This guest post is brought to you by author Steve Wilson who’s new book “The Little Boys From Little Mexico” comes out in bookstores on June 1. Steve, many thanks for reaching out to Maracanazo and sharing your views.
Soccer faces several hurdles in its ongoing attempt to gain a foothold in the U.S. And, if soccer is ever going to really succeed, it needs to take a lesson from a couple of other sports in the U.S., NASCAR and professional wrestling.
Soccer, auto racing, and “wrestling” aren’t sports that one typically lumps together. The audiences are different for one thing. Soccer’s audience is that weird split between educated Anglos and working-class Latinos, while auto racing and WWE draw rednecks. There’s another difference. NASCAR and WWE are very popular in America. Soccer isn’t.
NASCAR and WWE both deliver to fans a narrative that soccer lacks: heroes and villans. Professional wrestling’s entire existence stems from the soap opera-like drama played out in and around the ring between the good wrestlers and the evil wrestlers. From Andre the Giant to The Undertaker, villans in professional wrestling are often far more popular than their positive peers.
NASCAR has for a long time also had its black and white hats. Jimmie Johnson, for example, one of the most successful current drivers, is synonymous with “nice guy.” But Dale Earnhardt, probably the most popular driver of all time, had the nickname Darth Vader.
To a less obvious degree these narratives extend to the NFL, NBA, and MLB, where certain athletes have reputations as nice (Joe Montana) and others as nasty (Ray Lewis). Over the years opposing fans have loved to hate the Oakland Raiders, the Detroit Pistons, and The New York Yankees.
The reputation of these teams extends off the field as well. Bad boys in many sports say politically incorrect things, go into the stands to fight fans, get caught with pistols in their luggage and marijuana in their cars. Rather than turn fans off, these stories simply add an extra and easily understandable narrative to the competition between teams.
Soccer’s perception problem for most American sports fans is just this–they don’t have a narrative to think about soccer they way they do other sports. To most Americans, soccer is nice. It’s a sport played by kids and women. There are no bad guys. No bad guys means no drama–after all, who are the good guys going to conquer? Who is there to hate? The L.A. Galaxy? Because they had the money to get Beckham? It didn’t do them much good.
The best thing that could happen to American soccer is for some player to start acting out off the field like Dennis Rodman, Lawrence Taylor, or even Tiger Woods. Maybe Brian Ching could get into a fist fight somewhere, or Landon Donovan could get caught snorting coke off a stripper’s naked thigh. Things like this happen in other sports. Athletes get pulled over for speeding and underage Nicaraguan hookers are found in their backseat. It doesn’t damage the team’s popularity, and it rarely even destroys a player’s career. It just gives fans somebody to hate.
Which is exactly what soccer needs.
Maracanazos like to share point of views.
