Baseball Football Basketball and Other Popular Sports - Soccer

Although soccer has long been popular in Europe, Asia, Central America, and South America, its popularity in North America began growing during the late twentieth century. Two key events that helped boost interest were Olympic soccer tournaments held in Los Angeles, California, in 1984, and in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996.

In 1994 the U.S. Soccer organization served as the host federation for World Cup USA 1994, a record-breaking event attended by more than 3.5 million fans, and then hosted the most successful women's sporting event to that date: the Women's World Cup 1999, which was held in Pasadena, California, and attended by more than ninety thousand fans. The U.S. women won the 1999 World Cup by defending against the Chinese team in a zero to zero tie through regulation play and overtime and then defeating China five to four in penalty kicks.

Their victory provoked soccer hysteria in the United States as the winning team members appeared on television news programs, at the White House, and on the covers of newspapers and magazines. In 2001 the Women's United Soccer Association was formed as a national league, and although it attracted a number of top American and international players, financial difficulties forced it to suspend operations after the 2003 season, which had featured eight teams playing a total of eighty-four games to 560,000 spectators. A 2004 Harris poll by Humphrey Taylor found that of America's favorite female athletes, the third most popular was soccer star Mia Hamm.

Several other professional soccer leagues, both male and female, have been formed in the United States. The largest, Major League Soccer (MLS), is a male league. It featured ten teams that played a total of 150 games during the 2003 season. Total attendance for the year was 2.2 million, or an average of 14,898 per game. Two expansion teams were to be added for the 2005 season, taking the place of a pair of clubs that had only lasted from the league's first season in 1996 through 2001.

While U.S. soccer had not developed the major spectator following of such sports as baseball and football, it had become extremely popular as a participatory sport. According to the SGMA, 17.7 million Americans over the age of six played soccer at least once during 2003, about the same as in 2002 but down from the nineteen million who participated in 2001. (See Table 1.6 in Chapter 1.)

An SGMA analysis of sports participation found that the number of "core" soccer players—those who played fifty-two or more days per year—was rising, increasing from 3.8 million in 2000 to 4.1 million in 2002. The total number of players over eighteen increased by 30% during that time, from 3.9 million in 2000 to 5.1 million in 2002. Soccer was eighth among the most popular frequently played sports for youth aged six to seventeen, according to the SGMA, with nearly 2.4 million children and teens who played more than fifty-two days per year in 2003. (See Table 1.10 in Chapter 1.)

In 2003 the national organization U.S. Youth Soccer had 3.2 million registered players between the ages of five and nineteen. Youth aged ten to fourteen comprised 48% of U.S. Youth Soccer members, with those under ten making up another 37%. The remaining 15% were between fifteen and nineteen. Some 55% of players were male, and 45% were female. An estimated 75% of all registered soccer players in the United States were members of the organization. Its programs were administered by a network of fifty-five state associations staffed by more than 300,000 coaches and 500,000 volunteers.