The BBC and The Soccer Mom

Always interesting to see what the rest of the world thinks of America’s World Cup resistance. The BBC recently sent a reporter to the DC United – KC Wizards game to try and gage World Cup interest, and didn’t seem too impressed with what they found.

Under the alliterative headline ‘World Cup fails to fan US football fever’, the article extrapolates from the family friendly atmosphere at the game to a lack of World Cup interest in general. The reporter interviewed a soccer mom.

Like many of the people I met, she was attending her first professional game.
“I never knew it would have so many family activities,” she said. “We’ll definitely be coming here regularly.”
“But what about the USA World Cup team?” I asked her. “They’re rated pretty highly.”
“Are they?” she asked with a look that was initially blank, but clearly open to persuasion. “Well, I’m sure we’ll be cheering them on.”

It’s true that there hasn’t been the same level of anticipation in the mass media that there is in more soccer-oriented countries (ie everywhere else except Canada), but for this reason we can’t really judge World Cup interest in America until the tournament begins. I’m optimistic that if the MNT makes a good start, we’ll see a (temporary, but) tangible spike in interest.