AHC: Have The United States be a football nation.

YusaEmi

Your challenge with a POD of 1900 is to not only make association football the main sport in the United States but to also make the United States win at least 3 World Cup's alongside Italy, Germany and Brazil the challenge is you cannot butterfly away Germany's, Brazil's and Itlaly's victories.
 
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Divergent54

nooblet said:
Alien Space Bats.
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Wow. Really? Leaving it as ASB, just like that?

Okay, I'll give it a shot. Have the US win a world cup at FIFA during the cold war. This may rile up the populous into actually paying attention to football. By the 60s and 70s, football was really growing as of OTL, and it can grow even more if the US wasn't so paranoid that the world was against them (having lost the Vietnam War). Have the US fight another proxy war that involves a country that plays football a lot and win the war. Those soldiers would come home bringing in the culture of football to others. Having the US engage more internationally and US News really starting to engage in FIFA (after winning one world cup) may get people to watch football more. Have a more Latin American, Spanish, English, or other football national emigrate more into the US. All of these factors combine may just lead to a football nation.
 

Riain

Banned
I'll say virtually impossible, soccer wasn't included in the 32 LA Olympics because American Football was going ahead in leaps and bounds and soccer was going backwards in America.

I'd also add that since 1950 there has only been 17 World Cups, and in 1950 only 13 teams competed, from 1954-78 only 16, 1982-94 24 and 1998-2014 only 32 teams. So to even get into the World Cup is tough, let alone go from unpopularity to multiple wins in 17 tournaments is not plausible.
 

Johnrankins

Divergent54 said:
Wow. Really? Leaving it as ASB, just like that?

Okay, I'll give it a shot. Have the US win a world cup at FIFA during the cold war. This may rile up the populous into actually paying attention to football. By the 60s and 70s, football was really growing as of OTL, and it can grow even more if the US wasn't so paranoid that the world was against them (having lost the Vietnam War). Have the US fight another proxy war that involves a country that plays football a lot and win the war. Those soldiers would come home bringing in the culture of football to others. Having the US engage more internationally and US News really starting to engage in FIFA (after winning one world cup) may get people to watch football more. Have a more Latin American, Spanish, English, or other football national emigrate more into the US. All of these factors combine may just lead to a football nation.
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The problem is that Americans seem to like being different when it comes to sports and go with games mostly invented or at least made massively popular in the US. Look at the top three sports in the US :Baseball, basketball and football. The first started as an American variation of cricket, the second was invented by a Canadian who was living in the US and the third started as an American variation of rugby. Unless some American comes up with a considerable number of rule changes to soccer to make it easily distinguishable from the soccer the rest of the world plays it is unlikely to become massively popular in the US.
 

Usili

Johnrankins said:
The problem is that Americans seem to like being different when it comes to sports and go with games mostly invented or at least made massively popular in the US. Look at the top three sports in the US :Baseball, basketball and football. The first started as an American variation of cricket, the second was invented by a Canadian who was living in the US and the third started as an American variation of rugby. Unless some American comes up with a considerable number of rule changes to soccer to make it easily distinguishable from the soccer the rest of the world plays it is unlikely to become massively popular in the US.
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... What the hell? That in no way makes any sort of cocked up sense at all.
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
Johnrankins said:
The problem is that Americans seem to like being different when it comes to sports and go with games mostly invented or at least made massively popular in the US. Look at the top three sports in the US :Baseball, basketball and football. The first started as an American variation of cricket, the second was invented by a Canadian who was living in the US and the third started as an American variation of rugby. Unless some American comes up with a considerable number of rule changes to soccer to make it easily distinguishable from the soccer the rest of the world plays it is unlikely to become massively popular in the US.
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That doesn't make any sense. Americans don't enjoy football, baseball, and basketball because we all want to be special snowflakes. We enjoy them because they're popular, and that feeds on itself and makes the sport even more popular.

If US soccer had been more organized in the early 20th century, and if the NFL had never really taken off, then it would be the top sport today, slightly ahead of baseball.
 
Sideways

Sideways

Donor
If basketball had never got going, it could maybe fill the niche for an easy to play game requiring not much equipment?

It would be quite fun to have a TL where the Cold War is played out in football rivalries between the USSR and USA.
 

CthulhuFhtagn

Banned
BrotherSideways said:
If basketball had never got going, it could maybe fill the niche for an easy to play game requiring not much equipment?

It would be quite fun to have a TL where the Cold War is played out in football rivalries between the USSR and USA.
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I think it might lack the intensity that the Summer Olympics had. IIRC, the USSR was never much of a soccer-playing nation either. Even today, Russia isn't exactly a World Cup contender.
 

YusaEmi

CthulhuFhtagn said:
I think it might lack the intensity that the Summer Olympics had. IIRC, the USSR was never much of a soccer-playing nation either. Even today, Russia isn't exactly a World Cup contender.
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Pretty much, especially when you have countries like Brazil, Germany, Italy and Argentina taking up the lions share of the World Cup during the cold war. What if concacaf and conmebol merge or concacaf is part of Copa America?
 

Johnrankins

CthulhuFhtagn said:
That doesn't make any sense. Americans don't enjoy football, baseball, and basketball because we all want to be special snowflakes. We enjoy them because they're popular, and that feeds on itself and makes the sport even more popular.

If US soccer had been more organized in the early 20th century, and if the NFL had never really taken off, then it would be the top sport today, slightly ahead of baseball.
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I think, particularly, 50-100 years ago when these games were first popularized in the US, the US was EXTREMELY nationalistic. The sense that because they were American they would naturally be better. I think it is not a coincidence that the top 3 sports in the US were created or greatly changed in the US. By itself, of course, that wouldn't be enough. I am sure other sports were created in the US that no one follows. However I do think that it was a combination of being US made and interesting to play or watch that made them huge sports in the US.
 
Edward_Elric

Edward_Elric

If you're looking for a POD during the Cold War, then focus on the old North American Soccer League/NASL. Beginning in 1968, the NASL grew rapidly in popularity during the 70's, before going bust in 1984.

To keep the NASL alive and stable to the present, it'd basically have to be run the same way as MLS is today. This would involve instituting salary caps and shared revenue so as to prevent teams from going broke on exorbitant signings for older international stars (i.e. Pele, Beckenbauer). While the league might grow slower in the 70's if its teams can't bring over said superstars, there'd be more incentives for investment into development programs for homegrown players.

If successful, this could lead to a US national team being good enough to rank higher than Canada in qualifying for the 1986 World Cup in Mexico. IIRC, Canada's group stage matches were against France, Hungary - and the USSR. Given the lack of competition between Soviet and American athletes during the 1980 and '84 summer Olympics, perhaps some US TV viewers may find interest in what's going on south of the border.
 
The Kiat

The Kiat

YLi said:
It is a football nation. I think you mean soccer.
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Gridiron is our football of choice, not association. I think getting rid of the indecisiveness of association football would make it more popular. Tie? Tie? What is with all these ties? America demands a winner! Yeah, that whole "you both win and are both going to be advanced to the World Cup" isn't exactly decisive.
 

Divergent54

The Kiat said:
Real nice when people stop by and give such an in-depth and insightful analysis of the situation, huh?
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Well, this board has been throwing around claiming ASB a lot lately. The very definition of ASB has changed. I first thought ASB means that it is completely implausible and requires alien or a deity intervention. Having the US be a football nation isn't completely implausible. It has a slim chance of reaching that goal from a 1950s POD, but it has a chance.

Kaiser did settle a nice FIFA world cup win for the US in his TL that gave an insight of football to the American populous. Of course the timeline was mainly a cold war between Nazi Germany and America but you can start off from the FIFA win. American is nationalistic and having won a World Cup may rile up a few more people into football.
 
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