Re: World Cup Soccer XVII: There can only be ONE!!!11!!!
We were told that Americans would start tuning out the World Cup once the USA was knocked out of the tournament.
Whoops.
The World Cup Final shattered U.S. ratings records on Sunday, drawing 24.3 million U.S. viewers.
Domestically, that makes it the most-watched soccer game of all time, according to Nielsen Media Research.
The 1-0 victory by Spain, televised by ABC and Univision, surpasses the 19.4 million viewers that tuned in for the U.S. vs. Ghana match earlier in this World Cup.
For those interested, the Brazil-Italy final from 1994 was the gold standard in US soccer ratings before USA-GHA with 18.1 million. Three of the top five rated soccer matches of all time in the US took place at this World Cup (ESP-NED, USA-GHA, USA-ENG).
The talking heads all keep asking if soccer is ever going to gain in popularity in the US, but the evidence doesn't lie - it absolutely is and it is continuing to grow at a quickening pace. If it wasn't, ESPN wouldn't be running EPL, La Liga, and Serie A scores on its tickers. Fox wouldn't have bumped baseball to a night broadcast in order to air the Champions League final live on its terrestrial network. What these people are missing is that soccer isn't becoming popular overnight - it's a gradual process that continues to march on despite the naysayers. They act as though nothing has changed, while the truth is that the change has been incremental, not drastic, which makes it more difficult for the casual (and truly, dis-interested) observer to see.
The 1994 World Cup is often cited as a failure by some both in the US and around the world, because it failed to catapult soccer into the full mainstream on its own. So what? The '94 WC was a primer. It got millions of Americans - especially people in my generation, people like me who had very little exposure to the game growing up - interested enough to start paying attention. It got MLS going, which has helped heighten exposure.
And don't discount the effect that the Information Age has had upon soccer's growth. It used to be fairly impossible to get news in the US about what was going on in European leagues unless you had a subscription to a soccer-specific newsletter or magazine. Growing interest in the game in the late 90s was obviously fed by the widening availability of the Internet, a phenomenon which expanded greatly in the last decade.
There's a reason the very best EPL teams flood into the US for their preseason friendly tournaments. Like any other successful business, they want to expand their markets, and right now, the American market is the greenest one out there. The kid growing up in North Jersey watches the US play in the World Cup, then gets interested in seeing more, so he buys a ticket to watch the Red Bulls take on Manchester City. Then he sees the Blues on TV, remembers them, and starts paying attention. He buys a Man City kit. Business is done. His friend next to him in class went to the game against Tottenham Hotspur. He becomes a Spurs fan. The two friends enjoy a friendly rivalry between "their teams" in England. They start learning more about the other teams their sides are playing. Knowledge is expanded. Other friends take notice. The seed is germinating. And all because of a summer friendly tournament.
That's why, if FIFA has any common sense whatsoever, they'll put the 2022 World Cup in the US. The 1994 cup was, as I said, the primer, it was the fertilizer for the growth of the game. If FIFA wants to accelerate the growth of its product in the wealthiest of the partially untapped markets out there, it'll use the 2022 cup as an accelerant. Americans were intrigued by the spectacle of the 1994 cup. They'll be enthralled by the GAME in 2022.
To be fair I think it was a minor league game, so he probably wanted to let me work it out.
