He goes left, he goes right. Juke and GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAL! I know that you must have read that like the Spanish speaking announcers that have been made popular in the last few years.
Now that we have that out of the way, soccer ratings have been soaring lately. In an article about the ratings of FIFA’s World Cup in the U.S., there was evidence that ratings have been growing steadily (up 96% from 2006 & up 39% from 2010) the last two tournaments.
So what about Social Media? U.S. twitter feeds…BLEW UP. I personally tweeted on the German blowout of Brazil. 7-1 who would’ve thought? Entertainment Weekly’s article on the World Cup and Social Media records had a graphic showing events from the Germany vs. Argentina match all being in the hundreds of thousands of tweets per minute. Facebook had 88 million people discussing the World Cup champion match alone.
So, what does this mean? FIFA has had an amazing turnout amongst U.S. viewers. I can only imagine that the MLS has affected this number. U.S. cities are starting to join the rest of the world. Welcome to the world U.S. You’re joining a world community that is very excited about a sport where all it takes to play is two feet and a ball. This means anyone can play.
I am extremely excited about all of this. I loved soccer as a kid, whether it was playing the game or watching it. I was disappointed knowing that to watch good soccer was to watch the English Premier League or another European league where the game had already been played.
Here in Pittsburgh, we have the Riverhounds. I must admit that I haven’t been to a game yet, however, I am looking forward to becoming a fan. To me, that is what the World Cup has done for soccer in the U.S. Congrats FIFA, although they have some iffy calls and flat out bad calls…they’re just like the rest of the major sports in the U.S. Minus the instant video replay to overturn a call. Now, enjoy this replay of the GOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAL!
