the last two World Cups were 24 and 29 million respectively, with the 2010 World Cup final beating the 2010 World Series viewership by over 10 million. It is also worth pointing out that the top 9 non-finals World Cup matches – in terms of viewership – occurred in the last two World Cups, with six of the nine being matches in which the US were playing.

There is a lot of evidence pointing to soccer as an American pastime to be found above, but statistics mean nothing without interpretation. From the data discussed, we see that there is inarguably a growing trend of viewership popularity of soccer – more importantly US soccer; the fact US viewership is growing for US soccer matches specifically shows not only a growing commitment of the American populace to the sport in general, but a growing passion for the sport. But in order for soccer to truly be considered an American sport and pastime, it is fair to demand more. We cannot be sold on simply viewership numbers. We need more evidence for passion; we expect American ideals to begin to weave themselves into the fabric of the sport. And this is precisely what has happened.

The US winning their World Cup games has significance, but it is so much more important to point out the way in which they have been winning. In the 2010 World Cup, the US defied all odds and pulled out a draw over a greatly favored English team. After numerous questionable calls that repeatedly beat the US back, in a stroke of near-fairytale heroics, the US pulled out a victory and made it out of the group stage.

In the 2014 World Cup, the US was placed in the “Group of Death” and faced the toughest travel schedule out of any team competing that year. But the US showed that they wouldn’t be beat by factors of circumstance, and again shocked the World as they pulled through into the round of 16 for the second consecutive year. Both of these scenarios showed that our boys were playing the game the American way; they weren’t winning because of exceptional skill or strategy – surely the European teams had us outdone in this regard – but they were winning by refusing to believe that they were beat, they were winning by embodying the true spirit of American exceptionalism.

But the team wasn’t alone in this regard; the American populace was embodying a very similar spirit. Every game our team played, fans all over the US, dressed in red white and blue, were cheering them on. Fans grouped together to form viewing parties in bars and restaurants and city parks all over the country. After attending one of these viewing parties, no one could argue the fact that soccer has become, in the last couple decades, a truly American sport and pastime.

My final assertion of soccer as an American pastime