Soccer's popularity in the U.S. grows as exposure increases

By Christopher Williams

A broadcast of the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa / CC Photo:"On Cue" by Richard_of_England is licensed with CC BY 2.0.

One of the first questions José Ríos is always asked when meeting someone in his home country of Mexico is what soccer team he supports. Although the answer might result in a disagreement, he always responds “Cruz Azul,” the local team in Mexico City he has supported for 23 years.

“When you're just getting to know somebody, there are a few things you don’t talk about, which are money, religion, politics, or football,” Ríos said. “There's a lot of passion and a lot of emotion regarding it.”

That usually wouldn’t be the case just north in the United States, where it’s no secret that the U.S. trails behind most countries in terms of its passion for soccer. However, the country’s love for soccer is growing as the sport becomes more accessible to consume.

A 2019 Gallup poll revealed that soccer is most popular among 18-34 year olds in the U.S., the generation labeled as “those who determine the future of spectator sports.” Soccer is the second-most popular sport among that age group, tied in popularity with basketball at 11%. Football reigns supreme with 30% popularity.

Statistics courtesy of Gallop's study

Seven percent of Americans said that soccer was their favorite sport, which is the most popular any sport outside of football, baseball, and basketball has been since auto racing in 1997.

Chris Toronyi, a marketing communications professor at Emerson College who has been studying the growth of soccer in the U.S. for years, credits this rise in popularity to “the fundamentals of playing it and actually seeing it.”

People have always been able to play the sport stateside, but more soccer competitions are being broadcasted on cable and streaming networks in the U.S. than ever before. The table below lists some of the networks and the competitions they regularly broadcast.

“Leagues are looking for more eyeballs,” Toronyi said about the increase in broadcasts. “They're looking for more rights deals.”

Renowned journalist Grant Wahl has seen and documented soccer’s growth in America for the past 25 years. The CBS Sports analyst and former Sports Illustrated reporter said “the consumption and the availability of soccer from outside the United States in the U.S. has grown exponentially” since he began covering the sport in 1996.

“The U.S. is one of the best countries in the world in which to watch professional soccer on television,” Wahl said. “That's a huge cultural shift that has had an impact on the growth of the sport.”

That shift can be seen in Major League Soccer, which has seen a 27% increase in interest since 2012 and a 34% increase in attendance since 2003. MLS was the league with the second-highest growth in attendance throughout the world in those 15 years—only second to the Polish Ekstraklasa.

It was also the eighth-most popular soccer league in the world, trailing behind France’s Ligue 1 by 198 fans and sitting comfortably ahead of the Netherlands’ Eredivisie by over 2,000 fans.

However, Mexico’s Liga MX is the most-watched league in the U.S., per World Soccer Talk. Nielsen reports that Hispanics account for 68%—the vast majority—of all soccer viewership in the United States.

“There's a reason why the Mexican men's national team is the most popular soccer team in the United States,” Wahl said.

With the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar around the corner and the 2026 FIFA World Cup scheduled to be hosted in the U.S., Mexico, and Canada, Toronyi predicts that Americans’ interest in the sport will continue to rise.

“Will it help the game and grow the game? Absolutely,” Toronyi said. “Will it bring in other marketing activities [for leagues]? Of course it will.”

Toronyi isn’t the only one who believes they will increase soccer’s popularity. According to The New York Times, FIFA, the governing body of world soccer, is considering moving its headquarters from Zurich, Switzerland to the United States for “the chance to build out its commercial operation in a country that its officials feel has yet to embrace soccer at a level matching the sport’s place in other parts of the world.”

Toronyi cites FIFA’s interest in moving to the U.S. as a testament to the sport’s growth here over recent years and its predicted trajectory.

“Just having FIFA consider moving their headquarters to the U.S. really says it all for me,” Toronyi said.