One of the topics I’ve heard and read about the most since the United States team was booted (pun intended) out of the World Cup last week is what the team’s performance and our country’s World Cup fever might mean for the future of soccer in the United States. Cynics on the subject say that the country gets into the World Cup every four years and then studiously ignores soccer for the next three years and 11 months until the World Cup begins again. Soccer optimists (who owns soptimists.com???) claim that this year is different, that the interest in the World Cup is stronger than it’s been in the past and that we are closer than ever to joining the rest of the soccer loving world.
My friend Brian Reich of thinkingaboutsports.com falls somewhere between those two groups. Brian set out and sat down at the start of the World Cup to “watch every game of the 2014 FIFA World Cup, review every ad, and read/watch/listen to every bit of coverage and analysis I can find” and write about it on www.clumsytouch.com. His writing has been great fun to read and I admire and envy his dedication! His post on the question of soccer as a brand in the United States was innovative and insightful and I encourage you to read it in full here. His conclusion on the topic? That soccer’s current “resonance is deeply connected to the World Cup – a unique tournament, staged every four years” and that the “experience, the connection that people feel right now – cannot be sustained. A new and different approach to creating a ‘brand’ for soccer needs to be considered – before the energy is lost completely.”
What do you think? Is soccer gaining steam or slowly deflating? What would make you more likely to follow soccer between World Cups?