I didn’t watch more than five minutes of this year’s World Cup.
There, I said it.
It wasn’t because the United States got knocked out in the round of 16, or in protest of the shaky (and apparently biased, according to a Penn study) officiating or because of those damn vuvuzelas.
I changed the channel every time the World Cup came on simply because I don’t like the sport of soccer.
So why, now that the dust has settled and Spain has emerged victorious, do I think USA Soccer should be concerned about my aversion to the Super Bowl of their sport? After all, why should non-soccer fans be expected to watch soccer?
The answer lies in the fact that the never-ending debate — will soccer ever make it in the U.S.? — lingers on, even after a successful World Cup. The truth is, in order for the sport to take off in America, it needs people like me to hop on board.
As a born-and-raised Philadelphian, I live for sports. If passion for sports wasn’t in my blood at birth, it quickly developed after I watched this town go crazy for the World Series-bound Phillies as a three-year-old.
I follow the MLB, NBA and NFL religiously — not just the Philly teams, but the leagues as a whole — and even get my fix of college basketball and football.
Yet I’ve always thought of soccer as the sport where orange slices are given out at halftime, the one most kids quit by the time they’re twelve. Soccer fandom just doesn’t come naturally to American sports fans, even the most passionate among them, the Philadelphians.
So I was initially shocked when Penn men’s soccer coach Rudy Fuller told me on Tuesday that this area is part of “one of the top five soccer regions in the country.”
After thinking about it, though, it made sense to me. There are plenty of soccer fans in this country, but they make up more of an underground clique — like fans of an indie band — than a large following. And that’s precisely the problem with soccer in America; luckily, it’s one that can be fixed.
The World Cup was a good start. Sure, I didn’t care about the event one bit, but I couldn’t help but hear about it from ESPN, Twitter and Facebook, where I noticed that people seemed to be more interested than usual.
“I had people stopping me on the street, at the coffee shop — people that I didn’t know,” Fuller said. “I just happened to be wearing a soccer shirt [and they] would pull me aside and engage in soccer conversation.”
Fuller pointed to ESPN and the national media’s increased coverage as the key sign that “we’re on the cusp of [soccer] really becoming a major sport here in the country.” But Fuller is also part of that clique of Americans and Philadelphians that are crazy about soccer.
I, on the other hand, am on the outside looking in. And, in my view, Philadelphia holds the key to making ‘futbol’ relevant in this country.
It’s one thing to get people to jump on the bandwagon once every four years. A simple dose of national pride will do that. But to create and maintain a large soccer fan base, Major League Soccer needs to at least reach the level of the NHL in popularity. “The MLS is clearly an integral piece of the puzzle,” Fuller said.
And where better for MLS fever to start than in the city that booed Santa Claus? With the Union currently in its inaugural season — getting set to take on football powerhouse Manchester United Wednesday — there is a buzz over soccer throughout the city.
If the Union can produce wins, hard-nosed play, excitement and maybe a rivalry with L.A. or New York, the MLS would have all the ingredients that Philadelphians love in their sports teams.
If our passion for the Union grows to one-tenth of our passion for our other teams, the City of Brotherly Love will set a shining example for major markets throughout the U.S.
Soccer doesn’t need soccer fans to be excited. It needs sports fans to be excited. Until the sport becomes so intriguing that fans like myself can’t help but incorporate it into our daily lives, it will never be more than a niche sport in the U.S.
BRIAN KOTLOFF, a rising College junior from Elkins Park, Pa., is the SP Sports Editor.
