Excellent Research Query: Will Soccer Take Off in America?
So what happens when you want to get a comprehensive, accurate look at something — getting your questions answered? What if you wanted to buy cryptocurrency or travel to an overseas market you’re not familiar with?
Are there sources you can trust and count on?
I recently had a fascinating topic pop up for me once again — soccer played in America. That came from hearing about Lionel Messi — who might become America’s soccer version of Michael Jordan; and who could someday surpass the legendary Pelé (who you can see in the photo above), who scored more goals than anyone else has yet to do, as an even bigger name in soccer.
On July 15, 2023, the 36-year-old Messi joined Inter Miami CF, a Major League Soccer team. He’s doing that while staying on with the Argentina national team — serving as a forward and the captain of both teams.
For Miami, the usually low-ranked team has been led by Messi to the final of the 2023 US Open Cup in September.
A photo from the 2022 World Cup in December shows Messi holding up his team’s victory trophy with great pride and joy, right after Argentina defeated France for the title.
He’s getting somewhere between $50 million and $60 million per year from his salary with Inter Miami, that’s tied to signing a bonus and equity in the team. It’s way outside the norm for soccer, a sport that has yet to see anything near the success level to pay what big names in the NBA and NFL might be signing for.
For those conducting a research project for grad school, or for their employer wanting to have customers surveyed, or someone in a job where they need to do deep research in government regulations and decisive legal decisions, having the basics down on research methodologies is a must. My career has been a mix of business media and market research/intel jobs and projects. I’ve always found it to be quite useful for my work and personal life.
The state of soccer in America struck me as being a good story to pitch to an editor; or just to do it because I love digging into the information — to investigate, to analyze, and perhaps to tell a really good story about the growing significance of soccer in America.
A big question occasionally comes up for American soccer fans. For those learning about conducting research projects — this would usually be called the research question:
Will soccer ever be as big in the US as it is in the rest of the world?
As I dug into this story, another one was emerging. Luis Rubiales, president of the Royal Spanish Football Federation, had refused to step down after grabbing and kissing Jennifer Hermoso, a player on the World Cup winning Spanish soccer team. That incident happened the previous weekend at the World Cup medals ceremony in Australia — with Rubiales and some of the FIFA leaders backing what he’d done, and the women players on the team announcing that they would refuse to play until Rubiales was ousted.
On August 26, FIFA announced that Rubiales would be suspended for 90 days while disciplinary proceedings were carried out.
Women’s soccer hasn’t gotten nearly the amount of attention and support that it’s earned in the U.S. and around the world. That’s ironic, given the great results women soccer players have produced.
The United States women’s national soccer team (USWNT) has won four FIFA Women’s World Cup titles — in 1991, 1999, 2015, and 2019. That’s more than any other country has accomplished in the Women’s World Cup. The US team didn’t do well this year, but they have several young, talented players who will work their way up the ranks and create a strong, winning team once again.
The U.S. men’s team has never won the World Cup, and has not advanced beyond the quarterfinals in over 90 years.
As for the Olympics, women have won four gold medals and men have won zero.
That’s one of the elements I enjoy: themes , and twists and turns, that come out from digging into a topic such as soccer in America. Suddenly, another story pops up and the research has to expand quite a bit. The story becomes a rich narrative.
Why research American soccer?
Lately, I’ve been putting in a few hours of digging into the world of soccer in the United States — looking to gain a multi-layered, broad view of this landscape.
For years, I’ve been fascinated by soccer and I’ve worked on taking it all in. Watching a fine soccer match to me is a great pleasure. Isn’t it just incredible to see a flying drop kick get the ball barely past the fingers of the talented goalkeeper — winning the match! It might be the only goal scored in the entire match, but these athletes are working very hard to achieve that win.
I grew up watching basketball, football, baseball, golf, and volleyball (and playing my share of it, minus football); but soccer was far away from me. One of my nieces and two nephews jumped into playing it through AYSO youth soccer teams. It wasn’t there yet for my generation. But somehow I got hooked on the game. While it seemed to be too slow and low-scoring for many, I was enthralled.
So, how did I get here on the research and writing side of this topic?
Nine years ago, I wrote a commentary on FIFA World Cup in Brazil where the men’s U.S. team took a 2–2 draw with Portugal in one of the most-watched soccer matches ever for Americans. Germany went on to beat Argentina 1–0, but it was exciting for American soccer fans to support the game and spread the word.
Where does it all stand now?
In early 2022, 8% of Americans answered soccer as their favorite sport to watch in a Washington Post poll. Soccer has seen more growth in popularity over the years than other sports. Basketball (12%) and baseball (11%) are ahead, but not by all that much. Soccer actually has beaten motor racing, hockey, and golf the last few times the Washington Post polled about it. It took a long time to gather with the Gallup poll finding less than 0.5% of Americans choosing soccer as their favorite to watch from 1937 to 1972. It wouldn’t rise above 2% for many years. In the most recent study, soccer was Number 1 for adults under the age of 30.
There are some strong arguments being made that soccer is a great sport for bringing nations together of all types in the economic sector. A team from Central or South America can be a top competitor against much wealthier, advanced countries. Americans have always loved the premise of the underdog being able to rise up to bring down Goliath.
AYSO used to be the channel for young soccer players to join teams and become good players. Now it’s even larger through the United States Youth Soccer Association; it has a network of 54 state associations — one per state, except for California, New York, Pennsylvania and Texas, which each have two associations.
As part of my research, I dug into the data analytics to see what teams are in place and who’s coaching them. That’s one of the most useful and insightful parts about doing a study — digging into the data and information to get a broad, accurate view of the state of the subject matter.
Soccer is slowly growing in popularity in the US. It’s been years in the works, but it still appears to be too early to tell if it’s ever going to be the most popular sport in the country. It certainly is in countries across Europe and Latin America. As for the US, we’ll see what happens.
Jon LeSage is a Southern California-based freelance writer.
Photo source: Mashupmath.com
