Shifts in the Popularity of American Sports
Retired soccer player and director Claudio Reyna once said, “Over the last 10-15 years, you’ve seen soccer finally start to grow at a fast pace, start to get the recognition it deserves, and I think it has to do with all of the people who come to America from foreign countries.” Soccer is played all around the world, and in almost every country. Some dislike it, and others love it. The question is, will soccer ever be more popular in America than football? The answer is absolutely yes. Soccer will eventually be more popular than football in America because it is already the most popular sport worldwide.
© BrokenSphere / Wikimedia Commons
Not only is soccer played around the world in almost every country including France, Brazil, Germany, Mexico, and even England, but it’s also the world’s most popular sport. Research from Khabir Uddin Mughal published on Sporteology shows that soccer is ranked #1 in popularity worldwide. Knowing this, soccer can easily, over time, grow to be more popular in America than football, which isn’t even in the top 10 most popular sports worldwide.
Based on research by Sean Gregory from Sports Magazine, There is a major increase in Football injuries, such as concussions, that cause lifelong disabilities or even death. It’s only common sense that a sport that is so dangerous, can only be played for so long until it is found too dangerous to play. While soccer injuries aren’t nearly as bad, with the majority of them being torn muscles or sprained ankles.
Soccer will eventually become more popular in America than football because the Hispanic population will overcome any races in America. Based on research from the Pew Research Center, from 2015 to 2065, Hispanic population will outnumber any other race in America. In professional soccer, there are more Hispanic players than any other race.
Some may argue that America will eventually not allow foreigners (such as Hispanics) into the country due to terrorism, drug trafficking, population density, or even an increase in unemployment rates. However, the government makes a lot of money from taxes, and the more people in America, the more taxes paid to the government. Therefore, it’s highly unlikely for the government to completely restrict foreigners from entering and living in America.
Based on this evidence of soccer being the most popular sport in the world and the Hispanic population overcoming America, it’s only obvious that soccer will eventually become more popular in America than football.
I agree that soccer (or futbol as it is known worldwide) will become the number one sport in the United States. I do tend to be a little biased because I’ve played the sport for 15 years and am a member of the American Outlaws – the supporter group for the United States national teams.
Soccer will continue to grow has it receives more media coverage – which is happening. You can now watch English professional soccer every Saturday morning (and German leagues are being added quickly as well). The MLS is also growing its brand quickly in media coverage.
The most effective way for soccer to gain in popularity is for Americans – both players and teams, to perform well on the world stage. Americans love a winner, and the further the US national teams advance in World Cup, the more people will watch. And with success also kids will start to idolize soccer players the way they have baseball, basketball, and football players.
I would suggest you read a book called Soccernomics, in it the author argues that not only will soccer grow and catch other sports in popularity in the relatively near future, but that the USMNT will one day win the World Cup.
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Well written, Mason! I enjoyed reading the reasons and research to support your opinion and the way you addressed possible arguments from those who could disagree. Keep up the great work! ~Mrs.Gehman
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Thanks for the comment Matthew! I will definitely look into reading Soccernomics.
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I love how you started with a quote to catch my attention! There was also a great demonstration of logos when you stated that football is too dangerous to stay popular. i also thought it was cool that you not only based your opinion on statistics of the present, but also statistics of the future with the percent of Hispanics in America.
-Annie P.
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Thank you for you input on my blog Annie! I’d like to know if there is anything I can improve on in my writing. Is there any information I could’ve added? Was there any way I could’ve wrote it more persuasively?
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In your revisions, you strengthened the logos of this argument substantially. I appreciated the different approaches you took to the topic as well.
The counterclaim was interesting in that it didn’t directly argue against soccer becoming the most popular U.S. sport, but rather argued against one of your supporting pieces of evidence. I wonder if that is why the counterclaim paragraph felt a bit separate from the rest of the piece.
You got some great feedback here from your audience! ~Mrs. C
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As a soccer player, i find this argument interesting. I think that the claim used about how soccer could become more popular based on Hispanic population and the counter claim you used for it is not entirely relevant to the piece. I think that it would be beneficial to look at more of a US perspective on soccer as well as the world perspective because the argument is about American sports. The information you included is mostly relevant and interesting.
Additional information that could be relevant is including is information about views or teams ,support from Americans and also the victory tour the US womens team has just gone on which would more than likely generate alot of support for the game in america. 🙂
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