In Reply to: tackle football, bball, hockey, baseball... posted by ClockBlocker on July 21, 2026 at 14:14:06
For American Youth football, hoops and baseball are bigger draws. Hockey has a good draw but the costs of entry are still high and they don't have the visibility and draw of the other three major sports. Soccer has a much bigger youth infrastructure now, because you don't need a rink, skates and the other equipment to play the sport.
I think your take on Tennis in the 80's is a little off the mark "mostly Americans in the 80s and early 90s" - what about Bjorg, Lendl, Edberg, Cash, Becker, Kriek, Ivanisovich? Lendl crushed it for a few years. Sampras was at the top for much of the 90s but the rest of the pack was Courier, Agassi then mostly European, the above guys and a few others.
MLS? What, 6th best? 6th best maybe. PL, Bundesliga, Serie A, Ligue un, and La Liga all much better than MLS. ?Can make the case that top South American leagues, Eredivisie and a couple other European leagues are stronger than MLS too. But that doesn't measure the strength of US players because the best American players are playing in 1st Division European leagues, not MLS.
The problem with American soccer is a little bit chicken-and-egg. In Europe and South America, professional teams have academies that recruit top youth talent at an early age and provide them with the best training and competition. A 9 year old in London with talent may have offers to train at Premier league club's youth academies. Full time professional instruction and training. In the US you have soccer moms and dads bundling their kids into youth soccer and hoping for a scholarship. MLS teams don't have the youth academy farm system so the recruitment and training lags behind. But if the sport isn't popular enough to support that youth infrastructure, what is the answer?