American Football

Soccer isn’t in America’s DNA. If you took a poll, I doubt many Georgians would say it’s their preferred sport, especially on a UGA gameday although it seems this World Cup may begin to turn public sentiment around. Very few sports pundits gave the United States any chance to advance from the group stage after being seeded into the group of death but instead they’ve exceeded expectations and are now playing within the top 16 countries in the world. The United States National team has been playing as a unit and it has captivated the attention of millions of Americans. Our second group game against Portugal drew 18.22 million viewers in the United States. This rating surpassed the previous high of 17.975 million viewers for the 1999 Women’s World Cup final. This is really the first time since 1999 that our country is coming together to support our Men’s National Team.

You can feel the enthusiasm on social media and also on game day as Americans across the country grab their favorite gear to cheer for their country. It’s great to see millions of Americans embrace their country’s success in a major international tournament. All that being said, what does this mean for the future of soccer in America? We know that in Atlanta there is a massive market for soccer. A few months ago the Mexican national team played a friendly game against Nigeria at the Georgia Dome. The game made history as they sold an Atlanta record 68,212 tickets. Georgians are ready to embrace soccer as another past time. Arthur Blank and the MLS recently announced that Atlanta was chosen to be an MLS expansion city in 2017. The numbers seem to support the fact that people will attend the games and passionately support their new professional soccer squad. It is about time that Atlanta joins other cities in bringing soccer to its residents.

Nationally, the MLS has been enjoying a tremendous amount of growth over the past few years. The MLS has added nine new clubs into their league since 2007. In addition to spreading the game around the country, the ratings of the MLS are now rivaling those of the NBA and the NHL. In other words, America is truly embracing soccer entirely. The World Cup, and the success of the U.S. Men’s National Team in the tournament, will help in determining how much faster this popularity will arise. The more popular the sport becomes in the United States, the better of a chance we will have in making sure our professional soccer league matches the quality of the European leagues. Who knows, maybe will even win and claim the World Cup trophy in the near future.

Reprinted from 5th District State Sen. Curt Thompson's (D-Norcross) blog. Thompson represents parts of unincorporated Duluth, Norcross, Tucker, and Lawrenceville. Also, check the Senator out on Facebook and Twitter.