One of the business blogs that I read for his insightful look at a wide variety of topics is Grant McCracken, who describes his site as “the interesection of anthropology and economics”. He weighs in on soccer today with the title “The Mystery of Soccer”.
The title refers to the fact that despite the installed base of interested viewers - immigrants, young women attracted by the Women’s National Team success, the kids who are playing now and the kids who have grown up in the youth programs that began to get traction in the US twenty years ago - TV viewership is very limited. He points to improvements, such as the recent influx of investment in Major League Soccer, referencing the Red Bull purchase of the New York team. In addition, the soccer specific stadiums that are being built (LA, Columbus, Chicago, Dallas) and considered (KC, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Toronto).
His theory is that despite the inherent beauty of the game, it is too long and played on too large a field. Since he understands that those elements will never change, he concludes the game will never “be ready for prime time” and that “a great marketing opportunity will be wasted” (see installed base above). There are some interesting comments to his story, the one I liked the most was from Steve (SMU) who commented on the negative tactics that can limit the quality of the game.
The question I haven’t been able to answer is why more players and their parents don’t watch the games that are available to them on TV. Whether MLS games or the foreign games available to us on ESPN2 and Fox Soccer Channel. Attendance at the local soccer programs is terrible considering the large number of youth and high school players. One of best ways to learn more about the game is to watch it played at a higher level. The only games that are guaranteed to bring out a large crowd are a couple of local derbies such as Glendale vs Kickapoo as well as the KC Wizards annual Spring visit to play Missouri State.
Outside of the opportunity to recognize the local players and create an archive of their efforts and achievements, the other primary goal of this site is to hopefully create some soccer junkies, or zealots as Grant calls them, in the hopes that the money and opportunities to play and enjoy soccer will increase in the Ozarks.
What do you think? Am I wasting my time writing about Jack Jewsbury and Major League Soccer? What about foreign teams and players? The World Cup? Are you more interested in soccer as it’s played on the world stage or like politics, is all soccer local?
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