Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, June 18, 1994 TAG: 9406210142
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
Soccer is the globe's foremost sport.
In the United States, soccer falls somewhere between those two sentences, and certainly closer to the former than the latter.
Soccer is the world's most popular sport, but in that world, the United States definitely is not a superpower.
"Two billion people can't be wrong," said ESPN anchorman Bob Ley, whose resume includes a season as the public-address announcer for the Cosmos of the North American Soccer League. "It is the sport in so many countries. In this country, it's really easy to say that soccer's boring, with no scoring.
"The real reason, I think, that soccer doesn't have a grip here is that it hasn't been able to hold an appeal.
"Some people say baseball is boring. Some people say soccer is boring. They're a lot alike, in that you have to grow up in the sport to really have a grasp for it.
"Baseball is an American sport. Soccer isn't."
Football is an American sport. Basketball is an American sport. Soccer is called "football" elsewhere. Why should the United States be good in soccer when we can't even get the name right?
Soccer's great opportunity for booting its way into our consciousness has arrived - again. The 14th World Cup began Friday, and today, the U.S. team starts pool play against Switzerland.
How many people will watch? Good question. The last World Cup, in 1990, attracted an average of fewer than 1 million viewers per game with its partial schedule on cable's TNT.
Played in the United States for the first time, the World Cup will be hard to miss on the tube - 52 games (40 live, 12 on tape) in a span of 31 days on ESPN and ABC. That said, a recent Gallup Poll revealed that two-thirds of those asked had no idea what the World Cup was.
When a similar poll was taken in Brazil last year, 99 percent of those asked knew the World Cup, soccer's quadrennial festival and a world-class event that rivals the Olympics, was to be played in the United States in 1994.
Maybe the Gallup pollsters should have asked the youngsters in the United States. It is on their shoulders the future of soccer rests in this country. They need some help in the next month, however. The kids are all right
America's children are growing up in the sport. More youths began playing soccer in the past two decades for varied reasons. One was that parents didn't want their children being hurt playing peewee football. Another was that girls were welcome in soccer, and the advent of Title IX legislation increased participation.
The 1994 national soccer participation survey reports that 16.4 million individuals played soccer at least once last year, an 8 percent increase over 1992. That figure of 16.4 million included 12.2 million players 17 or younger. The 4.2 million adults playing soccer represents a 19 percent increase from '92, and the number of U.S. residents playing soccer at least 25 times annually was up almost 20 percent since '92.
Locally, Roanoke Valley Youth Soccer, a club for traveling teams, reflects those national figures. Where last year about 500 youths tried out for 325 spots on traveling teams, this year the tryouts attracted about 700 players for 425 spots.
Danny Beamer, executive director of the club, estimates about 5,000 youths play soccer in the Roanoke Valley, mostly in recreation leagues. About 300 valley residents play in adult leagues.
The Crestar Festival tournament, played annually on Memorial Day weekend, has included almost 32,000 participants since 1986. This year, the event included 2,652 players on 156 teams from eight states, playing 255 games on 19 fields.
On the collegiate level, Virginia has won the past three NCAA Division I men's championships and shared the crown with Santa Clara in 1989. Roanoke College reached the NCAA Division III quarterfinals in '93.
All those numbers - national, regional and local - don't translate into commercial success for the sport, however. Kids may have buying power, but they aren't yet into the demographic category television networks want most. Their parents are - but they played football, baseball and basketball as kids, like their elders.
There are those who say 16 million U.S. residents play soccer, but then they go home and watch the NFL or the NBA. Beamer agrees with that - but hastens to add that they have no choice.
"The kids - and the adults for that matter - can't find soccer on TV," Beamer said. "I'll tape games on Home Team Sports and pass the tape around among our club and team members for them to watch. The World Cup is just what soccer needs in this country, because it will put the game on TV.
"It's definitely going to promote the game. What the sport needs is some stars, some heroes, some names. You only get that with exposure.
"I don't know how big soccer can become [in the United States], but I think it can be more than a niche sport. I think it can be bigger than hockey, which is doing a good job right now. There are more places to play soccer in this country than places to play hockey." Pros and con
Soccer's commercial future in the United States depends on more than participating children growing up. The performance of the U.S. team in the World Cup will establish whether the sport has a chance to become an overnight success.
This is not hockey, so we're not talking another "Miracle on Ice," but the advancement of the U.S. team to the World Cup's round of 16 is crucial.
Then, the operation of Major League Soccer, which is scheduled to begin play in 12 U.S. cities in April 1995, will determine whether soccer can survive as a professional sport in the United States again.
Since 1960, six pro soccer leagues have died in this country. The current six leagues in operation are little more than alphabet soup to most sports fans. The APSL isn't the ASL. The NPSL isn't the NASL. The CISL isn't the MISL. But they may walk on the same carpets. There are indoor and outdoor leagues, and some of the seasons overlap. The U.S. Interregional Soccer League (USISL) has more than 80 teams and is comparable to Class AA baseball. The quality of play is inconsistent from division to division.
FIFA (Federation Internationale de Football Association), the sport's world governing body, doesn't even recognize the current U.S. leagues as pro leagues. That's how little regard there is for U.S. soccer in the international community.
It appeared pro soccer had put its best foot forward in the United States with the NASL. In August 1977, Pele was filling the seats at Giants Stadium for Cosmos games. Seven years later, the NASL was history, a victim of too much expansion and not enough capital.
Rick Davis, captain of the U.S. national team for a decade and one of the too-few Americans in the league, said, "Everybody thought it was certain we'd be the next NFL. . . . People spent money like there was no tomorrow."
There wasn't.
Investing in the NASL was like shredding money.
"The NASL blew a great opportunity," Ley said. "It grew too fast and was undercapitalized. How do you go out of business in the '80s? In that decade . . . Look at what we did here [at ESPN, which signed on in 1979 and has been a success].
"The NASL had the greatest name in soccer, Pele. It had New York [with the Cosmos]. It had TV. It had things the sport might never have again."
Major League Soccer, a venture started by World Cup 1994 chairman and chief executive officer Alan Rothenberg, has a contract for 10 games to be televised by ESPN and 25 by ESPN2, with the championship game on ABC. There are 25 cities still vying for the 12 franchises.
The question about MLS - or the MSL as some already confused observers are labeling it - is whether the league can pay big enough bucks to U.S. stars to keep them from returning abroad to play. "And that's a very big if," Ley said.
The corporate sponsors should be there. A record $220 million has been spent on corporate sponsorships for the World Cup. Advertisers see the Cup as a way to lure foreign exposure. Of course, if the United States has some success in the event and Americans become intrigues, those sponsors have an in with the MLS.
"The U.S. team has to do well in the World Cup to help the sport and help Major League Soccer," Beamer said. "If the U.S. team falls flat on its face, it's going to hurt, but I don't think it will kill the sport commercially in this country. It will deter its growth." Lofty goals
Soccer must do something to make the game more attractive because it doesn't have a grass-roots audience yet. The World Cup is taking one step in the right direction. The ball used in the tournament is supposed to be aerodynamically superior, so it will fly - perhaps past goalies - faster.
It would seem the color surrounding the game would attract Americans, but they don't get a chance to see it. The fans - apart from the rioting and mayhem that scared U.S. World Cup organizers into extensive security plans - can colorize any game.
The Washington Post recently offered a sample, reporting that El Salvador's fans have been known to throw dead iguanas and cats onto the field. Then, there are the chanting English fans, whose team didn't reach the 24-team Cup finals, screaming, "No one likes us . . . We don't care."
Ley pointed out that some people will say the sellouts dominating the World Cup schedule are a gauge of interest in the sport in the United States. That's wrong, says the ESPN sportscaster who will call World Cup telecasts.
"Americans will go to the World Cup where they might not go to any other soccer game," Ley said. "Americans are event snobs. If it's big, we love it.
"The World Cup will be a marvelous one month, a Woodstock of sport. Then, on July 18, FIFA will take its check, say thank you, get on a plane and go home to Zurich. Then, it's up to us. Soccer has a chance. Millions and millions have played the game here for years, but that hasn't translated into commercial success.
"In other countries, soccer is a lot like baseball is here, like we understand the beauty of a well-turned double play or a guy having the guts to throw a 3-2 slider. A lot more goes on on the soccer field away from the ball, just like in baseball."
Since the demise of the NASL, soccer's next-best chance for commercial success in the United States begins today.
"What will change the sport in this country is if [today] the U.S. guys play the match of their lives, beat Switzerland, if the score is 4-3 or 5-4 - we do a novena for scores like that - then, then it has a chance," Ley said. "But only a chance. We're going to have the best soccer in the world here for a month."
That doesn't mean the United States will have good soccer after that. Maybe the sport, with its U.S. kids, just needs to grow up. There is one point on which there is no debate.
Soccer needs a kick in the grass.
by CNB