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Sports just The rise of the world’s game in the United States
■ While football and basketball continue to dominate the American sports market, soccer has slowly risen to popularity despite long-standing barriers.
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Association football, or soccer, has been one of the world’s most popular sports for around a century. As of 2017, it is followed by around 3.5 billion people, or nearly half of the world. Soccer is the most popular for a plethora of reasons, but mostly because it is for anyone. Invented in England in 1863, soccer was an elitist sport for the wealthiest individuals, yet it soon became a game for everyone. No matter the race, religion, gender, socioeconomic status, language, or age, anybody was welcome. In the early 20th century, a child didn’t care about money, technology, or fancy equipment — all they needed was a street, a spherical item, and a couple of other kids to play with.
To most of this world, soccer is more than a sport. It is a large part of certain countries’ national identities, and one game can impact and inspire entire nations. After beating eventual champion Argentina in this year’s World Cup, Saudi King
Salman bin Abdulaziz declared a national holiday for Saudi Arabia. When Iceland shocked England at the 2016 European Championship, 8% of their entire population attended the match, 99.8% of Icelandic television viewers watched that match, and nine months later the nation had its highest ever birthrate. While impacting so many, soccer has the ability to build bridges between cultures. People who don’t speak the same languages can always connect by playing the game.
The United States has always done this sport differently in many ways — including in the name itself. Soccer, football, same thing, right? Ironically, the term “soccer,” which often offends so many, was first coined by the very people who invented the game, the British. But why has popularity lacked in the sport so much in the U.S.? This can be boiled down to cultural, economic, and institutional differences.
Some will argue that the existence of so many sports in America prevents the dominance of soccer culture. Baseball was historically “America’s Pastime,” yet gridiron football and basketball dominate fandom in modern day America. While this has a definite impact, the culture in the United States is
