The Beginnings and Growth of Soccer in the United States
Soccer is a sport that gathers popularity worldwide. The 2018 World Cup final had close to 1.2 billion viewers across the globe. In the United States, soccer is not one of the mainstream sports, with basketball, football, and baseball all ahead of it in popularity.
Nonetheless, the past few years have seen massive growth and investment in soccer in the United States. It’s part of this reason that the United States is one of three nations hosting the 2026 edition of the world cup; this would make it the second time soccer’s biggest prize is in the United States.
The growth of soccer in the United States commenced in the 1960s with the formation of the National American Soccer League. The league gained significant attention when the New York Cosmos signed Pele in 1975. The Cosmos drew a large crowd to their stadium with one of the best soccer players. They were getting 60000 and 70000 thousand fans to their stadium on several occasions.
However, in the 1980s, the National American Soccer League declined and was scrapped in 1984 because it stopped becoming sustainable. Clubs in the National American Soccer League spent much money on signing average players and paid more than they were making. Also, Pele’s departure from the New York Cosmos meant they lost the publicity they had, and although they were the only club that could make big money signing, New York Cosmos failed to attract any star to the club. At the time, 4 million people, men and women, played soccer professionally and casually in the United States compared to the 100,000 people that played the sport in 1967.
A massive crowd turned up to see the soccer matches in the 1984 summer Olympics in the United States, with a match even having as many as 100,000 spectators. The global soccer body considered the United States to host the 1994 tournament. No World Cup has averaged more attendance than the World Cup in the United States. Soccer was able to gain attention from the media and other sports fans in the United States.
The world cup proved to be a turning point for soccer in the United States as it led to the formation of the Major League Soccer in 1996; back then, it had only ten teams. Today there are 28 teams in the Major League Soccer with some of Europe’s top players like David Beckham, Zlatan Ibrahimovic, and Thierry Henry. The league boasts the largest first division in the world.
The popularity of soccer in the United States is also due to the number of American stars that play in Europe. Over the last 20 years, American soccer players have risen to stardom in Europe with household names like Landon Donovan and Clint Dempsey, and recently, Christian Pulisic and Gio Reyna are American stars making their name in the biggest clubs in Europe. Their recent success in the Gold Cup is more evidence of how much soccer in the United States has grown on the international soccer stage. Another reason for the growth of soccer in the United States is the regular summer tour elite European clubs do to the United States.
Every year, during the European off-season, European clubs travel to the United States to widen their market and increase their exposure. They play against other Elite European clubs and sometimes against the Major League soccer All-star team during the tour. They also use this medium to meet their fans in the United States to sign a few autographs and give out their merchandise.
