sam221985 said:
fair enough but USA has a population of what 300 million? While UK has 60 million (only 47 million are English which is obv. the only UK national team in the world cup) Germany has 80 million and Australia something like 30 million I think, tops.
The truth is our country as a whole just has a whole lot more folks with disposable cash to spend. That's why the numbers.
As far as football in America. It's MAYBE sitting fifth now in popularity. Behind (American)football, Basketball, Baseball and Hockey. At real issue here in getting and keeping new fans is a lack of quality games to watch. Sure there are MLS league games that one can watch, and those can be entertaining, if not overly skilled, but they are lacking the crazy insane passion that a Barcelona v Real Madrid or City v United match are bringing to the table. It's that sort of craziness, that frenetic atmosphere that will attract and keep people. When you can feel the tension through your television set, watch the players kick the crap out of each other and give it all to try and win, that's what creates new fans.
The rivalries that exist in the MLS are not up to this yet. None of the teams have been around long enough to engender true rivalry yet. So we're stuck trying to gain new fans through the prism of "sports" when they are already bombarded with American sports all day everyday. What we need over here to truly capture fans is a way to bring that spirit that exists in all of us when we look at United and a way to transfer that via matches to possible fans. Football matches always being aired early in the morning(at times as early as four or five in the morning) makes that very difficult to do. Those of us who are devotees of football will continue to be so, we'll teach our kids to be so, keeping them playing and introducing others to it. That will hopefully over time bring more and more new fans into the fold. As well over time the rivalries in the MLS will grow, become more serious and start(again over time) to engender that feeling we get when we think of United. Or Barcelona fans when they think of Real Madrid. In truth I've allready seen budding promise in that regard from my cities team the Portland Timbers and the Seattle team the Sounders. They moved to the MLS last year, and we will be next year. The rivalry goes back twenty- twenty five years allready but is still in it's infancy. It offers hope though.
