Soccer is growing in the U.S.

[America's Fan]

World Cup edges NBA finals in US TV ratings

AFP
July 11, 2006

NEW YORK (AFP) - Sunday's World Cup final in Berlin scored big with US television viewers, with nearly 17 million tuning in for the clash between France and Italy -- topping audiences for the NBA basketball finals.

According to preliminary data released by Nielsen Media Research, 11.9 million people watched live coverage of the final on the ABC network, while another five million chose the Spanish-language broadcast on the Univision channel.

The total represented an increase of more than 150 percent over the 2002 final, which was shown early in the morning, and around 30 percent over the 1998 tournament decider.

In a country where football is still considered something of a minority sport, Sunday's viewing figures compared favourably with those for high-profile US sporting events.

It was four million more than the average audience for last month's NBA finals between the Dallas Mavericks and the Miami Heat and not far away from the average 17.1 million that watched last year's baseball World Series.

However, it was still nowhere near the highlight of the annual US sporting calendar, American football's Super Bowl, which attracted more than 90 million viewers in February.

http://sports.yahoo.com/sow/news?sl...v=afp&type=lgns

well looks like soccer is getting more popular in the US!! whether you guys like it or not. The MLS, by the way, has shown improvement in each of its seasons in existance, and are now starting to build soccer only stadiums. This is important cuz it will allow the MLS to play 2 seasons a year, like every other league in the world, and therefore atract better players!!(beckham maybe!!)

 

[rko_fan]

im not a soccer fan so i wouldnt know about that kinda stuff^
but soccer is ok i guess

 

[CUBFAN]

I for one enjoyed the the world cup and liked watching the games. but to tell you the truth i dont believe my interest will linger on.

Lets face it here in the states the world cup was absolutley shoved down our throats by almost every media outlet mainly ESPN and ABC. These ratings are not a shocker to me at all. Despite the how good the NBA finals were there was no game 7 which is a ratings cash cow and would have provided huge for ABC. The world cup catched on with a lot of viewers that is a fact but to say that soccer is going to overtake the USA by storm is stupid and ignorant. Is it becoming more popular yes but so is lacrosse and numerous other activties. The ratings that you see can be attributed to new intigued viewers, but you cannot deny the amount of immigrants and naturilized citizens that followed the games just as they always do.

I like soccer but it will never be as popular here as over in europe and other countries. we have our own sports that we enjoy and will keep to sports we are actually good at.

 

[Y 2 Jake]

Soccer or football as it's called in England is our most watched sport. American sports like baseball and basketball are'nt hugely popular although they have a small fan base. Is soccer currently popular because the World Cup was on recently or has it started to gain popularity before?

 

[RonaldMcdonald]

Thanks to this years world cup soccer has gathered a ton of new fans.

 

[thumper]

Can't wait for soccer to take over little league baseball. my 12 year old son started playing soccer this year and can't get enough of it, he chose soccer over baseball, at first i was disapionted but change after i saw how exciting it was and how good he was at it. now he is in 3 different leagues playing every night