America has a Monday night football game to watch in the middle of July. Only this time, there are no helmets.
Tonight, the U.S. men's national team faces Belgium in a prime-time World Cup knockout match, with a quarterfinal spot on the line and a team the country actually wants to root for.
This isn't the norm, at least in the U.S. For decades, soccer in the States has been treated as the next big thing that never sticks. The World Cup arrives, casual fans tune in, the conversation swells for a few weeks, and then the country usually returns to its regular rotation of football, basketball, baseball, and whatever officiating scandal people are talking about.
But this tournament has been different. The U.S. opener against Paraguay drew an average audience of 18 million across Fox's platforms with another 7 million watching on Spanish-language Telemundo. FIFA has also said attendance surpassed 3.6 million in the first two weeks of the tournament, breaking the record set in 1994, the last time the U.S. hosted the men's World Cup. So if soccer has been trying to prove it belongs in the American sports conversation, this tournament is making a pretty strong case.
Part of the buzz comes down to logistics. The games are being played on American soil and in American time zones, which means the U.S. team is not asking casual fans to wake up at 5 a.m. or plan their entire day around a match happening halfway across the world. A prime-time game is an easier sell. It can be watched at bars, at home, in group chats, after work — the way Americans already watch big sports events.
Part of it is timing. The U.S. reached this stage during a summer already wrapped in red, white, and blue, as the country marked its 250th birthday and host cities turned World Cup matches into something that looked a lot like an extended Fourth of July weekend. Across the country, the scene has been hard to miss: packed fan zones, pop-up shops selling soccer gear, viewing parties in parks, shopping centers, and museums, and U.S. fans showing up in jerseys, flags, and face paint.
There is also the fact that the U.S. team has given people a reason to keep watching.
Striker Folarin Balogun has been at the center of that, giving the U.S. the kind of scoring threat it has not always had on the World Cup stage. But the entire roster is one of the clearest examples yet of what modern American soccer looks like, from Christian Pulisic to Chris Richards and Weston McKennie.
Plus, players like Tim Weah, Sergiño Dest, Malik Tillman, and others reflect a U.S. program built from several pipelines at once: players developed abroad, players connected to immigrant families, players with eligibility for multiple national teams, and players shaped by European club soccer, MLS academies, and the American youth system. Several could have represented other countries and chose the United States instead. For casual fans, that makes the team easier to get behind.
And then there is the controversy, because nothing pulls Americans into a sporting event faster than a good scandal.
During the U.S. team's 2-0 win over Bosnia and Herzegovina, Balogun was sent off the pitch after a VAR review for a challenge on defender Tarik Muharemović. The red-card decision initially meant he would miss the Belgium match, taking the U.S.'s top scorer out of its biggest game of the tournament. Then, after a conversation between Trump and FIFA president Gianni Infantino, FIFA changed course.
The red card itself was not erased, but FIFA suspended Balogun’s one-game ban, clearing him to play in the round of 16. The decision came after Trump reportedly called FIFA president Gianni Infantino and asked for the play to be reviewed, saying Monday that he did not think it was a foul. The decision, though controversial, has sparked debate on the internet.
The betting market is moving, too. Sportsbooks have seen unusually strong activity around U.S. matches, with games involving the USMNT drawing far more action than other World Cup matches on the same day. Betting volume does not prove long-term fandom, but it does show that the U.S. team has moved from background programming to something people are actively tracking as part of the broader American sports calendar.
However, the increase in interest for the sport did not start with this match, or even the World Cup in general. A Nielsen study found North America's soccer fan base has grown 10.9 percent over the past five years to more than 136 million people. The U.S. now has the fourth-largest soccer fan base in the world, with 62.5 million followers, according to the same report. The tournament is surely helping interest, with nearly seven in 10 North American fans saying their fascination with the sport had increased in the last three years as the World Cup approached, while 64 percent expected their interest to grow further.
Locally, youth soccer clubs have reported new sign-ups and renewed interest from families during the tournament. In Houston, HTX Soccer said hundreds of children signed up in recent weeks, a jump the club connected to World Cup excitement. In Florida, the soccer team Tampa Bay Rowdies has been using watch parties and youth outreach programs to turn World Cup attention into something more lasting.
That still does not mean soccer has overtaken football, basketball, or baseball in the U.S. But it does mean this World Cup arrived at a moment when the sport was already gaining ground. Lionel Messi's move to Inter Miami also helped push MLS further into the mainstream, building on the celebrity and global attention David Beckham has been cultivating since becoming one of the club's owners. MLS has grown to 30 teams across the U.S. and Canada. Premier League and La Liga broadcasts have helped make the U.S. the biggest foreign market for several major European leagues. Streaming, social media, FIFA video games, and shows like Ted Lasso and Welcome to Wrexham have made the sport more familiar to American audiences who did not necessarily grow up watching it.
For once, the question about soccer in the United States is not whether people can be persuaded to care. It feels like a lot of them already do.
from Mashable https://ift.tt/NL071n2
