When I was young, the ranking in popularity of sports was Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey, and Soccer. Now it is Football, Basketball, Baseball, Soccer, and Hockey, with soccer set to pass baseball in the next decade or two. Baseball's problem is that its fan base is 50% over 55 years old, second to golf in that department. When your product it king of the nursing homes, you have a problem, a big problem.
The sport of soccer has nothing to worry about from the soccer haters. Reason, the soccer haters overwhelmingly have a foot in the cemetery. Soccer is content to let baseball win the nursing home demographic.
That might be because this is the World Cup, and at any one time millions of soccer-loving foreigners are in the country and watching the tube. Plus, there are the certain numbers of bemused Americans, like me, occasionally watching to see what the hubbub is all about. I hold no brief for baseball which is usually very boring as well and needs to be jacked up like soccer. Baseball purists have their own problems like describing a 1-0 snoozefest as a great game while the occasional 10-9, actually exciting game is described as an aberration. And the description of baseball as some sort of “cerebral” game is nonsense on stilts. It’s whose pitchers are better that day.