Could U.S. Soccer Eclipse Basketball and Hockey? $200M Adidas Pact Suggests Yes

CBS News ^ | September 2, 2010 | Jim Edwards

[MinorityRepublican]

Adidas (ADS.DE)'s $200 million sponsorship deal with Major League Soccer shows that the apparelmaker has noticed sports marketing's best-kept secret: U.S. soccer's audience is threatening to eclipse that of the National Hockey League and the NBA. The crucial thing to note in the new deal is that the $200 million pact is worth $25 million per year through 2018. It replaces, mid-contract, a 10-year deal for $150 million, or $15 million a year -- a 66 percent increase in annual value.

Why would Adidas make this expensive move? Consider: The MLS isn't broadcast to a large audience on TV (you have to pay for Fox Soccer Channel to see many of the games). The mainstream press's coverage of U.S. soccer is patchy at best and actively disinterested at worst (this means you, New York Times). And there's a cultural consensus that soccer just isn't important in America (ask any football or baseball fan).

Under that radar, however, the game that ought to be called American football is growing like mold. Here are some recent average attendance stats for the major American sports:

NFL - 67,508.69 (2009 season) MLB - 30,213.37 (2009 season) MLS - 18,452.14 (2010 season, as of 04/11/2010) NBA - 17,149.61 (2009/10 season) NHL - 16,985.31 (2009/10 season) Obviously, there's a caveat here: basketball and hockey teams play a lot more than once a week, so their total attendances are a lot greater.

[safeasthebanks]

Its Maradona for me, although clearly a total idiot off the field.

[Dr. Sivana]

So much of the game's appeal is regionally based

The NHL should embrace its regional appeal. Expansion into Charlotte, Dallas, etc. weakens the sport's overall appeal. I know, I'm a Kings fan, but LA is so big they can qualify just on NY transplants.

The season must be shortened, and started earlier, so that the most important hockey is played when there is conceivably snow located in some populated area at sea level in the northern hemisphere.

I would also like to see fewer overall teams, and fewer playoff spots. In the 70s, there were at one point 21 teams (after the Cleveland Barons merged with the MN Northstars) with 16 making the playoffs, including division winners in the Smythe Conference where not a single team played anywhere near .500! This made the regular season next to pointless. I would be thinking more along the lines of 24 teams with 8 making the playoffs. I might go as high as 12 if you provide byes for four division winners.

Now, I never figured out why the Nordiques and the Canadiens never turned into a rivalry, or the Winnipeg Jets and the Edmonton Oilers.I fear that new rivalries are much harder because of free agency, and the large influx of non North American players. It makes for better play, of course, to be able to get top Russians and Swedes, but it further weakens the meaning of team locality. Nothing prevents there being more Canadians on the Los Angeles Kings or the Charlotte Hurricanes than on the Toronto Maple Leafs.

[FReepaholic]

...Real soccer fans are more interested in the EPL and the big Euro Leagues than the MLS.....watching the MLS is like watching a Single-A baseball game...

Exactly. The biggest names in MLS (Beckham, Henry, etc) are basically cast-offs from Europe.

The MLS has no players of the same caliber as Messi, Ronaldo, Rooney and Van Persie just to name a few.

Speaking of The Beautiful Game, the FA Cup final is tomorrow. Should be a good game.

[muawiyah]

Stock car and junk car racing is a new sport in India. You should catch some of the videos ~ those guys all think they'll be reincarnated so they do risky stuff NOBODY ELSE DOES ~ not ever.

Indian Figure 8 racing is the sport of mid-century Fur Shur.

[gusty]

Being a Kings fan from CT have anything to do with the New Haven Knighthawks, a Kings’ farm team.

[safeasthebanks]

It seems so long ago now, but imagine if Heysel had never happened..

[MinorityRepublican]

It's so oriented towards a TV audience that attending a game in person can be a boring ordeal.

That's what beer is for.

[Dr. Sivana]

It's so oriented towards a TV audience that attending a game in person can be a boring ordeal.

Not just boring ... impossible if you have nosebleed seats. My last NFL game was Cowboys at Rams. I was in Row VV on the 10 yard line. Kurt Warner was on the opposite 20 yard line, when the stupid center jammed Warner's thumb on a bad snap. I couldn't even tell that Jamie Martin was brought in. The Jumbotrons were busy showing the Cheerleaders, whose routines were comically inappropriate for the action on the field.

I will disagree about the game being boring if you have decent seats. I got to attend SB XXX (Cowboys-Steelers) and was 3/4's back of the lower deck around he 20 yard line. I couldn't folow the game so well when the action was on the opposite end of the field, but I greatly bing able o focus in on whatever I chose. I spent a lot of the game watching Deion Sanders' coverage, or the Steeler's O-line in action, etc. There is a lot of atheticism on the field that gets missed by necessity on TV.

I won't go to a modern NFL game, because I don't klike the new security measures. I miss my America.

[dfwgator]

The only question I have is which team do I want to win less, between Chelsea and Liverpool.

The thing that would suck is if Chelsea wins the Champions League title, and bumps the fourth place team out, especially if it’s Newcastle or Tottenham.

[driftless2]

Since they first attempted to make soccer a major sport in the U.S. going back to the late sixties, I’ve yet to hear one friend, family member, co-worker, or chance acquaintance talk about soccer. Not one time. How many of the hundreds of thousands of high schoolers who play on soccer teams play it after they graduate? Even in pickup games?

[GeronL]

I do not know anyone who actually WATCHED a soccer game on TV or in person (except for childrens games)

[Dr. Sivana]

Being a Kings fan from CT have anything to do with the New Haven Knighthawks, a Kings’ farm team.

They were a Kings farm team only part of the time. I think the Kings franchise was the Springfield Indians. My first hockey game was a Nighthawks game. It was free hockey stick night, and the sticks were given out after the game. It was pandemonium, but my brother and I got our sticks and played floor hockey in the basement.

Growing up, it never occurred to me to support the local team.

[Crapgame]

Soccer is pushed on us because lib’ruls love it. It is the embodiment of lib’rulism. Soccer is nothing more than a pan-Euro, socialist attempt to subvert traditional American sporting values....there I said it. I note that the rise in popularity of soccer in America roughly correlates to the decline of America in cultural and economic greatness. To quote Dan Jenkins, how in hell do you bet a sport that can end in a tie? It is the anti-thesis of Patton’s “Americans LOVE a winner”...

[richmwill]

Every couple of years, we hear that soccer will become “the next major U.S. sport”. And every single time, I am proven right when I say it will never, ever happen. Soccer is one of those games where all of its fun is in actually playing it. Watching it on tv is as much fun as getting a root canal procedure done.

[Dr. Sivana]

To quote Dan Jenkins, how in hell do you bet a sport that can end in a tie?

The same way you do in NFL football ... point spread.

[dfwgator]

It seems so long ago now, but imagine if Heysel had never happened..

Everton fans will never forgive Liverpool for that, because it happened right when Everton was about to become a European power, and as a result, English teams were banned from Europe during that period.

[dfwgator]

How interested are you in watching baseball if you are not vested in the teams playing? Soccer is no different than any other sport....once you learn the teams, the traditions and the players and vest yourself in a squad, it is a great sport to watch, throughout the course of a season. I got hooked on the EPL several years ago, and must admit, I follow it now even more than I do the NFL......the relegation battles, and the battle to qualify for Europe, the Cup Competitions, Champions League....having multiple competitions going on concurrently make it a fun sport to follow.....some games themselves are boring, but then again, I saw a lot of boring 9-6 Field Goal Fests in the NFL as well.

[Crapgame]

The question is obviously more rhetorical than anything. That works for gamblers who have access to casinos and sportsbooks, but what of the millions of Americans who like to make a wager on a winner, like the millions who make the weekly bets in college and NFL football. The vast majority of them are straight up bets.

[dfwgator]

It was free hockey stick night,

Thankfully they didn't combine it with "Ten-Cent Beer Night".

[safeasthebanks]

Please stop making a fool of yourself on FR. Thanks, sweetie.