You hope soccer becomes a major sport, but those hopes have been around at least thirty years, and the MLS is not the first American pro soccer league. And I'm old enough to remember the first great hullabaloo about about the rapidly growing popularity of soccer in the US. And, in 1975, the great Pele's signing with the New York Cosmos was going to be the great boost that would make soccer a major sport in America.
"Furthermore, yet others blame the alleged decline of baseball popularity on the change of the fan base, and the lack of subsequent adjustments by MLB to counter these changes. While the total proportion of baseball fans in the US population remains steady, the composition of the fan base has changed. It’s quite possible that the perception of Baseball as the predominant American sport has changed because the citizen and spectator makeup in America has changed. Gallup data from the early 1950s found that 52% of black adults followed Major League Baseball. By the early 2000s, just 33% of blacks said they were baseball fans. Nowadays, the majority of blacks identify themselves as basketball fans (Isley, 2006)."
The survey however did point out that the loss of black baseball fans was most likely offset by Hispanic/Latino immigration and subsequent new fans. With that said, Hispanic/Latino’s are now the country’s largest minority, and the Pew Hispanic Center projects that the Hispanic population will reach 60.4 million by 2020. Most of that increase will come from US-born second-generation Latinos and MLB should be positioned to take advantage of the Hispanic baby boom with 12 MLB teams among the top ten Hispanic markets. The NFL is absent from the largest Latino market, Los Angeles (4.4 million Hispanics). Furthermore, a December 2005 poll by The Latino Coalition surveyed 1,000 Hispanic adults and found that baseball ranks as the second favorite sport with 13% of the vote, comparable to the general population. Soccer is the favorite Hispanic sport (Isley, 2006). It is quite possible that the game of baseball is poised for a push in popularity but in my opinion the game will not be able to capitalize on this increased potential fan base if it does not address some of the underlying issues that are undoubtedly currently hindering the games popularity.
And there are no statistics to prove otherwise. The proof is the attendance at games, and in the TV audiences. A long way to go.
I read that absurd article. They are comparing average attendance of basketball and hockey (played indoors in arenas of 20,000 and less), to soccer (played outdoors in facilities that seat 40,000 and upward. So, soccer in playing in more than half empty stadiums, and is being compared to sports that play three games per week over a shorter season than the soccer season.
And both the NBA and NHL play 82 game seasons, and the champs play around 100 through the playoffs. They just don't compare because the NBA and NHL have many sellouts, three times a week, and soccer is playing to more than half empty stadiums. In total attendance and revenue, soccer is far behind in the US.
The initial portion of the round-robin stage was distinguished by the much-anticipated June 12 U.S.-England tie, which drew 13 million viewers on ABC, making it the most-watched first round World Cup game in U.S. broadcast history. This is more than any of the first 6 NBA finals playoff games.
And game seven of the NBA finals drew 28 million viewers. And you're comparing apples and cola nuts. Your proper comparison is the NBA finals and the deciding game of the MLS championship in the US. If you want to compare US games in the World Cup to something, compare them to the Olympics. The US women's World Cup championship game in LA years back drew a big audience, but I haven't noticed women's soccer becoming as big as the major US sports.
As has been well pointed out, this once every four years American interest in soccer tells us nothing about the real American interest in soccer. I watch soccer once every four years, and this WC is the first time I've watched soccer since WC 2006. And there are many more like me. Compare the US World Cup viewing audience to the US Olympic viewing audience, not to the NBA. This is rooting for the national team, not expressing a big interest in soccer (or all those Olympic sports).
You are just hoping for the future, and there is nothing wrong with that. But all this data you post proves nothing. You're still in the prediction stage. People had all sorts of reasons in 1975 why soccer was about to really take off in the US. It didn't.
Until you can show soccer attendance and revenue figures for US only competition, year-after-year, on par with the major sports, and major college interest, then it's still just US soccer fans hoping for bigger and better things, just as back in 1975.
No one is changing their mind, and we've already spent too much time on this.