America Remains Divided About Football (Soccer)
The ongoing debate of Republican or Democrat gives you an idea of how Americans feel about the international sport known as football or soccer to North Americans.
One side lost interest in the World Cup immediately after the United States were eliminated or simply may have just stopped pretending to care.
The other side continued to enjoy the biggest international tournament and will continue to love the sport.
There isn’t much of a grey area on the issue. Many still insist that the game is growing into American culture but there certainly are challenges to overcome. America has their own football, baseball and basketball that will continue to attract the most attention from sports fans in the States.
Many sports bars have heard complaints whenever they tried to show the sport on its televisions. Interest greatly increased during the World Cup and while the United States fell early in the tournament, many briefly embraced the sport.
While some places claim the World Cup is good for their business and it peaks interest, the sport is still a long way from being considered a national pastime.
"I don't think it's a part of American culture yet," said Matt Besler, 23 a second-year defender. "You watch NFL football on Sundays. You go to MLB games during the summer. It's hard to get away from that."
Besler grew up in Kansas where upwards of 50,000 kids play each year. It is one of America’s most popular youth sports. Besler stuck with it, but many seem to fade away from the beautiful game as they get older: "I don't think it's one of our goals to be as popular as the NFL," said Besler, "because I know that it's a tough task to do. It might not ever happen."
The sport obviously does not get much television time and it may be a simple matter of exposure. Also some have suggested the game is too low-scoring and often ends in ties, which Americans do not enjoy.
Craig Ewing, who coaches the sport, said that it could be a matter of culture in the country. Football is played by commoners in other countries because it is an inexpensive sport to play, but money is not as big of an issue in America. More parents can afford other sports.
"That's probably a little bit of the reason why we can't get involved in the whole country, like football and basketball. That's certainly not how it worked in Brazil. . . . Can you go back and change the way it evolved? I'm thinking probably not."
Besler has noticed that the ones who continued to play through college have developed a bigger passion for the game. As of now there just aren’t enough people who have helped elevate the sport to a national pastime. Besler also believes that it didn’t help that the United States struggled to make it past the group stage and failed to reach the quarterfinal.
Besler does believe that the sport is slowly growing and he will do his best to bring interest to the game. He believes that he is part of the first generation of football fans and when the ideas are passed down to the coming generations the sport will grow.
"It's just a young sport in the United States," he said. "It just takes a little bit of time to become mainstream. Any time you're competing with the NFL, the NBA and the MLB, who've already established themselves; it's hard to compete with them right away.”
Another problem is that not enough of the sport is available to American viewers. The World Cup comes around every four years while NFL Football, basketball and baseball are all year around. It is tough for any sport to compete with the exposure.
"The challenge for us is to get those casual fans, who get excited every four years, and turn them into real soccer fans."
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