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.
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.
"Hockey was non-existant here in NC 10 years ago"
Now you're talking about a real sport. For sheer excitement and intensity, I don't think anything matches a playoff game 7 in the Stanley Cup playoffs. That's what the folks down here in NC found out (btw, where in NC are you?)
Imagine playing football 3 times per week. The physical demands of hockey are on a par with football (imho). And that's probably not a fair comparison given that in a football game there is actually only about 8 minutes or so of actual "ball in play" time.
Or think about playing basketball at twice the speed. The need for balance, grace, and, yes, brute strength in sudden bursts is a far greater necessity in hockey than in basketball.
And hockey requires some of the same hand-eye coordination of baseball (nothing will ever compare to hitting a 90+ mph pitch--nothing).
And if you like boxing...
And it still drew pathetic ratings in NC until the Stanley Cup. The media hyped it a lot but the TV ratings never were very good and the team has still only turned a profit once in ten years. Two bad seasons and every single bandwagoner will fall off.