US soccer: Commend it like Beckham

The critics are wrong. Pro soccer in America is here to stay. And David Beckham's arrival is a good thing.

By Parnesh Sharma

from the April 6, 2007 edition

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VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA - Professional soccer in America is like ice cream in the fridge: it won't last long. That's the conventional wisdom, anyway. So it's understandable why the much-hyped American arrival of global soccer star David Beckham has been greeted with yawns and derision in the States.

No, Mr. Beckham is not the world's best soccer player. He's as well known for his dashing metrosexual fashion sense and protean hairstyles as he is for his wickedly bending free kicks. A man with fewer derring-dos than daring dos can't singlehandedly turn America's Major League Soccer (MLS), which begins its season this weekend, into a prime-time sport. But when he joins the LA Galaxy later this summer, his celebrity status should shed light on a forgotten fact: Professional soccer in America is here to stay.

I should know. As a former season-ticket holder of the old North American Soccer League and life-long supporter of the English Premier League, I've seen what works and what doesn't. Professional soccer has established solid footing today despite two big obstacles: (1) Many Americans loathe watching soccer; and (2) The National Football League (NFL) has a history of bullying the sport.

The first point may seem counter-intuitive, given how popular the sport is among America's youth. The ubiquitous "soccer moms," with their SUVs full of cleated kids, have had their own political demographic for more than a decade. Yet soccer, in the way it defies the melting pot, is deeply un-American.

At the youth level, soccer is dominated by middle-class whites. Is it really that popular with white America or does it represent white exodus from the traditional sports now dominated by African-Americans? For blacks, playing sports may be about gaining access to mainstream America. But for whites, soccer has come to be a sport where their children can play with their "own kind."

US fans, meanwhile, accustomed to slam-dunks, home runs, and kickoff returns, have trouble appreciating the long-form poetry of a good soccer match. After 90 minutes of artistic passing, chesslike strategy, and fierce play, the score may well end at just 1-0 – hardly a boon for TV highlights.

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