Soccer being more popular among the population of the USA

Does it need to? My guess is that the US starts its own league and doesn't give a damn what the rest of the world thinks.

Hard to compete in the World Cup when your leagues play a significantly different version (which cutting 1/3rd of the playing time would be) of the sport to the rest of the world and isn't under the FIFA umbrella.

Either you'd have made the conscious decision to pull out of the World Cup and other internationals, be relying on American players in foreign leagues for your national team, or using players that are used to competing in a different format and at a disadvantage.

But ooh rah, American exceptionalism.
 

Lusitania

Donor
We have to also understand that $$ paid by broadcasters is based on two things the audience and $$ they can make selling commercials during game. While the size of audience for soccer in US and Canada is growing broadcasters will for the foreseeable future pay more $$ for other sports that have breaks for commercials during game.

When 1994 World Cup came to US American broadcasters wanted the game split into quarters instead of halfs so they could show more commercials. Then in early 2000s some networks attempted to show game in half screen and commercial in other half. Both did not work and were abandoned.
 
It seems to me that soccer has a lot of competition for a big breakthrough. If one (probably two) of the other sports went tits up earlier in the century soccer could probably make a go of it, but right now they've got four other leagues with long established traditions and history to get passed.

I mean, if hockey can be profitable in California and Florida surely soccer can break in.
 
As always say before, college must adopt it allongside or over the rugby code would evolved into (American) Football, college would give incentives and a fanbase and tradition to the sport, slowly adopting into young leagues to professional ones(MLS/NS/FL) and so on, slowly evolving, plus a better develop league since the 20's(alongside nfl) would help.


post Civil War, Universities in the East and Mid-West must adopt soccer rather than football as their main identity and rivalry with other schools. What if a POD is a major cross Atlantic competition in the 1800's between Ivy League universities and English Universities. College teams from the US compete to see who will represent the USA and thus the Ivy league, Big 10 rivalries are born. This is similar to OTL when McGill University in Montreal played a series of football against Harvard in 1874.

Just like college football, regions associate themselves with the local college team.

Professional leagues come out of this in the early 1900's.

One major attraction that football had over "soccer" and rugby was that it was North American. Both Canadians and Americans must have been attracted to football because it did not come from Victorian Britain. So that is an obstacle to cross. Maybe this can be crossed by having Americans dominate soccer matches against Britain early on, so it is like we are beating them at their own game mentality that drives the popularity in the USA.
 
Hard to compete in the World Cup when your leagues play a significantly different version (which cutting 1/3rd of the playing time would be) of the sport to the rest of the world and isn't under the FIFA umbrella.

Either you'd have made the conscious decision to pull out of the World Cup and other internationals, be relying on American players in foreign leagues for your national team, or using players that are used to competing in a different format and at a disadvantage.

But ooh rah, American exceptionalism.

I don't think most Americans would care if they go to the World Cup or not. If it gets big the rules will almost certainly mutate over time. There is a reason that the big 3 in the US are all US born sports.
 
I don't think most Americans would care if they go to the World Cup or not. If it gets big the rules will almost certainly mutate over time. There is a reason that the big 3 in the US are all US born sports.

There's no point in even discussing the topic if you're dead set on a unique American version of the game and no foreign followers.
It's not hard to imagine yet another American sport that very few other countries are interested in.

I played rounders at school, rounders is pretty much baseball before the American twist.
 
There's no point in even discussing the topic if you're dead set on a unique American version of the game and no foreign followers.
It's not hard to imagine yet another American sport that very few other countries are interested in.

I played rounders at school, rounders is pretty much baseball before the American twist.

I know about rounders, I heard about it on some show about the history of baseball. It isn't what I would necessarily want but what I think is likely to happen.
 
I don't think most Americans would care if they go to the World Cup or not. If it gets big the rules will almost certainly mutate over time. There is a reason that the big 3 in the US are all US born sports.
If the rules mutate for Americans only, then it would be an American version of football..
Don't you already have one American Football?
 
Hard to compete in the World Cup when your leagues play a significantly different version (which cutting 1/3rd of the playing time would be) of the sport to the rest of the world and isn't under the FIFA umbrella.

I don't think Americans would particularly care, firstly. Secondly, isn't FIFA massively corrupt? And finally, why should rule variations split the league? The AL and NL have slightly different rules, yet both are part of MLB.
 
Assuming American football were killed in the early 1900s, I wonder if OTL football team names would become the names for soccer teams.
 
Assuming American football were killed in the early 1900s, I wonder if OTL football team names would become the names for soccer teams.
Well, OTL the first official footbal league was based in Baseball National League teams so that is other name scheme for teams too.
 
I was impressed with the crowd that was in the stadium in an MLS game, man, it was snowing, the field was not greener, it was white, and yet the stadium was packed.
It was April, I think it was in Minnesota or Michigan, I do not remember right.
 
What if soccer was more popular in the United States earlier than in OTL?
A scenario where the United States had a good selection and that soccer was almost at the same level of popularity along with basketball, football and baseball.
How can we build this NTL?

I only know that the history of soccer in the USA is very recent, the MLS was founded in 1993 and the women's soccer team is excellent.
I believe that if soccer had been well invested and publicized as the others most popular sports in the USA, we would have a good selection and strong national teams, rivaling Europe and South America.

It is getting more popular, but it was a late-comer in large part because the US was essentially isolationist an a sporting sense. It wasn't feasible until the late 20th century for US teams to travel to Europe for competition and wasn't deemed worth travelling to South America for competition.

I recall a teacher introducing us to soccer in the early 70s. We took to it OK, but it was a completely alien thing when introduced.
 
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