Something weird happened during the United States’ run in this year’s World Cup. In practical terms, the U.S. team — which was ranked 13th in the world according to FIFA, the international soccer governing body — performed as expected, dropping out of the round-of-16 with a 2-1 defeat from Belgium.
What wasn’t expected, however, was how American cheered on its national team.
For a country that typically prefers full-contact gridiron rules for its take on football, the nation’s recent soccer fever was wholly refreshing for many.
In the United States, the popularity of this year’s Team America, and enthusiasm for the World Cup, in general, may be the result of a changing demographic. According to Nielsen Social, of the 31 million tweets concerning the U.S. vs. Ghana World Cup group round match-up, 53 percent originated from individuals aged 18 to 34. As more members of the “on-demand generation” embrace the psychology of the sport, soccer is increasingly segmenting out of its reality as an intramural sport.
“They want what they want, when they want it and how they want it,” said Merritt Paulson, owner of the Major League Soccer franchise the Portland Timbers. “It’s that shorter attention span. The fact that soccer games are two hours, start to finish, win, lose or draw, with very condensed action, fits very well into the psychographics of those folks.”
With 70 percent of soccer’s “core” players — those who play more than 26 times in a year — in the U.S. being between the age of six and 17, per the Sports and Fitness Industry Association, the fascination with soccer seems to be generational.
Meanwhile, the American populace is also growing more diverse, and the American people are slowly being acclimated to a more international array of interests. This is reflected in the growing number of video games, media references, advertisements and time on sports highlights shows soccer has been afforded lately.
“Walking down the street now, you see kids wearing Manchester United jerseys and Chelsea Football Club jerseys and Barcelona, and I didn’t even know what those were as a kid,” Mike Helfand, a Chicago attorney and soccer fan, told ABC News.
The rate of adult attendance at major soccer matches in the U.S. has risen by 87 percent since 2010. The United States’ run in the World Cup, however, reflects something more basic: It’s the first time in recent memory that Americans were able to cheer for America as a united nation. Participation in the World Cup stirred up feelings of nationalism at a time when much of the political discourse has been abrasive and divisive.
This may be why Ann Coulter’s recent comment that Americans’ growing interest in soccer is “a sign of moral decay” rubbed so many the wrong way.
“If more ‘Americans’ are watching soccer today, it’s only because of the demographic switch effected by Teddy Kennedy’s 1965 immigration law,” wrote Coulter. “I promise you: No American whose great-grandfather was born here is watching soccer. One can only hope that, in addition to learning English, these new Americans will drop their soccer fetish with time.”
Ultimately, Coulter reflected the divisiveness many aspire to avoid, if only for a while. For many Americans, the World Cup race represented a brief window of time in which America was not split between Republicans and Democrats or conservatives and liberals, but was united in a pure desire to cheer on the nation’s team. There are only a few opportunities in which the U.S. get to celebrate its nationalism on an international stage — the Olympics being the obvious example. Though the team didn’t make it to the finals, its tenacity and passion gave the country much to celebrate.
“[Even] if Americans don’t give a moment’s thought to soccer until tournament time rolls around, there is still something undeniably infectious about bandwagon fans emerging like quadrennial cicadas every four years to punctuate the air with droning calls of USA! USA!,” wrote Jon Terbush for TheWeek.com. “It doesn’t matter if they know jack about the 4-4-2 formation and think a goalkeeper is someone who follows through on New Year’s resolutions. Americans may not be the most knowledgeable soccer fans, but they know how to celebrate with the best of them.”