Will soccer league ever be big in North America?

Football*'s beauty lies in its simplicity. A good game can be had by a handful of players, a (relatively) flat piece of ground, and markers for goal posts. There are few rules, and the only one that ever needs explaining to a newbie is "Offside", which still causes problems for professional referees!

In some ways, I hope that football* doesn't take off in North America, because it's one of the few sports that Britiain can beat the US at (the others being Rowing, Sailing, Darts and Snooker).

Childishness apart, I'd love to see the game grow in the US and Canada, because it'd be great to see more English-speaking players in the Premiership.

There are a few Americans in the Premiership - Tim Howard @ Manchester Utd and Brad Friedel @ Blackburn Rovers. Both are goalkeepers. There are more, but my employer's web-filter is stopping me from finding them.

* I refuse to call it "soccer". Sorry.

That's putting the cart before the horse. TV doesn't make a sport popular (if it did, then the XFL would still be in existence): rather, it makes a sport that is already popular more popular. Remember, baseball was the national game long before the invention of television.

If a sport becomes popular enough to televise, then the networks will figure out a way to put advertising into the broadcasts. For instance, there are no stoppages in play in auto racing, but that hasn't prevented networks from televising NASCAR events. Hockey and basketball now have more and longer stoppages in play precisely because of television (ever watch a hockey game in a stadium and wonder why it takes them so long sometimes to send a guy off to the penalty box?). If enough people want to see soccer on tv, then tv networks will figure out a way to make soccer broadcasts economically feasible.

The complaint, then, that soccer would be more popular if it was only more "television-friendly" (meaning "commercial-friendly") is a lame excuse. It's tv-friendly enough in every other country on the planet, so that can't be the reason it isn't popular in the US.

You forgot to mention cricket.


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Kasey Keller is an US goalie with Borussia Mönchengladbach (1. Bundesliga), besides a couple of other players in the 1st and 2nd Bundesliga.

During the last World Cup, Budweiser sponsored many matches on television. These games were broadcast without commercial interruption, which is a great way to watch a soccer match. I remember it was Budweiser, because their logo was there on the screen during the entire game. Can be effective marketing tool. Sometimes they will have one company sponsor a half and another sponsor the other half. It seemed to me to be a fairly effective marketing strategy -- logo continuously on screen during all of the match, not just commercial breaks.

You forgot cricket and lawn bowls.

When a match is shown on one of our commercial channels - mainly ITV or Sky Sports - the sequence goes roughly:

Studio discussion - 10 mins
Adverts - 3 mins
Teams onto pitch, first half of match, teams off pitch - 48 mins
Adverts - 3 mins
Studio discussion - 10 mins
Adverts - 3 mins
Teams onto pitch, second half of match, teams off pitch - 48 mins
Adverts - 3 mins
Studio discussion - 10 mins
Adverts - 3 mins (followed by next programme)

Total broadcast time: 138 mins
Total advert time - 15 mins (11%)

A regular programme with a 30 min time slot on these channels would normally have 3 mins of adverts halfway through, then 3 mins more at the end.

Total broadcast time: 30 mins
Total advert time - 6 mins (20%)

I know that Sky makes its "missing money" back by charging monthly subscription charges, and ITV make its "missing money" back by charging more for the adverts that are shown during the game - as the audiences are higher than those who would normally watch at that time if the game wasn't on.

So could this work in the US?

I think Keller used to play in the Premiership as well, but I'm not sure who for. More research needed...

Cricket? Oh yeah!

And Rugby (League and Union) as well!

Not to mention (I think) Curling and Shinty.

And Badminton.

Keller played with Milwall.

The mighty Milwall! Not quite Premiership, but they were in the FA cup final a year or so ago.

Watched it on tv last year, during one of my visits to your island :wink:

It will happen when the EU takes over the world. I'd give it about another 25 years.

They were reknowned when football hooliganism was at its peak for having the most violent fans in the whole country.

Grand Duke, Your post reminded me of that incident at the soccer field north of London some years ago. What was the name of that field?

CI - In north London, or to the north of London? The main football disaster here was at Hillsborough (Sheffield, S.Yorkshire) in 198X when 90-odd Liverpool fans were crushed to death after terrible crowd-control. Hmmm. You've got me thinking now, I'll have to come back to you on that one, I'm afraid. Any more clues?

That' true. Our youth teams are good, our women team are great. They're televising soccer more here too.

Anyways, we got some players playing abroad. Hargreaves isn't Canadian anymore, but we still got Radzinski playing for Fulham, Stalteri playing for Werder Bremen is good too, etc.

Ray - I'm trying to compile a list of Canadian and American players in Britain. It should be interesting, I think.

Maybe one reason is an American kid doesn't have the best path to follow if he's a gifted athlete, in terms of going pro. Same kid's going to play football, hockey, baseball, ect...where he can become a professional athlete.

Well, at least kids growing up here don't have the big soccer stars and teams to follow, so they don't get into the sport for the long run, even though soccer is VERY popular in US for youth leagues through college. There's just no popularity as far as professional.

Landon Donovan just left the San Jose Earthquakes and returned to Bayer Leverkusen in Germany, who owns rights to him. He's a California boy.

He played seven times since end of January, but only every time as substitute.