The USA team have come top of their group in the World Cup, ahead of England. Does this represent a new dawn for soccer in the US? Will Chang, the owner of MLS team DC United thinks so: ‘I’m 54 and in my lifetime I think this game of football is going to be the biggest sport in the US.’ Well, maybe.
The USA team have come top of their group in the World Cup, ahead of England. Does this represent a new dawn for soccer in the US? Will Chang, the owner of MLS team DC United thinks so: ‘I’m 54 and in my lifetime I think this game of football is going to be the biggest sport in the US.’ Well, maybe.
Certainly television companies think there is potential in the market and have been splashing the cash on rights. ESPN and ABC, the sister networks owned by Walt Disney, spent $100m on rights to the 2010 and 2014 World Cups. Universal paid $325m for the Spanish language rights to the two tournaments. That amounts to around three times the combined bids last time.
And they seem to have hit pay dirt. According to Fifa, cumulative television audiences in North America grew from 433m in 1998 to 469m in 2002 and then jumped to 829m in 2006. As of last Friday, the audience figures for the first 23 games on ESPN and ABC were up 60 per cent on four years ago. And that was before Team America progressed to the round of sixteen.
How much of this interest will last beyond the World Cup and give a boost to Major League Soccer remains to be seen. So far growth has been steady but unspectacular.