Soccer is being hyped here because the medium term future for football is bleak. Take off your fan glasses and see what’s happening. The sport is being torn apart from within and without - or rather it is being exposed by those within and without for the brutal effects it’s had on the players.
But football cannot be knocked from its perch as the number one sport in America until some other sport moves in to fill the void at the top of the American psyche. Whatever sport is to take football’s place must be television friendly. (This is a challenge for soccer because its action doesn’t stop for TV timeouts and such.) It also must be visually stimulating. This is the factor above all others that makes football fun for its fans to watch. All the camera angles! All the replays! You can see the wideout drop that durn pass 10 times from 6 different angles!
Soccer doesn’t lend itself too readily to the demands of TV. If it ever does, the networks will move in for a land grab on TV rights.
Just realize that no sport can remain the number one sport for all time. Not boxing (as in your grandfathers day) or baseball (in the years following) or golf (as in the 90s). Change happens. Football’s had its day.
I can’t tell you exactly when but there will be a day in our lifetimes when football will be regarded as a brutal, vicious, inhumane and cruel sport enjoyed only by the brutal, the vicious, the inhumane and the the cruel. These seeds have already been planted and they’ve sprouted.
Every time you hear broadcasters discussing concussions and new rules to protect the QB or to limit head trauma or ...or the myriad of other injuries that are part of the game ...you are witnessing another nail being pounded into the viewers consciousness about the nature of the game.
Whether or not it will be soccer that replaces football, no one knows. It does offer the one angle of world competition that no purely American game offers. Maybe some other sport will ascend but it’s hard to predict which it will be.
My flame retardant suit is on. Flame away. But if you decide to flame me, do yourself one little favor. Bookmark these words and come back to read them in five years. you’ll see what I mean.