I've been very entertained by the postings on this forum, but at the risk of being flamed, here is some food for thought:
(1) Take a look at ABC's TV Ratings - the U.S. vs. Italy game -earned higher ratings (4.4) than the past Stanley Cup playoffs over the past 10 years. The ABC ratings are just below NBC's US Open Golf Coverage and NASCAR Ratings on FOX. If you add in Univision's Spanish ("Copa Mundial") coverage (1.7), you're not too far from the NBA Finals. Not bad for a sport that's not popular in this country, and it's only growing. Here's my source:
http://tv.zap2it.com/tveditorial/tve_main/1,1002,272%7C%7C%7Csports,00.html
(2) Soccer is socialist- Consider the following. A football coach pulls together a playbook outlining where each and every player will go on the field. The coach tells the quarterback which play to run and when - the exception is the player that, on infrequent occasions, is allowed to improvise, or, gasp, call an audible. That sounds like centralized socialist planning to me.
Think about the NFL, NBA, MLB and the NHL - if you're the worst team in the league, you get to pick the best new player in the draft out of college. No real penalties for incompetence because we all share revenues and have salary caps. All in the name of preserving "competitiveness" because, God Forbid, we wouldn't want one team becoming dominant. Also, don't forget, we must rely on State and Local governments to fund our stadiums with enough luxury boxes because all of us taxpayers should subsidize billionaire owners to pay multimillionaire athletes.
You might want to compare this with European leagues where, if you have a bad year, you are relegated to lower divisions - equivalent to moving the Kansas City Royals down to Triple AAA because they have incompetent managers, players and/or owners. And no, no salary caps over there. No drafts either, you develop your own youth players to play in the major leagues. If you're a team that wants a new stadium, generally speaking, you can pay for it out of your own pocket. That sounds like capitalism to me.
(3) As for the game itself - I can think of no other sport less socialist than soccer. A coach can select 11 players for a team, but each of the players need to be able to adapt their style of play to the situation on the field. Teams that have players that are physically gifted, technically skillful, but most importantly, can think independently are, more often than not, the most successful teams. (As opposed to robots who must follow the coach's plans as dictated.) With only three substitutes a coach can replace a player in a limited fashion, but just like the business world, teams must succeed with the players they have in a competitive situation.
Yes, there are few goals in soccer - a goal is actually a major accomplishment, and should be treated as such. People (yes, including some of us Americans) treat soccer as a life-and-death experience because a goal means real success, as opposed to the quick fix, quick high, that is all too prevalent in our short-attention span society.
(4) Last I checked, there are no time outs in life - just a brief rest at halftime.
Yes, I'm one of the kids who started playing soccer in the suburbs 25+ years ago - I played through college, and I still play today. I was one of the first who dreamed about playing in the World . . . Cup, instead of the World Series, when I was younger. I was a reasonably good basketball and baseball player through high school - I didn't fall into soccer as the only sport I could play.
Now that I'm a little older, I'm proud to be one of the 30,000+ who traveled to Germany to cheer for the U.S. There are more of us out here than you imagine. There are more of us than you imagine.
In writing this, I'm not expecting to change too many minds on this forum. But Ain't America great? - No one is holding a gun to your head making you watch a game. However, you might actually enjoy going to a crowded bar and experience the atmosphere of a World Cup telecast.
One final thought relevant to this forum - the Mainstream Media has been biased against us from the beginning. Does that sound familiar?
P.S. You're smoking crack if you think there are very few superstars in soccer.