Why is Soccer a Unique and Popular Sport?
By: Jonatan Campos
Football, basketball, and baseball have a massive influence throughout the entire United States. At the same time, other sports like cricket and rugby are known in the US but holds the majority of their fan base in the United Kingdom and Australia. What makes soccer have an enormous impact on sports fanatics worldwide?
According to Benjamin Sawe, "Association football, or soccer, is the most popular sport globally. It estimates that more than half of the world's population consider themselves association football (soccer) fans. The sport enjoys an estimated four billion people following and a global sphere of influence."
With four billion followers, WorldAtlas put soccer at the top of sports list with more sphere influence, almost doubling in numbers to the second, cricket with 2.5 million.
What makes soccer different is that its colossal influence goes global, not just in particular regions or countries as cricket or any other sport. Soccer is recognized because it is practiced anywhere, no matter the place or kind of ground. It can be rocky, muddy, or in the middle of a dirt road in the heart of Spain or Mexico and yet, young people will continue to play a game. How can this casual sport allow someone to become a professional athlete from just kicking the ball with friends to be recognized worldwide? They have the opportunity to become professionals by getting more interested in the discipline it requires and join an academy team to improve their capacities.
Teamwork is a part of soccer and is critical for an athlete to have in mind when looking to chase their dreams to become a soccer professional. What makes soccer more unique is that by being internationally known, it gathers many people from different nationalities to be unified by being teammates or fans. Whether a fan is attending in person, at a bar, or in the comfort of their own home to watch a World Cup match, fans discover new cultures and connect with strangers and become comrades. Soccer brings events where happiness and rejoice stand out; this can allow a child to dream, to one day develop the skills to be in the place of the legends they see on the TV.
The impact that soccer has brought to the world can be shown throughout the years by the fans' willingness to be more engaged. A person that lives in the US is willing to pay and travel to see a regular-season match, mostly from European soccer leagues like the Spanish, English, Italian, and German, as Statista states that they are the top four and the strongest globally. Professional soccer stadiums exist globally; when a soccer match occurs at Banc of California Stadium in Los Angeles, the environment turns into a vast, noisy party as its total capacity is 23,000 spectators. Its average attendance per game in 2019 was 22,251. The US women soccer team alone brought in $50.8 million amount of revenue in the past three years and typically averaged 14.3 million views during their last World Cup final game against the Netherlands (The US won 2-0).