I agree. People on this forum don't want to admit it, but its true. When it comes to viewership, revenue, and fan base soccer is far, far, behind the big three. If people want their kids to play for fun and exercise, or just the love of the sport, that's great. But if you want your kid to be a great player, send him overseas.

I think a lot more people are following soccer than one media person who didn't know any better. Soccer is one of the biggest youth sports and the players know. Too many assumed USA would be on their way to the World Cup. Soccer is much more exciting to watch than baseball. Everyone is literally falling asleep to the Yankees and Indians. People are falling asleep to college football with the replays. The soccer match against TT was intense and we were following how the other countries were doing at the same time. The USA team got their spirit going in the second half but couldn't another goal. If the game had been at home against a team other than TT, the media would have been covering it more. The better youth team doesn't always win. That's soccer. The loss will shake things up on the team, and bring in a new coach and younger players and they will be better in four years.

I think that's relative. The majority of the US thinks that soccer is boring. If you only surround yourself with other people that like soccer and have kids in soccer, then of course you will think you see soccer growing. Get outside of that and it's far in between where you find a soccer fan. I highly doubt that Billy Bob in Georgia is following what's going on in the soccer world.

As far as Baseball, the regular season could go by without anyone noticing but once the World Series starts, it's known who is playing and it gets covered. Not to mention MLB generates lots of money still, plus the players make lots of $$. What's the average salary for MLS? Most guys on a team barely break 1 million, if they do at all. Your Mega Stars make less than 10 Million a year. The money is just not there for US Soccer at the moment and it's for the reasons mentioned before.

Those are very good points. When we around soccer all the time many people's perspective is not that accurate. Baseball is often the target of soccer fans, but 30 MLB teams draw anywhere from 20+40k fans a night over 162 game schedule. Regionally it gets tremendous ratings. That being the local team's game in its market. That is why it still brings in close to 10 billion a year in revenue only slightly behind the NFL.

On the youth level more kids are playing baseball and softball than soccer as well as basketball for that matter. I am not going to say what it will be like in the distant future but in the present, soccer is a second tier sport in this country. Even our own league takes a back seat to the Premiere League in popularity and TV ratings. To go 8 year between World Cups will not do anything to help this

Nothing to complain about getting paid a million.

Individually no, but when you have a kid/parents that are making the decision on whether they should invest the time and MONEY into Youth Soccer vs a sport they can play for free, what do you think will win? Especially when on the professional level, any of the other 3 sports will pay you lots of more $$ and you don't even have to be the superstar. It's almost like your return on investment. Combine that with most of the US population not being interested in the sport, it's going to be hard to put together real talent to actually make a dent in the soccer world.

The last World Cup inspired the little bit of buzz that youth soccer had the last few years. Now all of these kids that are 8 and 9 years old are not going to have that, which means US soccer lost out in at least 1 generation of inspired athletes that would of even given soccer a chance. American kids are not watching regular season soccer games, or any kind of MLS playoffs or Championship games. They only see World Cup, Olympics, or maybe Concacaf gold cup. What they do see is the SuperBowl, World Series, and NBA Finals - and this is every year. What they also see is $205 million contracts all over ESPN in regards to players in these other sports. US Soccer can't compete with that at the moment, which is why they are not going to attract a lot of other kids into the sport.

There are many NFL and NBA stars that played soccer when young (Odell Beckham, Chad Johnson, Kobe Bryant, to name a few). Why do you suppose they ultimately decided to go with the other sport?

lame excuse

PSG just paid over 150mil euros for neymar

Parents are not choosing sports for their babies based on if they will make millions more as a pro athlete.

sorry my bad is more like 450mil euros still think soccer is small?

Sure they are. That's part of the problem with youth sports and travel soccer generally. In the past a kid was a successful athlete if he or she played thought out high school, learned some important life lessons, and had a good time. Now AT LEAST half the parents I talk to - in many sports not just soccer - talk about college scholarships and chances at a professional career. Those wishes, while not bad in and of themselves, have resulted in huge dissatisfaction with anything less. That translates into two things: parents blindly paying money to improve their kids' chances, and parents blindly blaming everything on the on the coaches, leagues, etc. when their dreams don't come true. The reality is that most kids don't have the size, speed, or skills to play sports professionally. The other reality is that the system of youth and professional soccer in this country is in no way geared toward developing the best talent - it geared toward making money for those who run the clubs and leagues.

The point before was people choosing football for their baby because the pro money is higher.

And with the mega salaries you get guys knocking out there girlfriends, massive adultery, steroid usagel, disrespecting the President and worst of all, kneeling during the national anthem thus turning your back on all that have sacrificed for you to play your little sport. You know what, I will gladly watch guys that make as much as I do instead of that garbage. Also, in terms of excitement, soccer blows baseball away.

We are talking American kids. How many Neymars are coming out of the DA? and how many MLS players have contracts like that?

We are talking Soccer in the US, everyone knows how it is with the rest of the world, but in order to get AMERICAN kids interested, it needs to compete with the other big sports that kids can play for free.