Yep, when I was in grade school during the Pele to the NY Cosmos
craze, I was told that soccer would overtake baseball, football and basketball to become the most popular sport in the US in the next 20 years. I was also told we'd adopt the metric metric system. We know how both those predictions turned out.
I do think soccer will continue to gradually gain in popularity in the US, but we're still a LONG way off from it overtaking any of the 3 major sports. As far as participation, soccer has huge participation on a recreational basis. But my son plays more competitive travel soccer and this is his first year of 11v11 and they are having a hard time filling out 2 complete U13 rosters.. the "A" side has 13 kids and the B "side" has 14 kids, and the last 5 kids in for the "B" side are really rec players. The girls side of his soccer club is pretty kick ass and places a lot of girls at D1 schools and one of the Brazilian national team players came up through the club. For girls/women, soccer is THE sport like it is for men int he rest of the world and we attract the best athletes to soccer in large numbers. For boys/men, it's a very popular participation sport, but I the best athletes for the most part still gravitate towards the football/basketball/baseball.
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In response to this post by Capital City Hoo)
Posted: 07/10/2019 at 10:43AM