They say Americans don’t care about soccer. They say Americans will never embrace the sport the way they embrace football, basketball, baseball and even hockey.
And while they may have been right before, the 2010 FIFA World Cup might have them altering their stance.
When the United States took the pitch Saturday afternoon to face England in the teams’ World Cup openers, it seemed as though people around here had a new attitude toward soccer.
It may have just been because the Yanks were taking on their big brother to kick off the festivities, or it could be that Americans are starting to catch soccer fever.
ABC, the network that carried the game’s broadcast, scored big with the opening-round match between the U.S. and England as roughly 13 million viewers tuned into the 1-1 draw.
According to data from Nielsen, 8.39 million households in America were watching the U.S. debut in South Africa.
That made it the most-watched opening-round World Cup game since 1994 when the Americans played Romania. It also made it the highest-rated U.S. game since it took on Brazil in the quarterfinals 16 years ago.
Overall, the match was the fifth highest-rated World Cup match in the U.S., coming in behind the 1994 opener and Brazil quarterfinals matchups, the 1994 Brazil and Italy final and the 2006 final of Italy and France.
Keep in mind, of course, the numbers from Saturday are just estimates and don’t take into account the national viewers who watched the match online on ESPN3 or the 4.1 million people that caught the Spanish broadcast on Univision.
The numbers also don’t reflect the number of people who went to bars or restaurants to tune in, so the actual numbers are likely much higher. I know I went to a bar to catch the match and people were packed in there shoulder-to-shoulder.
More than just being there to watch the match and have drinks, people were getting into what was unfolding before their eyes on the television screens. It was like watching the Super Bowl or an NBA Finals game – except this was for an opening-round match in a sport Americans have been known to not embrace.
In the past, people may not have cared about soccer as much, but the current U.S. men’s national team has more recognizable names and faces than I can ever remember. Landon Donovan has been the most well-known figure in American soccer for years now, but this time he is joined by Tim Howard, Clint Dempsey, Jozy Altidore and Carlos Bocanegra.
Following America’s silver medal-showing in Olympic hockey earlier this year, the NHL received a ratings boost. Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Finals was the highest-rated NHL game in more than three decades.
I can see the same thing happening with soccer.
Not to say that it’s going to jump into the American forefront after the World Cup ends, but I believe the World Cup will increase the sport’s livelihood in America and the young faces of the U.S. team are going to bring about a new interest in the sport that we haven’t seen in the past, and more Americans than ever will start to embrace soccer.
