I played basketball, baseball, and soccer in high school and enjoyed all 3 sports. I've coached (multiple) youth soccer teams for 6 years now.
The amount of ignorance on this thread is amazing. Its very hard for people who have never played soccer to develop an appreciation for the game. I don't even try to describe it to others.
The same is true, however, for other sports like baseball. How many of the baseball fans out there played baseball as a kid? Nearly all I would bet (including myself). Go out to the parks on a saturday and see how many kids play baseball vs soccer? In our town, more kids play soccer than all other sports (10 sports in all) combined.
Now Baseball is a lot of things, but action packed it is not. In 30 years, how popular do you think baseball is going to be among fans who never played it?
LOL
Tradition plays a large part in what sports are popular. This has already been mentioned. In this area, like many others, high school football rules the roost and serves as the community's rallying point.
The school may have good tennis and baseball and soccer teams. But Friday nights under the lights is what makes the community come together.
Soccer is the metric system of sports. The more we are told it is the future and the more it is foisted upon us, the more we will recoil from it as an alien import. There may be nothing wrong with soccer, per se. But it is alien to American culture. Hockey succeeds marginally in America. The rhythm and teamwork aspects of it and soccer are similar. I imagine if hockey did not have the violence of football, it would be about as popular as soccer.
SD