FIFA World Cup 2022

Emanuel said:

Very interesting info, rather delightful, thank you! (EAG : )

Click to expand...

Soccer isn't a very popular sport in the US. The local league, when shown on cable in daytime, barely gets over 400,000 viewers. The most popular is the Mexican league, which is mostly shown on the Hispanic channels. The second most popular is the EPL shown as early as 7 AM on weekends on a cable channel, and often on the OTA main NBC channel at noon. Liga MX can get over 3M for a big match (Club America-Chivas). The EPL gets half a mil on cable and around mil for the big matches on NBC.

By comparison, the NFL gets 15-17 million for Sunday Night Football on the main OTA NBC channel and about two thirds on Fox and CBS.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/20...leheader-vikings-colts-fox-world-cup-lead-in/

Naturally, there are larger audiences for two popular/hot teams with large following and drop-offs for the also-runs.

DLD said:

Soccer isn't a very popular sport in the US. The local league, when shown on cable in daytime, barely gets over 400,000 viewers. The most popular is the Mexican league, which is mostly shown on the Hispanic channels. The second most popular is the EPL shown as early as 7 AM on weekends on a cable channel, and often on the OTA main NBC channel at noon. Liga MX can get over 3M for a big match (Club America-Chivas). The EPL gets half a mil on cable and around mil for the big matches on NBC.

By comparison, the NFL gets 15-17 million for Sunday Night Football on the main OTA NBC channel and about two thirds on Fox and CBS.

https://www.sportsmediawatch.com/20...leheader-vikings-colts-fox-world-cup-lead-in/

Naturally, there are larger audiences for two popular/hot teams with large following and drop-offs for the also-runs.

Click to expand...

Yeah, we know... Unfortunately for the development and quality of the sport in the country but useful figures to know anyway brought by you :- )

It's changing, though, the popularity of football, or Fútbol. That being its proper name because it is played with the feet. The game you call football in the USA and the game they call football in Australia is predominantly played with the hands. Regardless, however you want to call it, it's the world game, and it's becoming more popular in the US of A. As it should

Chris Young

"The US may have lost in the World Cup, but soccer is more popular than ever in America."

https://edition.cnn.com/2022/12/12/football/soccer-popularity-us-world-cup-spt-intl/index.html

This is the same article that could have been written for the last 30 years. "Soccer is America's next great sport ... and always will be".

The US has approximately 85 million immigrants living within the US borders. Most of us came from soccer dominated culture (I also played hockey during winters). The problem is that the attention of immigrants is, to put it mildly, diffused. When Brazil won the 2002 World Cup, Miami was full of the green&yellow banners and jubilantly honking cars. But I prefer to watch the EPL because it's a great league while MLS has been an awful spectacle until very recently and, as I'd argue, has been detrimental to the development of the game in America. But most everything changed in 2016 when the 17 year old Christian Pulisic signed with Borussia Dortmund, using his Croatian heritage to bypass the anti-import FIFA laws. Then, he succeeded, thereby enticing the European teams to sign more young Americans. And that helped free these talented kids from the clutches of MLS, which neither paid or developed them. For over 20 years, college soccer and MLS were a graveyard for talent. It's changing slowly now. Young prospects sign with good European clubs, some succeed, MLS is far more willing to sell them also. Et cetera, et cetera.

Well, as a part of the team that won three World Cups, here's bit of a tribute to Pele, who passed away at the age of 82.

These may not be his best twenty goals - he scored many and these are from those that had the camera rolling - but here they are.

So, here's a soccer themed American soap opera. Watch out Alexis Carrington, watch out JR Ewing.

It starts off with two boys Claudio and Gregg who grow up together in New Jersey and play together for a youth club coached by Claudio's dad. After that, a highly recruited midfielder Claudio goes to the UVA while Gregg, a bustling central defender, goes to the UNC. While at the UNC, Gregg meets a female soccer player named Rosalind and the two of them end up dating. One day, both get drunk and get into a fight. Being a soccer player, Gregg kicks Rosalind the same way - or worse - he kicks the opposing forwards. Rosalind confides in her best friend and roommate Danielle, who plays soccer on the same UNC team. They don't call the cops but Gregg and Rosalind do break up. A while later, they reconcile. And a while later still, Gregg and Rosalind introduce Danielle to Claudio. Or vice versa. And those two become a couple too.

Meanwhile both Claudio and Gregg embark on pro careers. Claudio signs up with the Aspirin Makers in Bayer Leverkusen and, over the course of his career ends up playing for some big clubs in Rangers, Sunderland and Manchester City. He also becomes a captain of the US men's national team and is capped 112 times. Gregg's career isn't as successful but nonetheless quite long. After their playing careers are over, Claudio goes into management and Gregg into coaching. And, by that point, both are happily married, to Rosalind and Danielle respectively.

That was the set up.

Here's the twist. Gregg, without being exceptionally accomplished on the coaching front, nonetheless gets the US head job. Claudio ends up being a general manager in MLS. But Claudio has a remarkable offspring. His son Giovanni (aka Gio), named after his ex-teammate with Rangers Giovanni van Bronckhost, grows up into a 6'3 midfielder and one of the brightest prospects not only in the US soccer but in the whole world. He signs with a huge club in Borussia Dortmund and even gets on the field in Germany as a 17 year old. As a budding star, he is naturally picked to be on the US national team, including being a part of the roster for the 2022 World Cup.

Gregg's son Sebastian also becomes a soccer player but is only good enough for a second tier US league. He temporarily is signed by Austin FC in MLS, whose general manager just happens to be Claudio Reyna, but is then dropped.

At the Qatar World Cup, Gregg calls Gio and tells him that he ain't gonna see much of the pitch. Gio is incensed. He thinks he is the second-third best player on the US roster and deserves to start every match. When informed otherwise, he throws a fit and slacks off in practice. His head coach then tells him that he'll either have to shape up or he will be shipped out. Which makes kid's parents Claudio and Danielle mad at everyone. Including Claudio's lifelong friend Gregg. Claudio even complains to the US soccer hierarchy, who just happen to be his ex-teammates with the national team. The news of this gets out to the media covering the Cup but they're holding their fire because Gio vs. the Coach conflict gets temporarily resolved.

But only temporarily.

Upon returning home from Qatar, Gregg goes into some Harvard assembled conference on leadership and spills the beans on the kid, without specifically mentioning him by name. Of course, since the media know the whole story, the brouhaha makes the sports wires. Now, Claudio and Danielle get even more incensed. What happens in Doha ought to stay in Doha. They again call their friends at the US Soccer HQ and defend their offspring, even mentioning Gregg's thirty year old indiscretion of kicking Rosalind. "We wuz all dumb once", they allege.

However, the US Soccer has its own turf to protect. A few months earlier, there were a number of serious allegations and subsequent dismissals of coaching personnel in the woman's league due to "commingling of interests" and even worse. The hierarchy then couldn't let the incident from Gregg's and Rosalind's youth to lay idly. And so they brought up a major law firm to do thorough investigation.

But that complicated the sports based story. The US, according to the US shills in the press, did as expected at the WC, progressing into the knockout rounds from the group stage and then losing to the far more experienced Dutch team. The more critical part of the followers, on the other hand, pointed a number of egregious faux pas on the part of the head coach, including lying about the reason he did not play Gio. While Gregg wasn't dismissed outright, his contract expired at the end of the year and he was quite content on negotiating himself a new contract that would take him into the 2026 World Cup, to be held in North America (US, Canada, Mexico). Having a home field advantage is considered a major opportunity to make some noise on the international level. For both the players and the coaches.

Except now, his retention is highly unlikely. His defenders blame the Reyna's. The Reyna's maintain their innocence and point toward Berhalter attacking their kid. The US soccer hierarchy would like to wash its collective hands of the matter but they can't because Gregg's older brother Jay was a long time Chief Commercial Officer with the USSF and, obviously, had a duty to report any pertinent information on his younger brother to the Board of Governors. And the fan forums are accusations without information central. And there's no coaching search as of now.

And people are still wondering who shot JR.