There’s popularity and there’s popularity. Especially in America. Every 4 years America loves gymnastics, but in between Olympics nobody cares unless their kid is participating. The World Cup is getting fairly popular, in between the audience is still pretty small.
Oh, please. Again, who cares? Can we cheer for the USA (incidentally, World Cup qualifying begins not too long after the World Cup ends) without a conservative American telling us that we are wasting our time?