Grant McCracken thinks that soccer needs to be improved to appeal to U.S. audiences. According to him:

…there is room for product development.  Specifically, so…

Grant McCracken thinks that soccer needs to be improved to appeal to U.S. audiences. According to him:

…there is room for product development.  Specifically, so…

Having seen numerous games in Europe and the USA, I can say it’s a pity you’re denying yourself an opportunity to see the game in its natural environment. I went to an ACC basketball school and grew up on SEC football, but I’ve never seen anything like the Euro 2004 finals I attended in Lisbon or the matches I’ve seen in England and Germany.

I think you may find that your concern about the physics has been addressed by indoor soccer, futsal, and even beach soccer…none of which are as popular in the United States as the original unadulterated outdoor game.

I believe Glen is dead on about advertising (commercial breaks) and soccer. It’s a chicken and egg problem. If the game is not marketed, people won’t follow it. If people don’t follow it, teams and leagues cannot afford to market it. One of the reasons that MLS will succeed in this country is because the deep pockets of folks like Lamar Hunt and AEG saw beyond the quick buck and realized that they had to build the league over the long term, tapping the four markets you listed above. As they do that, you’re going to see soccer become a MAJOR sport in the USA over the next 25-50 years.

I love all sports (even Pairs Ice Dancing and Platforming Diving which made your list over soccer) but I cannot deny that my real passion is for soccer

We will never become enthusiastic about a sport that forbids the use of our primary method for making things happen. We grab he world by the lapels, have people in the palm of our hands, toss things off, smack people around, pass the buck.

For us, hands = action!

We are manual chauvinists!

What kind of sport gives priority to feet while prohibiting picking things up and throwing them?

Whether or not MLS is a success isn’t a true or fair gauge of the level of American interest in soccer. Think about soccer fans not in terms of who there *are,* but in terms of how they relate to the sport. Soccer is, at its core and around the world, a people’s game, not a game for elites. In most countries, and for most of its history (including most of its history in the US), soccer has been as baseball used to be here: what kids played in vacant lots and in the street, using whatever they could find for a ball. The local pro or semi-pro team was genuinely local: the players were locals (and many of them had grown up playing for the club — remember that even today, many of the most successful pro soccer clubs around the world are actually the top teams represnting an athletic club that fields squads all the way down to the youth level), the coaches (if there were coaches) were local Suburban soccer in the US is a paradox in soccer’s historical and cultural terms, as is the separation of professional soccer from community roots. Lifetime soccer zealots don’t learn the game on manicured fields; they learn the game by knocking a ball around in the alley or (if they’re lucky) in the backyard or (if they’re really lucky) by getting recruited around age 10 to play for one of the local clubs. That’s why trying to build a professional soccer league in the US out of soccer moms and dads will never work, and why MLS only achieved some measure of stability by letting go of the American pro sports emphasis on season ticket sales (middle and upper class customers) and embracing the walk-up buyer (not necessarily middle and upper class customers).

Instead of bemoaning marketers’ inability to monetize the suburban soccer market, we should celebrate the fact that a meaningful number of Americans aremaking a living playing pro soccer, both inside and outside the US, and that a skilled high school soccer player in this country now has a shot at a real professional career. We should celebrate the fact that in cities across the country, including many cities that have experienced only the faintest whiffs of pro soccer, thousands of adult men and women are playing in organized leagues sanctioned by the national federation. These aren’t people who decided to play kickball on Saturday afternoon; many if not most of them grew up playing the game, sometimes in the US, sometimes elsewhere, and have the opportunity to enjoy it as an adult, thanks to the explosion of community interest in the sport over the last 40 years [note: AYSO was founded in suburban Southern California in the late 1960s], MLS is only the tip of a soccer infrastructure (national, state, and local associations) that sponsors organized competition on a scale (geographically and demographically) that few if any sports in this country can match. And I haven’t mentioned the degree to which most of this competition is racially, ethnically, and socioeconomically diverse. (Well, there I just did.) In Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh!), where I live, there are 23 over-40 men’s teams alone, competing this Spring in three divisions. It’s true that few of us care about MLS, but we have great conversations about the World Cup.

Oh, and if you play the game, you see quickly that a smaller field (even a field within the lower end of the allowed range) keeps some of its beauty from emerging. If I were to change a rule, I would keep the field the same size but reduce each side to 10 players, from the current 11.

–Mike (yes, a soccer zealot)

Steve, what a great and disasterous point. There cannot be indeterminacy of this order and a game flourish…not unless it is meant to be a mythic Greek demonstration of the injustice of the universe. And frankly the world impresses that point upon us plenty…no 90 minute demos are called for. Thanks, Grant

Glen, very interesting, I think this is why God created the big screen at home, to make room for ads in “picture in picture.” Thanks, Grant

Stev, I think this is a critical path question. Best, Grant

Stephane, If baseball is cricket made less tedious,I wonder if soccer couldnt be improved as well. Thanks, Grant

Joe, grumpy! Hey, I can’t be out there doing new research. Even 14 year old data paints a picture. Thanks, Grant

Steve, I think it will bump up nicely. Baseball would die tomorrow if generations had not played it as children. And now that X and other sports have made such substantial inroads, I think this is bad news for baseball and I’ve decided to sell my franchises. Bezt, Grant

Henry, I take your point, but I think a game like soccer only takes if people have enough exposure, and this is not going to happen if would be American converts end up thinking, “Good lord, 40 minutes gone and it’s still 1-0.” This game is positively denying itself a tipping point. Thanks, Grant

Rich, You do sometimes wonder what soccer indifference might cause the US in the long term. All the world loves it, the US does not. Isn’t this how empires fall. Probably not. But it is odd. Thanks, Grant

Audrey, thank you for the portrait of soccer in Portland and for identifying that nice tension between family game vs. something wilder. Very interesting. Thanks! Grant

The biggest marketing issue I’ve seen people representing the team struggle with is the conflict between their desire to keep the sport “family friendly” to interest the soccer mom crowd, and the reality that most adult fans in the US, especially if they have any experience with how the sport is viewed in other parts of the world, have a much rowdier take on the whole thing. The World Cup soccer ads are much more willing to take this one on, because they don’t have to worry so much about conflicts between different interests at a local game.

I get the impression that the media in general in the US is still trying to figure this thing out. Is it a family sport? Is it a crazy foreign thing? (So far, the Nike World Cup ads have been low on American players) Does anyone in that fun 18-35 demographic actually have an interest in it? I think there’s a big opportunity here, based on what I see locally. The interest is here, but it could be so much bigger if someone worked on bringing that excitement that follows the game in the rest of the world to the American public.