American football already in decline at youth level due to concussion issues. (Ironically doesn’t seem to affect soccer concerns).
Baseball gradually losing popularity, no longer America’s pastime. It has become a bore to watch for most young people.
Basketball, by and large, favors taller athletes at most of the positions, to the exclusion of the vast majority.
The interest in soccer here, as a spectator sport is palpable. I’m sure viewership of this World Cup in the States is at an all time high.
My guess is that eventually (20 years? 30 years?) soccer will eventually climb into the top 2-3 sports played and watched in the States. The more popular it becomes, the more the better, more motivated athletes will play it.
Dave Beckham once said that the best players in the world usually come from economically deprived areas, where soccer is the only means to escape poverty. Basketball is so ingrained in our city’s neighborhoods, wonder what it will take to get Those kids hooked on soccer?
Soccer in those country is way more than a means to escape poverty. It is a way of life.
Beckham's point was that the best players tended to come from economically deprived conditions. I think Brazil would be a good example of that. Or England's best players are more more likely to come from a working class neighborhood than a posh area, no?
You see similar things in baseball, where the best players, in terms of percentage of a country's population, come from the Dominican Republic, which is an extremely poor country. Likewise in basketball, the best NBA players often come from economically deprived situations. Of course there are exceptions to this, but the general rule would still seem to apply.