“Well, it was an amazing weekend in sports,” said Seth Meyers on Late Night last week. “LeBron went back to being a Cavalier, Carmelo went back to being a Knick, and soccer went back to being a thing you drive your kids to.”
Post World Cup, popular opinion says soccer in the U.S. is falling away from big screens and viewing parties, and returning to its old post in the hearts and minivans of moms across America. But does that mean soccer is dead? On the contrary.
Sorry Mr. Meyers, but surveys show that soccer is now an American sport. In fact, it’s the sport of America’s future. I say this not just as a soccer fan, but as a cultural analyst, demographics enthusiast, marketer, and media professional.
Like millions of others, I have been fascinated by the unprecedented national attention paid to the 2014 World Cup. Early in the tournament, the USA vs. Portugal match posted the highest World Cup ratings ESPN has ever seen. Soccer is making unprecedented front of the sports page and even front page headlines. Earlier this month, Brazil’s painful semi-final loss to Germany was the most tweeted about event in Twitter history. As in, more tweets than Miley Cyrus’ infamous twerk show at the MTV Video Music Awards. The national excitement around the World Cup has been palpable and unrelenting. And while there are those who say soccer fever will inevitably fade, our research suggests otherwise. As marketers consider the relative worth of sports media and events, this shift matters.
One conventional argument goes like this: “Soccer isn’t our sport. We’re just not good at it. Plus, Americans are more interested other sports.” That last part is true. But when we asked more than 700 Americans when soccer would be “a major U.S. sport, contending with baseball, football, hockey, and basketball,” almost half said that soccer either already is (22%) or will be in the next five years (23%). In fact, more than half (55%) say the U.S. has a chance of winning the World Cup in the next four years. This unbridled optimism of victory in 2018 is driven mostly by baby boomers, but that’s not why soccer is the sport of our future.
Soccer is the sport of our future thanks to the 77 million Millennials who are more engaged with the sport than any other generation. The Nielsen live plus same-day ratings prove this point. Out of 60 matches televised between the start of the World Cup and the Brazil vs. Germany semi-final, 43 posted higher ratings among adults 18-34 than among adults 35-64. Even more telling is that out of 45 group round matches in which the U.S. did not play, 37 posted their highest ratings among adults 18-34. In other words, Millennials approach World Cup as more than a sporting tent pole (which it is) and more than a chance to proudly chant “U-S-A! U-S-A!” (which, again, it is). They approach it as a truly global event, from a global perspective.
It’s not surprising that Millennials would have a more global outlook, as they’re the most racially and ethnically diverse generation in our nation’s history.
What’s more, when we asked World Cup viewers about their identification with countries and heritages other than the U.S., Millennials were more likely than any other age group to personally identify with a non-European country. This carried over into the teams they support. Millennials were almost twice as likely as Gen Xers and seven times more likely than Boomers to say a non-European team is the primary team they root for – over the USA! Even after team USA was knocked out, our social listening research shows that online conversation levels remained consistent as Americans immediately shifted attention to other key games like Brazil vs. Columbia. It’s the world’s sport, and America is part of the world.
But the real reason soccer is the sport of America’s future is not about nationality, race, or ethnic identity; it’s about familiarity. Put simply, Millennials watch soccer because they know how the game is played. The offside rule? They get it. Tightly contested games can end in an “un-American” tie? No big deal to them. In our research, we learned that a third of Millennials (33%) either currently play soccer or had played soccer in the past (compared to 23% of Gen Xers and 5% of boomers). And while three-quarters of older World Cup viewers told us they watch mainly to cheer on our red, white, and blue, almost half of Millennials (43%) said instead that they watch “because I like to watch soccer.”
I’m not saying we’ll be on a soccer high from here on out. World Cup is over, and while the New York market is about to get a second team, it remains to be seen whether Major League Soccer will ride the wave to a bigger audience. But that’s exactly why now is the time for marketers to think about how soccer fits into future marketing strategies. Millennials like soccer. It’s their sport. They’re willing to own it. And if there’s one thing we learned from the baby boomer, it’s that 77 million people tend to make an impact. Better deals on soccer related media and sponsorship opportunities will live in the lull between World Cup fever and the inevitable upswing of soccer.
