Anyone who reads Outsider Sports cannot help but know that hockey and soccer are my two favorite sports. Looking in my closet would indicate differently, but my heart knows the truth.
Like many hockey fans my age, I grew up watching games. My parents had a satellite by the time I turned 3, and NHL Center Ice was a key component of the package. Having that around helped me learn the league from a young age, so much so that it's ingrained so firmly in my mind. While I love sports as a whole, I have no other deep knowledge of a sport like I do with hockey. Not baseball, not football, and not even soccer.
I'm a Seattle area native, and getting the Sounders back in 2009 really turned a soccer city up to 11. At that point, the Mariners were bad as they've often been, and the Seahawks were between the Matt Hasselbeck and Russell Wilson eras. The Sonics were gone, and Seattle fans, while passionate, were frustrated. Enter the Sounders: an instant success story, one of the best starts over the course of years in expansion history. It took awhile to build the market, but by the time I got to my first game, they were already setting attendance records for MLS, helped greatly by playing at what is now CenturyLink Field. In terms of attendance, the Sounders keep up with big-name European teams regularly, and without even opening up the whole stadium. When the Timbers or Galaxy come to town, you can see over 50,000 people show up to support the Rave Green.
This leads to a crossroads for my sports fandom. My first love, hockey, will always be there. My new love, soccer, is thrilling and exciting every bit as much as hockey, and so much broader in scale. If you ask Colin Cowherd, soccer is now bigger than hockey in the United States. As Greg Wyshynski pointed out yesterday, defining the terms is critical. Soccer is more than just league play. Hockey, as we know it, is the NHL and the biannual tournaments, with the occasional attention paid for World Championships or World Juniors. To say that one is bigger than the other can be proven, but I don't see it that way. I consider the popularity of hockey and soccer to be on level terms, but with different approaches to getting there.
Consider hockey for a second. Every team plays 82 games a year at a minimum. The TV rights deal is well-established, so exposure is not an issue. The NHL has a number of marquee events, with the Winter Classic and a handful of other outdoor games. No matter how watered down the All-Star Game gets, it still grabs the attention of fans at least in the build-up to the actual game. The Stanley Cup Playoffs, which just finished for this year, last two months and feature some of the most dramatic moments in all sports. The on-ice intensity and off-ice anticipation make the Stanley Cup Playoffs must-watch hockey. Beyond that, the sport of hockey has very little foothold in the United States. We'll see what happens with the World Cup of Hockey, but with it on ESPN, don't expect too much from it.
Soccer, on the other hand, is accessible. Teams play only 34 league games per year, but they are pretty predictable. You get about one every week. On top of that, all the United States MLS teams compete in the US Open Cup. The Sounders have won four of those, giving fans something to point to when Galaxy fans point out a lack of MLS Cup titles. For the successful teams, a bid in the CONCACAF Champions League adds more games to the schedule. MLS unnecessarily adds playoffs, but those also draw far more attention. On top of league action, international play is big. The Copa America has routinely drawn massive crowds in each city, and with the US men playing at CenturyLink Field on June 16, you can expect another capacity effort from the fans. Twenty years ago, you don't see this kind of support for soccer, but with the growth of MLS, it's been possible for soccer to gain attention and exposure. The fan environment in soccer is unlike any other. Passionate supporters groups make every home game loud and fun, and many tend to travel well to bring a piece of home to their teams as they travel. Having been in the building for USA versus Panama in their 2013 World Cup qualifier, the national team can bring even more excitement than regular league games.
All this goes without saying how much more accessible soccer is to women. I've seen plenty of women show up to Sounders games with the Emerald City Supporters. Hockey can get the support of women (my mother really got me started with watching hockey), but the arena environment and itchy trigger finger to pin every female hockey fan as a "puck bunny" can be a massive turnoff for women. In soccer, there is less gender animosity. Helping that is the massive success of the multiple World Cup and Olympics champion US women. At the league level, the NWSL has inspired a new generation of fans, male and female, to embrace the sport of soccer. While hockey has two women's leagues in the NWHL and CWHL, neither has enough of a grip outside of the eastern half of the continent to be a true outlet for women. As time progresses, those leagues will likely grow, but catching up to the NWSL or WNBA will prove difficult.
The main reason why I view hockey and soccer on level terms is my equal amount of love for both sports. I spend much more time with soccer, but I also know so much less about it than I do with hockey. In hockey, the NHL is all you have to know to get by. Soccer is much broader than that, and Americans, myself included, have a tough time coming to grips with not being the best at something. Not having the best soccer league in the world necessarily makes us see players rise through us instead of to us. Hockey had a head start of eighty or more years over MLS in the United States. It was bound to be bigger. In many ways, it still is. The one key component is growth. The NHL has saturated its markets to virtually the full extent they can. They try to appeal to casual fans and bring in new ones, but that only works when teams go from bad to good. MLS is still expanding. Last year, they added two teams in New York and Orlando. Plans for a second Los Angeles team and Atlanta team are moving along. Other destinations, too many to mention specifically, are in the loop. The NWSL is going at a slower pace to protect growth, but they've already added two teams in four years of existence. Soccer has picked the right markets to grow into. Many are big cities, but tapping into Portland, San Jose, Salt Lake, and Columbus in MLS, areas where other leagues aren't as well-established, has helped soccer fill its niche well.
Soccer will continue to grow, and years down the line, this discussion looks far different. Five to ten years from now, MLS may be as big as the NHL on its own. International soccer will always bring attention. No matter how bad the men's team can be at times, people will still root for them. The women's team has taken great strides to appeal to everyone, and they're continually setting attendance records with friendlies. Hockey is more stagnant, but that's alright. Hockey knows its audience, and knows, generally, how to appeal to that audience. I'll leave with one final thought. I can guarantee that in my three years in college so far, I've seen well over 20 of the 30 NHL teams represented among the students. For soccer, I've seen more foreign league teams have support than I have MLS teams or NWSL teams. Hockey doesn't need to be insecure about its position. It's no worse than level with soccer in terms of popularity. Instead of thinking about a big four, it might be time to admit that it's really a big five, or a big three with a second tier for hockey and soccer. One thing's for certain, and that's neither sport is hurting in any significant way.
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