Funadvice Logo

Why is soccer not more popular in the US?

Home More advice Sports & Activities

As a child, up through my first year of college, I played a lot of soccer (to the rest of the world, it's football). Why is soccer not more popular in the US? Honestly, I don't get it.

There are two reasons I see as being potentially the issue: 1) Soccer doesn't have time outs - therefor, it's harder to make money for advertising, and in the world's largest advertising market, this means that the sport will never take off. 2) Americans by & large have a problem with sports not invented here. We, culturally, want to invent it & make up the rules, child like, to have a temporary advantage to things while the rest of the world learns our games.

Other ideas, or is one of my two theories correct? Are we all "children" here, who want to make up the rules so we can win - or does the media control things so tightly that if what you do doesn't enable them to make money, it will never "work" on a massive scale?