World Cup 2014 – When ‘soccer’ Joined The Party
For years soccer has been seen as the awkward younger brother of sport in the United States of America, an out-on-their-own sibling living in the shadow of numerous bigger older brothers in the form of basketball, baseball and American Football, to name a few.
Living in the land of big hits, big dunks, big sport, soccer needed a big breakthrough moment – that came in the form of Jurgen Klinsman and his on-field lieutenant Clint Dempsey, who helped rally a nation and progress through a tough group stage against the odds. Hollywood will be proud.
They have been to World Cups before of course, but never quite like this.
The United States’ three group matches all broke viewing records, Wall Street ground to a halt – in fact, share trading went down by as much as 25% during the final game – thousands skipped work, while Barack Obama was snapped watching the game on Air Force One.
The victory over Ghana attracted the biggest US television audience for a football match – 16m people – the next, a draw with Portugal, smashed that record with an average of 24.7m viewers, and although ESPN is yet to release the figures for the Germany match, it is expected to surpass even that.
To put this into context with soccers ‘big bros’, the last game of the NBA Finals just a few days before drew an audience of 18m, while Major League Baseball’s famous World Series averaged just short of 15m viewers.
It seems soccer has finally captured the nation, and it’s there to stay.
In Chicago, more than 20,000 fans flocked to Grant Park to watch the match with Portugal. The gates were closed 30 minutes before kick-off because it was full.
Domestically, the MLS is still a growing league, but it is progressing fast – you can’t attract the likes of David Villa, Thierry Henry and David Beckham without growth – just ask the Seattle Sounders, who regularly attract close to 50,000, more than the majority of Barclays Premier League clubs.
The signs of this soccer boom have been there for years, however, with much of this success arguably traced back to the legacy of the 1994 World Cup, when the US hosted the event. No tournament has had a bigger average attendance before or since.
Now, 20 years later, some of the FIFA World Cup 2014’s best memories as a football fan have involved the USA team, from Teddy Roosevelt in the crowd to Will Ferrell’s “I will bite” speech.
Perhaps America fell in love with the beautiful game way back then, they just didn’t know it yet…
