Has Soccer Finally Made It in the U.S.? – WSJ – Wall Street Journal

After each milestone for soccer in the U.S., the same question always follows: Has the sport finally “arrived” in the mainstream?

Sunday’s 5-2 U.S. victory over Japan in the Women’s World Cup final is the latest example: With 26.7 million U.S. viewers, it became the most-watched soccer game in U.S. history.

Experts say the real question for soccer’s growth isn’t whether its premier global matches have drawing power (they clearly do), but whether the sport can begin to draw regular, strong audiences for other matches and competitions in between the quadrennial World Cups.

“When you talk about soccer in the U.S., you have to think about us being at year 20 or 25 of a 50-year arc,” said Mike Mulvihill, senior vice president of programming and research at Fox Sports, the network that aired the final. “You hope that the interest sparked by this World Cup goes beyond this specific team and these players.” ( 21st Century Fox,
FOX


-2.06
%




owner of Fox, was part of the same company as News Corp,
NWSA


-1.32
%




owner of The Wall Street Journal, until mid-2013.)

Sunday’s record ratings come at a moment when the U.S. men’s team has an unusual opportunity to play in several high-profile tournaments during the summers in coming years. On Tuesday, the U.S. men beat Honduras 2-1 in their opening match of the Gold Cup, the ongoing regional championship of North and Central America and the Caribbean. Should the U.S. successfully defend its Gold Cup title, it would earn a spot in the 2017 Confederations Cup in Russia, a dress rehearsal for the 2018 World Cup.

In 2016, the Copa America, South America’s continental championship, could come to the U.S., giving the men’s national team a chance to take on the likes of Neymar’s Brazil and Lionel Messi’s Argentina in meaningful games on home soil. The U.S. is also likely to field men’s and women’s teams at the 2016 Rio Olympics.

“That sort of continued visibility helps you gain traction with the public,” said David Carter, director of the sports-business program at the University of Southern California. “It’s hard to maintain interest in a sport if it disappears between World Cups.”

Major League Soccer, the top North American men’s professional league, has had average per-game attendance of 21,023 this season, an increase of almost 40% over the past 10 years. The league’s title game, the MLS Cup, pulled in 1.6 million viewers in December, its biggest audience since 1997, the league’s second season, according to Nielsen.

English Premier League games, which were broadcast on NBC Sports Network this past season, averaged 425,000 viewers, while European soccer’s Champions League final between Barcelona and Juventus in June drew 2.2 million viewers on Fox. Last summer, an exhibition game between Manchester United
MANU


-2.83
%




and Real Madrid at Michigan Stadium drew a crowd of 109,318, the largest ever for a soccer match in the U.S.

The number of networks carrying soccer has grown to about a dozen now from five in 2010, according to Nielsen. Television-ad rates show that soccer has already started to rub elbows with other mainstream sports: The average cost of a 30-second commercial during the women’s final on Fox was about $210,760. That was more than the cost of an ad for the final game of the NHL’s Stanley Cup Final in June on NBC, according to media cost-forecasting firm SQAD. The men’s World Cup Final between Germany and Argentina on ABC in 2014 earned $465,140 per spot, on average. That was more than the final game of the NBA Finals in June but well below the NCAA men’s basketball final.

If participation is an indication of future fandom, the prospects look good: Soccer has surged in the past three decades for boys and girls, and it now trails only basketball in combined numbers. Though the growth has slowed in recent years, the National Federation of State High School Associations reports soccer participation in 2013-14 was up 8.7% from 2008-09. According to the 2014 ESPN Sports Poll, a survey of more than 400,000 people that measures sports fandom, professional soccer ranked as the No. 2 sport, behind pro football, among 12- to 17-year-olds. The survey found that Major League Soccer was as popular as Major League Baseball among the same age group.

“The founders of Major League Soccer thought their task was to build what we affectionately called a ‘soccer nation’ in America,” said MLS Commissioner Don Garber. “There is no doubt that by every measure, we have become that soccer nation. Soccer has become part of the everyday life of so many millions of American folks here.”

Even before Sunday, ratings for the 2015 Women’s World Cup were up 45% from the previous tournament in 2011. But ratings for the final still came as a surprise, exceeding those of the deciding games of the most recent World Series and the NBA Finals. Sunday’s women’s final topped the previous record for a women’s match, which was set in 1999 when 19 million viewers watched the U.S. women beat China in the World Cup at the Rose Bowl.

Mr. Carter, the sports-business professor, notes that, among other things, the prime-time slot of the final and the fact that the game was a rematch of the 2011 final created “a unique set of circumstances that will be difficult to replicate.”

The momentum from the 1999 match helped launch the first major U.S. women’s soccer league in 2001. By 2003, it had collapsed. In 2009, a second women’s league was launched just months after the U.S. won a gold medal at the Beijing Olympics, but it also folded after just three seasons.

A new women’s league, the National Women’s Soccer League, kicked off its third season in April. Last season, the nine-team league drew average attendance of 4,129 a game.

— Joe Flint contributed to this article.

Write to Jonathan Clegg at jonathan.clegg@wsj.com