Early Optimism About American Soccer

Going back to 1976

Early Optimism About American Soccer

While doing research on the early days of the North American Soccer League, I came across two interesting articles in the Liverpool papers in 1976.

From Liverpool Daily Post, May 27, 1976, page 13

From Liverpool Daily Post, May 28, 1976, page 13

Now, it’s easy to look back with skepticism on the optimism of 1976. After all, the NASL didn’t even last for a decade after these articles were written, and the optimism that led to league expansion turned out to be really poorly placed.

But the truth is that the sport has indeed grown in the United States — despite the many issues with Major League Soccer’s structure and claims of nepotism and corruption in the American national team.

The truth is that there has always been room for association football in the United States. Not everybody is a fan of the violence and meticulous planning that comes with American football, after all. By its very nature, association football is a much more free flowing and improvisational game, one that incorporates a lot of the features that makes basketball such a popular sport in the United States.

These articles don’t mention it explicitly, but one of the other top selling points for soccer in the United States was the fact that it was easily accessible. You could watch your local team live on television — something that you largely still can’t do in the United Kingdom. And all that television coverage goes a long way to creating long term fans of the sport.