USA vs Ghana viewership

[PorkChop]

[JDD]

Awesome. Glad to see the games getting good ratings. It wa a great game. I plan on continuing to follow the sport after the WC and i hope some other Americans do the same.

[PorkChop]

Awesome. Glad to see the games getting good ratings. It wa a great game. I plan on continuing to follow the sport after the WC and i hope some other Americans do the same.

I'm glad USA won as it gives the sport a huge boost over there. I imagine that USA vs Portugal on the 22nd will draw some pretty impressive figures too.

[Romo]

I hope this draws more people to the MLS aswell not just the national team

[PorkChop]

I hope this draws more people to the MLS aswell not just the national team

The MLS is hardly a great league, plus the better players in the USMNT play abroad (Howard, Guzan, Cameron, Beasley, Jones, Johnson) the only good player that plays in the MLS is Dempsey.

I'd rather the USMNT fans follow the Premier League than the MLS, it's a much better showcase for football.

[HFX]

I hope this draws more people to the MLS aswell not just the national team

The MLS is hardly a great league, plus the better players in the USMNT play abroad (Howard, Guzan, Cameron, Beasley, Jones, Johnson) the only good player that plays in the MLS is Dempsey.

I'd rather the USMNT fans follow the Premier League than the MLS, it's a much better showcase for football.

That's an asshole way of thinking and I'm quite disappointed in you Porky. Soccer leagues go back over 100 years in England while MLS is only 20 years old. It's a growing league and improving in quality every year as it establishes itself. It's attitudes like yours that hold it back. I'm not saying fans shouldn't also cheer for EPL/La Liga/Bundesliga/Serie A teams but they shouldn't outright shun MLS simply because it's not the best. Should the Dutch shun the Eredivisie because it's not as good as Bundesliga? Leagues like MLS, the A-League and J-League are only going up but they need the support of their countries instead of elitist attitudes looking down their noses at them.

[prophet]

I hope this draws more people to the MLS aswell not just the national team

The MLS is hardly a great league, plus the better players in the USMNT play abroad (Howard, Guzan, Cameron, Beasley, Jones, Johnson) the only good player that plays in the MLS is Dempsey.

I'd rather the USMNT fans follow the Premier League than the MLS, it's a much better showcase for football.

That's an asshole way of thinking and I'm quite disappointed in you Porky. Soccer leagues go back over 100 years in England while MLS is only 20 years old. It's a growing league and improving in quality every year as it establishes itself. It's attitudes like yours that hold it back. I'm not saying fans shouldn't also cheer for EPL/La Liga/Bundesliga/Serie A teams but they shouldn't outright shun MLS simply because it's not the best. Should the Dutch shun the Eredivisie because it's not as good as Bundesliga? Leagues like MLS, the A-League and J-League are only going up but they need the support of their countries instead of elitist attitudes looking down their noses at them.

I think you're being a touch dramatic yet again. All he did was say that he'd rather US fans follow the Premier League as it is the best league in the world - the excitement, drama and quality on show in our league is second to none and would easily work it's magic on an American wanting to get invested in soccer...hell, look at SKS...he's a big member of the EPL community due primarily to his supporting of Man City.

It isn't an asshole way of thinking to suggest the average American wanting to get invested in the sport watch the European game rather than their own, it's just something he personally would suggest. Where did anyone say that people should shun the MLS? Where did anyone display an elitist attitude towards a lesser league?

[PorkChop]

I hope this draws more people to the MLS aswell not just the national team

The MLS is hardly a great league, plus the better players in the USMNT play abroad (Howard, Guzan, Cameron, Beasley, Jones, Johnson) the only good player that plays in the MLS is Dempsey.

I'd rather the USMNT fans follow the Premier League than the MLS, it's a much better showcase for football.

That's an asshole way of thinking and I'm quite disappointed in you Porky. Soccer leagues go back over 100 years in England while MLS is only 20 years old. It's a growing league and improving in quality every year as it establishes itself. It's attitudes like yours that hold it back. I'm not saying fans shouldn't also cheer for EPL/La Liga/Bundesliga/Serie A teams but they shouldn't outright shun MLS simply because it's not the best. Should the Dutch shun the Eredivisie because it's not as good as Bundesliga? Leagues like MLS, the A-League and J-League are only going up but they need the support of their countries instead of elitist attitudes looking down their noses at them.

I don't see how it's elitist. If you wanted me to get into a new sport, wouldn't you encourage me to watch the most entertaining stuff? Say I wanted to introduce someone to MMA, I'd show them a Jon Jones fight or a Cain Velasquez fight, not a Bobby Green fight. That doesn't mean I don't want Bobby Green to succeed, it's just that Jon Jones and Cain Velasquez fights are always a great spectacle and a brilliant advert for the sport. The Premier League, La Liga, Bundesliga etc are exactly the same.

I know the MLS is improving year after year, but it still has an incredibly shallow talent pool, especially when compared to the other leagues like the Premier League and La Liga. If I could wave a magic wand and get more Americans to watch the MLS so it brings money to the league and the talent pool increases, I would. I'd love the MLS to succeed and the sport to be amongst the top most widely followed sports in America. But until then, I'd rather attract Americans to the game by showing how good the sport can be - and the big leagues around the world are the best example of that, are they not?

[Viazon]

Yeah I'm with Porkchop on this one. If they wanna get the US more into football, it would be best to make it available for them to watch games from better leagues. Not just the Premiership, but other top European leagues too. Get people interested in it first. Let them choose a team to support. Once they get more into it, perhaps they can then get more into the MLS. A lot of players who play in Europe end up moving to an MLS team near the end of their careers. Maybe when American fans become more knowledgable on players and find one of them is gonna start playing in America, they would have more interest in watching the MLS.

No one is looking down on the league and frankly, I think every wants football and the MLS to become bigger. It would be easier to he people interested this way.

[Everlong]

If they wanna get the US more into football, it would be best to make it available for them to watch games from better leagues. Not just the Premiership, but other top European leagues too. Get people interested in it first. Let them choose a team to support. Once they get more into it, perhaps they can then get more into the MLS.

I definitely see the logic here, because you do want people to be exposed to the top levels of competition. The problem is that right now there is very limited media exposure to either league. It'd be quite a jump for both EPL and MLS games to suddenly be readily available on television.

People will get more invested if it becomes easier to watch the teams that play close to them.

[SKS]

I hope this draws more people to the MLS aswell not just the national team

The MLS is hardly a great league, plus the better players in the USMNT play abroad (Howard, Guzan, Cameron, Beasley, Jones, Johnson) the only good player that plays in the MLS is Dempsey.

I'd rather the USMNT fans follow the Premier League than the MLS, it's a much better showcase for football.

I don't agree with the first sentence, Michael Bradley is one of the best players on the squad and he plays for Toronto. Graham Zusi, Kyle Beckerman, also play in the MLS.

Once every four years people in America - the casual soccer fans - will get excited about the World Cup, but once it goes, no one really cares all that much. The hardcore fans like myself will still follow leagues and it's quite easy to follow the EPL, if you have NBC you can literally watch EVERY EPL game either by streaming or watching it on TV. NBC and NBC Sports had close to 6 games on television each weekend last season. Local MLS teams are on TV, I watch a few Red Bulls games here and there, but they aren't very good. I think once NYC FC come along the MLS will get a lot more popular.

[Kyle]

I got into football this past year watching the BPL, so there's that.

[The Legend]

Here's the problem. For the most part an American's sports fan's fandom is decided almost uniquely by geography. You cheer for your hometown teams. And you cheer for your home nation. So to think that American fans will ever diligently follow Premiere League soccer in mass won't work. You don't become invested in something unless you have a rooted interest in it and for a lot of people like myself there is just no getting interested in Manchester or Leeds or any other soccer team that we have no connection to.

And you are right that MLS's biggest problem is that it's an inferior product which is why Americans pay little attention to it. It's much like when the NFL tried NFL Europe which was essentially a minor league to the real thing.

At the end of the day the Men's soccer team in the World Cup will draw ratings much like American figure skaters, swimmers, runners and even curlers draw ratings in the Olympics and it won't mean a thing for those sports after the event is over. Because at the end of the day the people watching don't care about soccer or swimming or figure skating or track and field. They care about America exerting dominance over the world in whatever arena it happens to be in. Take that away and we'd just as soon root for our hometown teams against other American cities to exert dominance there in sports we understand, are passionate about and love.

[Camstud]

HFX, have a nap and relax man. Massive overreaction there

Not much to add really, been said by the others. I agree with Porky and Legend -- It's best to watch the highest quality form of the sport, but at the same time there is nothing to tie them to a team and maintain their attention throughout the year.