Robin Gosens’ handshake with NFL professional Raekwon McMillan from the New England Patriots cracked like thunder.
After the lively welcome, the stars from different sports worlds chatted animatedly with each other on the forecourt of Gillette Stadium in Foxborough – one of 16 arenas for the mega 2026 World Cup. They obviously had a lot to talk about.
The German national team’s international trip to the USA is officially a taster tour to the largest of the three tournament hosts, alongside Mexico and Canada. From a German perspective, America continues to be a country with limited football opportunities. A World Cup in the USA always sounds a bit like sporting development aid for the nation of American football, baseball and basketball.
Increased interest in soccer
“But when the World Cup comes, there will be another push. Although it will be difficult to bring the sport here in the USA among the other three or four that exist here. But at least it’s becoming very important. “It’s coming,” said Bayer Leverkusen international Jonas Hofmann, describing his impressions after the first few days with the DFB team overseas.
This view is supported by figures almost three years before the World Cup. Until 2004, surveys showed that there were never more than two percent of Americans who enjoyed watching football. In a 2022 survey for the Washington Post, however: eight percent. Within 18 years, the proportion of people in the USA who enjoy watching football as spectators has quadrupled.
Soccer still doesn’t come close to matching the country’s love for American football. But the gap has narrowed massively. Football is more popular as a TV sport than ice hockey, tennis, golf and motor sports. In other words: Only the NFL, basketball and baseball are more popular with viewers, according to data collected for the Washington Post.
One of the reasons: Many more children now play football in high school than just a few decades ago. Because in the USA young talent is organized primarily through schools and universities and not through clubs like in Europe, they are the sources for future generations of professionals.
Markus Kuhn also feels the impression of dynamic growth. The colossus from Mannheim was the first German to score a touchdown in the NFL in 2014. Now he is happy that the sporting cultures of his old and new homeland are experiencing more and more mutual appreciation. “What I find incredible is what has happened to football in America. If you think about how many children initially gravitated toward football, how many boys and girls now play football over here,” said Kuhn as a training guest for the DFB team in Foxborough.
A million boys play American football. The number has hardly changed over the years. Football, on the other hand, grew and grew. 40 years ago there were 200,000, in the 2000s there were around 400,000 students playing football. There are now said to be 800,000 active in schools.
One consequence of this is that football is now more popular than baseball among younger adults aged 18 to 39. This sounds obvious to sports fans in Germany. Baseball has been a cultural asset in the USA for decades. And places to play are as common in every village as football goals from Schleswig-Holstein to Bavaria.
Messi triggers hype
Football is also noticeable in public life, especially in major cities. In Los Angeles, for example, sports fields with kicking children are much more present than football team units on school fields. During the World Cup in Qatar, pubs and sports bars in the mega city were packed. In many places, the Champions League final between Inter Milan and Manchester City could only be seen by those who had secured a place in time before kick-off. The Pratt & Whitney Stadium at Rentschler Field in Hartford is sold out with almost 40,000 fans for the German national team’s game against the USA on Saturday (9 p.m./RTL).
Lionel Messi’s move to Inter Miami has caused a lot of hype. In supermarket magazine stands there are entire editions dedicated solely to the world champion from Argentina. Superstars like LeBron James flew in specifically for Messi’s debut in the pink jersey, and ticket prices for games involving Miami skyrocketed.
Since then, FIFA President Gianni Infantino has been in the stands for at least two games of David Beckham’s team. The USA is a genuine growth market for the global association. Former President Joseph Blatter would have preferred the 2022 Qatar World Cup to be held in the United States – that would have saved him a lot of personal trouble in the corruption swamp at the time. Infantino pushed through the reform for the upcoming tournament with 48 participants and 104 games. Gigantism also suits America.
“The World Cup is just around the corner, it is a huge experience for the whole nation that a player like Lionel Messi is coming to America. I think that says a lot about the league: that it is growing,” Berliner Hany Mukhtar recently told the German Press Agency. As the top scorer and most valuable player in Major League Soccer last season, the attacker from Hertha BSC’s youth ranks is one of the most important players in the league and has been following his development since moving to Nashville SC three years ago.
In any case, the market is flourishing: the TV contract with Apple has brought the MLS not only a lot of money (according to the media 2.5 billion for ten years) but also the marketing power of the group, which, for example, has brought the sport on with the enormously successful entertainment series “Ted Lasso”. cleverly explained, accessible and interesting – especially for American sports fans.
2023-10-12 13:22:19
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