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Posted on 06/28/2006 6:19:45 AM PDT by Tatze
World Cup Scores Only Small Audience
Only 6% Following Tournament Very Closely
Despite a high level of media coverage for the World Cup soccer tournament, three-fourths of Americans (78%) are not following the action very closely if at all. A Rasmussen Reports survey of 1,000 adults found that just 6% are following the tournament very closely.
Nine percent (9%) of men are paying close attention along with 3% of women.
The Super Bowl remains the biggest sport championship in terms of fan appeal. Thirty-five percent (35%) of Americans say it’s their favorite championship to watch. The World Series is the only other championship to reach double digits—12% of adults say it’s their favorite.
One-fourth of all Americans (25%) say they don’t want any sports championships.
Despite the general lack of interest in the World Cup by the US audience, the soccer tournament is more popular than the NBA basketball championship and the NHL’s Stanley Cup hockey title. Both of those events were being held at the same time as the World Cup.
Fourteen percent (14%) of Americans say they played soccer in an organized league at some point in their life.
Fifty-two percent (52%) of Americans believe there is a professional soccer league in the United States (and they’re right).
The survey was conducted before the U.S. soccer team was eliminated. However, few were surprised by the lack of success--just 5% of the nation’s adults thought it was very likely the U.S. team would win the tournament.
The national telephone survey of 1,000 Adults was conducted by Rasmussen Reports June 19-20, 2006. The margin of sampling error for the survey is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.
If you think about it, many of the physical actions in baseball and soccer are very similar. A diving catch or the runner trying to prevent a double play would be a good place to find similarities.
NFL owner Malcolm Glazer (Tampa Bay Buccaneers) just bought Manchester United in 2005.
6% is not a bad figure at all. Only the WS and Superbowl draw double figures. The Superbowl is a one day, annual event, the World Cup is a month long event every four years. A more apt comparison will be the viewership for the final.
The World Cup is the world's largest sporting event drawing more viewers than anything else, even the Summer Olympics. It doesn't need the US market to be successful. I find it interesting that these kinds of articles always seem to come out during the World Cup.
It is a sour grapes approach because the US is not competitive against the world's soccer powers in a sport played by more people and countries than any other. The US is the world's biggest sporting nation (Australia is the most successful on a per capita basis) yet it can't be successful on the biggest stage. We get knocked off by Ghana. Instead of taking on the challenge, it is far easier to denigrate the sport and say we are not interested. In point of fact, the US is becoming more successful in international play and the interest is gaining.
I bet that the Superbowl would have a hard time gaining 6% of the market share in terms of interest in any country in the world save Canada. Very few people of the world's population of 6 billion care about the NFL or follow it.
I think as more MLS teams spring up, that soccer will begin to become a lot more popular. People need to 'team' to root for. Hockey was non-existant here in NC 10 years ago. That's all I've heard about the last 2 months.
We have fifty little countries over here to contend with no need to go play second string nations.
If it is so superior, why hasn't it caught on in the rest of the world. I don't understand why such comparisons need to be made. You can enjoy both. The football proponents seem to feel threatened by soccer, the world's biggest and most played sport. Why?
I've been kicked by a soccer ball going near same speed probably far more than you've been hit by a baseball. Granted a baseball is tougher than a soccer ball but a soccer ball is bigger and will hit more surface area. I have friends with dozens more injuries than that playing soccer. There are lot more ways to get hurt in soccer than the ball. I have friends in the same boat as you from baseball but with nary an injury to their name. I grew up playing every sport you can imagine. I knew more people who got hurt badly from soccer than any other sport, including football.
I didn't know what sport the world cup was until I read the article. :)
My daughter played Soccer until high school. Then, like the lions share of american kids she moved on to more "american" sports, like Basketball. Other kids pick up baseball, football, track, etc.
Soccer just doesn't compete with those other sports any more than cricket does.
So because one out of every 10,000 games (or more) that might happen you think baseball is overall more dangerous and manly than soccer? Get real
Not to mention you won't see 100MPH fastballs very often even in the big leagues.
From the article:
Despite the general lack of interest in the World Cup by the US audience, the soccer tournament is more popular than the NBA basketball championship and the NHL’s Stanley Cup hockey title.I started playing soccer when I was ten, about 35 years ago, so I've seen soccer pretty much from its infancy here. It's slowly and steadily growing in popularity. It will eventually surpass hockey and then basketball in popularity. Whether or not it will surpass baseball and football remains to be seen.
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I like soccer, I actually follow different leagues from around the world including our own domestic league. But face it Soccer is a poor mans poor countries sport.
They have the NCAA football for that. BTW, did you see the number of NLF teams selling out all their tickets in a matter of seconds - literally. Build HUGE stadiums and MANY NFL teams would fill it. It's just that watching football requires a better view of the field than twisting you head in a circle watching cars go in a nice neat circle for 5 hours. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz
I question some of the locations of the soccer stadiums - the few I know of are so far away from their host city.
The MLS site has attendance numbers for the the games - NY has some up in the 50,000's which is pretty good, but much higher than other cities. UF Football packs 80,000 on game day at the Swamp, as does FSU, UTX, UTenn, etc.
We must be watching different games then. Besides, professional soccer players can kick a soccer ball near the same speed. And there are far more ways to get seriously injured in soccer than just a stray ball.
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