How the US finally fell in love with soccer

You're listening to the conversation. When Roberto Baggio steps up to the penalty spot at the Rose Bowl in Pasadena, California, it's all or nothing. He must score or Italy lose the World Cup. More than 94,000 people are there to watch Brazilian ecstasy and Italian heartbreak that day in July 1994 and millions more watch on television across the world. To this day, no other FIFA World Cup has been as well attended as the 1994 tournament. The tickets were cheap and despite the relatively low profile of the game in the US, people went along to see what it was all about. Now, 32 years later as the World Cup returns to North America with games across Mexico, Canada and the US, soccer has grown a much larger and more dedicated fanbase in America. So what's changed? And does this popularity have stain power? I'm Gemma Weir from the Conversation and News and Analysis Platform Partner and Journalists with academics. Welcome to the Conversation Weekly, where experts explain how we ended up here. In this episode, how the US finally fell in love with soccer. John Slute, your professor of communication studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee and historian of soccer and its fans in the United States. Welcome to the podcast. Thank you. I'm happy to be here. John, the last time the US hosted the FIFA World Cup was in 1994, where were you back then? What was it like? I was actually living in Des Moines, Iowa. So I was close to some of them. But, you know, I was talking to my partner the other night. She was living in Dallas at the time. Even though games sold out, she remembers being able to walk up the day off to buy tickets. It was a bizarre time. We did an incredible job of bringing crowds out. But for the most part, it was still a curiosity. It was great hosting the World Cup. But in terms of soccer knowledge and the nation, pretty low. Historically, of course, very important for us in America because one of the stipulations of getting the World Cup was that the US Soccer Federation make another attempt to get a professional soccer league going here. If you look at the US national team for '94, the vast majority of them weren't even with clubs. They were playing for the US Soccer Federation. So that's where we were at the time. It's weird to look back and see that, right? Yeah. And what about this 2026 World Cup? How different, as a moment, would you say, this tournament is compared to 1994, the look, the feel, the love of the game in the US? That's a complicated question. I wish I could say, wow, it's just grown so much. There's so much knowledge, there's so much excitement. It's a strange moment we're living in. And we all know that, yes, there's way more soccer knowledge. Our women's team has made us aware of international football in so many ways. And so there's that excitement. And we've got the young American players who are now playing in places and getting well-known. On the other hand, we're living in a weird political moment of, I was going to say, isolationism, that sort of changed. But hostility, some US hostility towards other parts of the world, hostility towards immigration, immigrants, and then associating that with football, etc., still happens on some level. So it's excitement, but it's a very odd moment that way. Are you going to go? I'm more excited now that I was in '94. My fan ship has grown, my knowledge of international soccer has grown. I've got to tell you, the prices, for a while, they were scaring me. They're starting to drop in several places, so I might go. I may be happy watching it on a television set, however. We'll have to see. I haven't yet decided. OK, let's rewind a few decades. What kind of following did soccer have in the US before 1994? When it first comes here from England, we were playing it before almost every other country. And it had a history. That history falls apart for reasons which were important to talk about pre-94. American exceptionalism, the idea that we invent our own games, the idea that we play our own games, etc., musk your Christianity. It looks so coherent to something that is seen for a long period, as foreign, as alien, as something of immigrants, and as a soft sport. And it seems to disappear off the map, although we have this long history with it. In the late '60s or mid-60s, when investors are looking for a sport to buy into. Once again, the idea comes up. Let's create a professional soccer league, the North American Soccer League. Games of the North American Soccer League are part of TSN's exciting soccer coverage. We'll follow the Blizzard as they take on Minnesota, New York, and Tampa Bay. And they're playing in major cities, but they're not playing football field yet. They're playing on off-sites, etc. And the sport's barely getting any viewership. The New York Cosmos, which is one of the most famous teams from that era, they're the ones that make the great pitch. We're going to make this into something visible. They get Paley to come out of retirement. The sports fan, the president, and his guest, Paley, newly signed by the New York Cosmos, an in-town to play in a greatly heralded match with the Washington diplomats. Signs a big contract, four to seven million dollars. He comes, and then we just start signing stars from all over the globe coming here to play. The league takes off in a very flashy way. It starts getting very large viewership, not necessarily on TV, but they were selling out stadiums of 60-something thousand when Paley shows up. Some of those records held until the messy effect right now. But anyway, that league gets us in sort of trouble worldwide. We create this league, and the league has rules that don't exist elsewhere. So for example, Pindley kicks, right? Instead of having the person at a spot take the kick, the person who was taking the pill to kick was way out near the midfield. And then he- I like him field hockey. Yes, he had five seconds to shoot the ball. And the goalkeeper came running out of a box at him, right? So it was more of a face-off one-on-one. There were also lots of fireworks. There were lots of promotions. One car dealership sponsors the team, so they're always bringing cars onto the field. There's just a lot going on that for your typical English fan at the time. Looks gotty, seemed crazy. Some of the players that came over were like, "What the hell have I got myself into?" There's fireworks going off. There's a guy with a chain, so a lot of that going on, right? And it's big. It's flashy. There's lots of money. And this is when historically, this is an important point, because we had to call it soccer. We had no choice. We had football. We couldn't call it anything else. We take soccer, of course, from the English. They're the ones who invented the term. Sort of association football. It's like, "Rugger for rugby. This is soccer." English newspapers at the time, if you do a study before 1970, they used soccer and football almost interchangeably when talking about the sport. Watch the North American Soccer League takes off. Man, that term gets banished, and it gets looked down upon when we use it, right? Because we start looking like rubes who are turning it into something it wasn't. Anyway, the North American Soccer League does this. It grows. It gets popular. But it's a flash in the pen. When you have a model that allows big market teams to put $4 million on a player, it was going to crash. The teams went bankrupt. The league just starts falling apart, right? Because the players are leaving and retiring, they can't replace them, etc. And it completely collapses. That collapses somewhat heart-breaking to soccer fans, for real international soccer fans. Is this ever going to work in the United States? What kind of model would make this work? And then one of the conditions of awarding the US in 1994 World Cup was that it would set up another professional soccer league for men to help boost the game in the States. How did that go? So that doesn't really get started until after the World Cup occurred. But they had to promise to get it started. When they do, MLS starts out with 10 teams. This is 1996. It's dramatically different. It's a totally different era in American soccer. And starting tonight, the MLS is going to prove just how dramatic a difference it's going to be. Mostly NFL team owners who were trying to fill their stadium up, but they agreed to help out with this. They did some smart things that you would do in this case. You take the US soccer team who played in the World Cup, who some of the people who had become starts, Eric won all the election laws, of course. You distribute them, put one of those in each city. The league is structured so that it has one ownership. Players literally are playing for MLS. They have a contract with a team, but their real contract is with the league. So the league has control over all types of things here. A salary cap that keeps anybody from hiring a paylake, etc. So it's a very small league. It doesn't get a lot of attention. Very little, if any TV viewers, that slow growth model turns out to be a smart thing, right? MLS is getting a lot of attention now. Yeah, so it's attracted some big names since it first started. David Beckham, famously a Terry Henry, now Lionel Messi, place for Inter Miami. Lionel, Andreas Messi. The King of Soccer has arrived in America. Has that attracted new fans in the same way that the NAS L did in the 70s? It does bring lots of eyes, and there's no doubt about it when those players travel, Messi more than Beckham just because. learned a different era. They travel, more people show up. They have to move games outside of soccer, specific stadiums to house all the fans who want to see it. The first time messy plate here in Nashville, I had so many people bothering me trying to get tickets and I have no access to extra people. People who don't care about soccer, they have to be there. They have a fear of missing out. This is, it's extraordinary what it does, brings lots of eyes to soccer. And I think ultimately that's good for the league or they wouldn't be doing it, right? It's going to bring in more money in certain ways, etc. Although it does cost a lot to bring in players like this. And the other cost is, and something I think MLS has moved away from, but continue to face when they're bringing in players is you have the tendency to look like a retirement league or a sunset league. Oh, they bring in these older players at the end of their career. That's the only time they would do this. And I think that's a bit unfair. Some of the superstars, that's the case. Although messy could have continued playing anywhere in the world, he wanted to play when he came here, right? But MLS is doing a really good job of developing players now and building academies, building an infrastructure that North American soccer league never had. And what about this dynamic about people having like a major league and a minor league team? So they might have a minor league and a less team, but then they'll have a major league team somewhere else in the world. The number of people that watch leagues outside the United States is accumulative way higher than people who watch MLS if we add it all together, including Liga MX, which is a very popular league, of course, here the Mexican league. But the growth is the happening for all the other leagues. The Premier League, La Liga, Serie AX is phenomenal, but many people came to soccer through watching European leagues. Some of these fans didn't have an MLS team when they first started watching because it didn't exist. Chelsea is, that's my team. That's where my heart really is. I'm a seasoned ticket holder here, but in effect, Chelsea is where my emotions lie, right? And there's a lot of people like that. And I think this leads to a very interesting phenomenal when it comes to the World Cup. I don't have statistics for this, and it totally, I can tell you, I have multiple friends, people I know, whose alignment when it comes to World Cup play is with another nation. So they're treating, in fact, other nations as franchises, right? I've got friends who are like, I don't like the US team. I'm for the French. And this comes a lot because of who we view, who are favorite players have been in the past, who are watching. And that's why the World Cup so much fun to watch, of course, is because you're seeing these players that you know from other places come into play. There's an author, Laura Dubois, who talks about how World Cup play is interesting because that's a time when people express nationalism that they might not in any other case. So there I am, wearing an American flag headband and a suit and I'm screaming USA. And I would never do that in any other circumstance, right? But there I'm nationalistic. And so it's interesting to mean that there's so many other fans who distance themselves and all of a sudden attach to another country, right? And I think that has to do with the history, but I think it also has to do with the fact that America's sports are mostly franchise-based, unlike, say, football in England, which is community-based, right? Not based like a franchise to move around. We can't not mention the US Women's team, which is obviously hugely successful and it has been for decades. They won the Women's World Cup in 2015, 2019, foreign and pick gold medals so far this century. The USA five years on from their last major trophy, now a fabulous five-time Olympic women's champion. And they've got their own massive stars like Megan Rapinoe. How's that fed through into the broader popularity of the game? That attention brings a lot of attention to the sport and creates fans. There's no doubt about that. The Women's team has done a world of good for soccer in the United States. I know a lot of people who tell me I don't watch anything but the US Women's team. Part of that is because they were so good for so long. It's so much easier to watch a winner than watch a team that bells out all the time. And the Women's Soccer League here at the NWSL, while it's not getting a lot of television attention yet, the attendance at most of these franchises is becoming larger and larger. And all of this together I think helps grow the sport as well. And it's too easy in talking about soccer or football in the United States to separate men's and women's out. But in effect, these are all working together to grow the sport. Coming up, who is watching soccer in America and why that matters? Hello curious kids. Have you ever wondered how high a volcano can throw lava in the air? Oh, why is it that when you're in a bath your fingers go rinky? Even. Your scientific is available to make a new element. Well, you're in the right place. I'm Eloise and welcome back to season two of the Conversations Curious Kids. The podcast where an expert answers some of your most head-scratching questions. Listen to the Conversations Curious Kids wherever you get your podcasts. Let's step back. Has all this work? Has all this kind of investment in the game? Objectively, how much more popular can we say that soccer is as a sport now in the US than it was back in 1994? On the one hand, it's vastly more popular in the sense that so many more people have played. You expect to see soccer played on fields in almost any town. A city like Nashville which could hardly support a team a while back now has a 30,000 seat soccer specific stadium. I was there last night to watch a game. It was almost sold out playing Los Angeles. Of course, it's way more popular that way. On the other hand, there are people who are not even aware that we have a soccer league in that state. There's no one that's not aware that we have NFL or NBA. I was talking to someone a lift driver a month ago going out to the airport here and I was talking about being a fan of the Nashville team. There's a Nashville team. So in some people's minds, it's still marginal. And I don't want to make this just about my local team, but I'm bringing this up because I think this type of anecdotal evidence tells you something about how certain types of people in America still look at it. When this soccer stadium was built here, it was built in an area of town that was controversial about whether they should build it there or not. And if you look on the line at different comments about it, the critique is still that this is a foreign sport that's got, it's just Mexican fans, et cetera. And that's not at all what's happening with soccer in Nashville. But you have people who don't like it who are still pushing it aside in the ways of nationalistic ethnic forms that are historical even though they're no longer at all. There's no evidence for that whatsoever. So growing, yes, is it facing an uphill battle still? Yes, absolutely. Let's talk about that demographic point that you just raised because soccer obviously does have a big following on immigrant and diaspora communities in the US. I would say the Mexican and the Latin Americans, but also African diaspora. But what you're saying is that's some criticism of it as a foreign sport by some. That is shifting. I do want to add something here that I think is important. Soccer was 1940s, 1950s. I say this with great admiration, man. Soccer sustained itself in the United States on the backs of immigrant communities. If you look at who won the US Open Cup during all those years, the team names, there are names like the Germans, the Ukrainians, winning these lakes. They kept the life Hungarian immigrants, people coming from Budapest after the revolution, et cetera, Kurdistan FC. Those teams were largely made up of immigrants. On the other hand, if you have people who are frightened of immigration, that doesn't help with that segment of the population when they're looking at it. It is, in fact, true that in the United States, there were periods of time where it was largely a sport sustained by immigrants. That also led to a lot of fan base that direction. That begins to change in multiple ways. Going back to the North American Socrates, one of the things that did was establish soccer as a sport that could be played by a lot of people. The youth start playing. You start having suburban teams. You have these gigantic leagues all over growing at that time. You have more people playing. The fan base gets more differentiated. Very diverse. Men and women, that starts happening and still some of the stereotype exists about what fans are. Television is such a key driver of any fanship of any sport because if people come watch a game, then they're more likely to become a fan or try it out themselves. Have there been some big breakthroughs in the US in terms of the ways soccer has been on TV being accessible? Oh yeah, 100%. Most of us will tell the story about trying to watch our European teams 15 years ago. It was difficult. When NBC signs on to start broadcasting, primarily games. Every single game was on for free. Every game. It's an alien concept to me, living in the UK. Not just alien to you, but it was wild. The first day they started broadcasting. I, for example, turned on my TV and then I had three different computers in my house, streaming other games just because I could. I wanted to. I thought it would be great fun. I wrote a friend of mine in England and I said, "Oh my God, I'm getting to watch way more Premier League than you are. It's not this funny." He didn't find it funny at all. But it was everywhere. No, this doesn't just allow more fans, but it also allows Way more group viewing at soccer bars at sports bars etc. So for example in my town But in all types of other towns you have bars specifically that do this We're gonna be open for every primarily game Every weekend what this does is brings in People to watch it brings in new fans and then it makes us congregate We're there watching with each other while we might have our specific bars or other bars You're gonna run into other fans there that builds group excitement. So right now so many the other channels are picking up Now we can see Serie A games. You can see almost all the Bundesliga games It's almost all available. What about Emma less? Yeah, but MLS is actually more difficult That's one of them. That's on Apple At first the only people who could watch for free were season ticket holders for MLS teams now It's open up to other viewers because with messy coming in etc. You've got to get eyes On those games, but yeah, you can watch almost anything you want to watch anywhere you want to watch it So what stands out to you About this 2026 World Cup and the way people in the US are talking following supporting it What are you noticing now about this World Cup? There's of course great excitement about hosting a World Cup about seeing the World Cup I wish there was more talk about the partnership between US Mexico and Canada in this. I think The excitement Comes with reservations for real soccer fans in a way that it doesn't for others Soccer fans who are casual are going to be of the embrace this whole heartedly a lot of soccer fans who are long term soccer fans Or a bit concerned about the pricing structure about how this is being set up They're putting in hydration breaks in every game no matter what the temperature is There's a fear that this is going to lead sooner or later to commercials during breaks So there's some skepticism with soccer fans. There's skepticism about FIFA There's skepticism about the political linements lots of that going on on the other hand There's the excitement that we're hosting this and every Soccer fan I know of regardless of whether they're European fans MLS fans League of Max fans. It's a moment to shine light on What ultimately is just really is a dynamic? Wonderful game to watch the more you understand it getting people to put their eyes on the game in a new way There's tremendous excitement about that and there's tremendous hope That finally we're going to be in that moment where that translation from the big event To the real world afterwards really does translate. I think all the all the keys are in place soccer's visible soccer's available There's a national league and there's access to games all over the world There's a cautious Optimism I want to put it that way. We'll see. Yeah, I'm super excited about it. I can't wait. Oh, I hope you do get to game if you can and enjoy watching as much Socrates you can over over the next couple weeks Thanks John speaking all right. Thank you so much That's it for this week's episode of the conversation weekly you can go to the conversation comm to read more analysis about the 2026 FIFA World Cup and we'll put a link in our show notes to some of that coverage This episode was written and produced by me Gemma wear Katie flood and Mendes Marijuana Sound mixing is by Michelle McLum and our theme music is by Neeter Sal The conversation is a nonprofit news outlet dedicated to sharing the work of academic experts with a wide audience If you like what we do, please consider supporting us at donates. The conversation comm. 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