“Take Me Out to the Ballgame: The 90’s Sports Wars”: The Other Football: Part 2
European clubs were devastated by WWIII. Massive investments in equipment and personnel were destroyed by the war. Stadiums like Old Trafford were turned to dust. Many owners were killed and fanbases died in the fields of Germany and Poland. In an odd twist, many of the world’s best players happened to survive. While many continued in the European Leagues, upon announcement of the multi-billion dollar American Soccer Association, many migrated across the channel. While there was a cap on foreign players, the relative intactness, wealth, and cultural dominance of the United States made the league instantly attractive.
Also elevating the league was the rise of Liga MX, which had been steadily growing thanks to the rise of communism in South America and Portugal killing off competition for young Latin players. In addition, starting in the Wallace administration, on his personal suggestion, the US State Department had been working towards incorporating Mexican sporting and cultural totems in the European and North American “cultural nexus” to move them away from rising communism in the south. The rise of Liga MX started a rivalry in both national team and club CONCACAF championships. However, if you had to credit one man with the rise of soccer in the American consciousness it would have to be the one Ebersol was thinking of that night: Vince McMahon.
Vince McMahon on TV promoting his new league
Vince McMahon was an unlikely man to be soccer’s saint in the US. McMahon's claim to fame was in an altogether different sport: American Wrestling. He had steadily helped Wrestling rise from a regional sport ot US prominence in the early 1980’s by targeting “the Wallace vote” of poor “drunken slobs, thugs, bikers, and their unfortunate offspring” as Hunter S. Thompson would report from a WWF match. However, he had correctly predicted that war and sold WWF to a team of investors who would drive it to the ground. Combined with poor management, the war would wreck WWF as it was dependent on low-income fans that were too poor to watch other sports and “too dumb and drunk to care if their sport was fake” who lost their savings thanks to post-war inflation. It didn’t help that KGB thugs had killed his star, Hulk Hogan, in the first week of the war, in order to prevent him being used as a propaganda tool. During the war, McMahon had helped run US propaganda efforts in Germany, where he had learned the game of “fusbol, and taken to it. He even joined a recreational team post-war to “keep the weight off”. When Ebersol asked him to run the new ASA, McMahon was all for it. McMahon knew how to “squeeze the juice out of an orange”. He used a plethora of tactics-kids TV tie-ins, advertising during popular shows, the best cheerleaders money could buy, etc. to spread the “gospel of soccer” to the masses, especially in the urban centers NBC wanted. One of the most successful on the field techniques was the use of various camera angles, like the referee cam, the sky-cam, and the corner-cam to show the action at various different levels In addition, rough play was encouraged in order to “up-the ante”. Natural geographical rivalries were played up in promotions as was the fact that many fans would not only buy tickets, but stock in their teams. In addition, McMahon built up the “Germanness” of the sport in German-American Communities, and even played a few games in the Dakotas where German-American pride was most relevant. It didn’t hurt that the US and Germany had a brilliant final in the 1992 women’s world cup final-broadcast live on NBC. McMahon also emphasized that the leagues regular season championship made “every game count” unlike other “playoff-focused” leagues where “only one or seven games matters”. Not to mention that the ASA brought a first to US Sports, Relegation, which instantly became a hit. The existing semi-pro league, NASL, was incorporated as feeder league, with an association of high-level recreational and youth clubs, in addition to a few expansion teams, forming the third-tier regional-focused, GSL: Grassroots soccer League, which would feed in the raw American talent that would give the game staying power. Fears of the European format confusing viewers were destroyed by McMahon’s media blitz. League stars were put all over TV-as guest stars in sitcoms, as competitors in gameshows, and as "the sexiest men of the year” in certain magazines. One of the shadier things McMahon did was ensure that every starting player had a girlfriend that was a “ten out of ten” and encourage the player's wives, mistresses,etc. to sit together in a “player’s box” so that the camera could turn there “every once in a while”. This practice would come under quite a lo of media criticism, especially from "church going folk" but they didn;t really take to the league much anyway.
One thing that differentiated McMahon’s strategy with the ASA and WWF was the different audiences targeted. With the ASA McMahon targeted the “Urban Chique”, who would more likely appreciate a sport associated with worldliness rather than Americanness. Unlike with WWF McMahon avoided The South, hardcore Liberty Conservatives (but not Northeastern Republicans who had lots of disposable income), and the “Wallace 1968 Primary Vote” like the plague, knowing such types would discourage his target audience: urbanites who identified themselves more as “citizens of the world” and ex-hippies that now had money. The urban poor also had a place in the game, even though targeting them was easier as they already had developed a taste of the sport and would come to see it as aspirational if given enough glitz and glamour. In addition, soccer was marketed as a parochial big-city sport in the way basketball had been (see the next chapter). He also avoided rural areas, as they were either attached to existing sports “see US football and basketball” or were dialed into tennis. One audience he targeted in particular within the demographic of rich urbanites was “the young feminist with disposable income” (from NBC Meeting 223 see the appendix for details).
In addition to running the 1992 Women’s World Cup, the first of its kind, McMahon started an 8 team professional women’s league, with plans to expand in the future. The “urban Left” began to fell in love with “the world’s game”. Jerry Brown made a couple famous appearances at matches during his campaign and Progressive magazines commented on how the sport was “truly liberating”. While tennis also featured female athletes, complaints were lodged about their being “over-sexualized” in sport skirts, especially after a “hair code” against short bobs was instituted, lobbying accusations of sexism. While the “players’ box” in the ASA was rather unsavory, it was defended as an “empowering experience that demonstrated the amazing ability of the female form to express beauty” (Gloria Steinem 1993).
In addition, progressives saw the worldliness of soccer as an antidote to the “Cowboy Spirit” that “launched us into WWIII”. Some thinkers even theorized that the international competitions so encouraged at both the club and national level would come to replace war. Some commented that this already happened at a local level in Europe and lamented that more East vs West competition had not occurred during the 1980’s. Many hoped the new, and dangerous, American rivalries could be channeled into sporting competition rather than war. In addition, they saw the embrace of world games, rather than national obsessions such as American Football as a way to “move beyond American exceptionalism”. Best of all, “the workers” could finally own teams rather than just support them.
While Progressives and urbanites cam to love the game, those voters who saw Jim Jones and Ross Perot as a menace rather than as their friend cam to hate it. For Republicans, it was everything wrong with Urban America; too communal, anti-individualistic, and geared towards preventing failure than promoting success. While tennis was also a world-wide sport it was individualistic, promoted character through personal responsibility for failure, and was the trickle-down sport in that it had origins with the wealthy but was now available to everyone. Soccer was socialistic in its focus on the poor, urban, and working class. Agnew put it best, “those who like tennis want to be somebody, those who like soccer either live of welfare or a sugar daddy”.
Democrats and southerners, but I repeat myself, hated soccer. They hated that it was called football unlike “real” football. Hated that it was associated with “un-American nations” like Brazil that they had just defeated in war. They hated that it promoted equality amongst nations rather than American exceptionalism and cultural dominance. This was exasperated when it was discovered that foreign sports ministers had been purposefully trying to stop the small uptick in growth in American Football psot-war overseas as they “don’t want ot be run by America”. Southerners saw this as ungrateful after what America did in both WWII and WWIII. This hatred hit boiling point when McMahon commented that soccer would “replace football” as a “safer alternative” they came to see it as yet another Yankee invention that would come to ruin their way of life. Riots would start at Miami FC matches, as American Football fans would protest this “invasion”. A third-tier feeder league team in Birmingham, Alabama would see its stadium burned to the ground in 1994. Soon, socially conservative Republicans from outside the Northeast came to hate soccer as well. When Ted Turner mentioned in a live interview from the Bee State Tennis Championships (the tournament that he owned) that he wanted to bring Salt Lake City a ASA team he was pelted with popcorn and cracker jacks. Needless to say, soccer became a polarizing sport. Oddly, McMahon actually LIKED this, as it made soccer seem hip, edgy, cool, and being a fan as a way to tell one’s friends that they were one was “forward looking”.
--Added in for Context---
Increasingly, American entertainment was becoming "segmented" and as marketing strategies coalesced post-war towards emphasizing identity sports became a sign of "who one was". Outside of baseball (see later) sports failed to draw from as broad swathes of the population. Compounding this was the rise of year-round sports in youth, which reduced youth exposure to varieties of sports.
While tennis and soccer may have been the new kids on the sporting scene, they were not dominant. Football, baseball, and even at times basketball (see the next chapter for the next two) still had a firm presence on the American landscape to varying degrees. However, they were now challenged for sporting dominance. Due to extenuating circumstances more established sports played their cards poorly post-war, the worst being poor adjustments to the world of Cable TV. Cable TV, especially Virgin Sports Network and its main competitor NBC Sports Network (which showed every ASA game not on the Peacock itself) allowed for round the clock coverage of sports which was exploited by young hungry leagues which emphasized storylines, perosnality , and accessibility. The established "big three" of football, basketball, and baseball preferred to stay on over the air, and even then on two channels: CBS and ABC.They also resisted rules changes, like the Three-Point Line in basketball introduced by the ABA but rejected by the NBA post-merger, that would have added new life to older games. This is not to say emerging sports didn't have their hiccups. While the ASA did great on TV (as part of a general upward trend in the 1990's thanks to post-war recession driving people to relatively cheap entertainment) ticket prices had to be greatly reduced to increase rather low attendance. Smaller tennis tournaments across the US suffered form the same issue of TV dominance but attendance failure. The poor attendance, relative to the TV ratings, was in part a reflection of the recession. NBC had only agreed to start a league than to the absolute dearth of available sports content and a writer's strike in Hollywood which prompted the cancellation of many long-running shows. While TV viewership had been promising, the board was worried that low ticket sales were a worrying long-term trend.
We have previously discussed footballs serious, while not fatal, ailments, and will diagnose what went wrong, and what went right (cause not all went wrong), for baseball and basketball int he next chapter.
ASA Top 3 Finishers 1993 Inaugural Season
1. New York Cosmos
2. Boston FC
3. Los Angeles Stars
Bottom 3 Relegated
1. Miami FC
2. Football Association of Queens
3. Providence SteamRollers
Next: “Take Me Out to the Ballgame: The 90’s Sports Wars”: Basketball, Baseball, and the rest.