You couldn’t walk into a sports bar or log in to a social network this summer without being thrust into the middle of a conversation about the World Cup.
Unlike years prior, I found myself at least passively interested as I started covering the Idaho soccer team last spring, and I wanted to learn more about the sport I was covering.
The United States’ World Cup opener versus Ghana was the highest rated program on ESPN since the BCS National Championship game between Florida State and Auburn in January, and unlike years past, it felt like more than just passive patriotism. It felt like genuine interest.
Football is the undisputed king of American sports, yet a soccer game outdrew it in the rankings.
Despite its status as a primarily minor sport in the United States, soccer is growing in popularity, especially in the Northwest.
This is evident when you look at the Idaho soccer roster — 18 of the 23 players on the roster are from the Northwest. With the amount of younger players who caught “World Cup fever,” and are now interested in soccer, there is no reason why the Idaho program, and soccer programs around the region, cannot benefit from it.
At many of the Vandal soccer games I have covered this fall, I have seen a number of young soccer fans in attendance, and many of them have actually watched the games and appeared interested in them. Given the usual short attention span of children, this was surprising.
Part of the reason for this newfound interest in soccer from youth may have to do with the expansion of professional soccer in the Northwest. Since 2007, Major League Soccer has expanded into this area of the country with not one, but two teams in the Seattle Sounders FC and Portland Timbers, founded in 2007 and 2009, respectively.
The Sounders and Timbers have rose to be two of the best teams and biggest rivals in the MLS and staples in the MLS Cup Playoffs every year. The success of the teams could possibly be an effect of the interest in soccer among northwestern youth.
Back in my hometown in central Washington over the summer, I couldn’t drive by a park or through a neighborhood without seeing either a group of children kicking a ball or parents with their sons or daughters in the front yard kicking a soccer ball. If I was to drive through those same areas a few years earlier, odds are those kids kicking a ball would be shooting hoops or playing catch, much like I was in my youth.
Now that does not mean these children who have grown interested in soccer will become the next Cristiano Ronaldo or Lionel Messi. But, at the very least they are interested in the sport, and if these children play soccer through their youth and into high school there is no reason Idaho cannot reel a few of them into its program, especially with the Division I options limited in this area.
Joshua Gamez can be reached at [email protected]