‘For club and country?’ The impact of the international game on US soccer supporters from the 1994 World Cup to the present

ABSTRACT

While compared with the big four professional sports in the United States, soccer remains a marginalized spectator sport; yet it has gained a sizable following over the past two decades. TV audiences and stadium attendance for domestic club matches are growing and supporters’ groups that follow the professional sides have emerged and established themselves. Rather than being introduced to the game as fans of their local clubs, however, many passionate soccer fans in the United States continue to enter soccer fandom via the Men’s and Women’s National teams. The 1994 FIFA World Cup on home soil as well as the success of the Women’s National Team thus play a prominent role in drawing new fans to the game, some of whom begin to follow the sport regularly in the form of domestic club games. For many of these fans, ‘club’ and ‘country’ remain complementing objects of soccer fandom rather than competing points of reference.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. ‘Supporters’ Groups’ in the United States form the active support for soccer clubs in the United States. In terms of their activities, ways of expression fandom and internal structure they resemble European organized fans on a continuum between more classic fan clubs and Ultra groups. The groups typically have between a few dozens to several hundred members; they sing, chant, wave flags and support their team in the stadium; they create and paint banners and tifo choreographies and organize travel to away matches; and they negotiate and engage with the front office of the professional team to lobby for their interest as fans. Supporter’s groups draw on international influences from Europe (supporters, Ultras, etc.) and Latin America (Barra Bravas, Torcidas, etc.). See also: Gerke, ‘Supporters, not Consumers’; Wagner, ‘Cultural Hybridization, Glocalization and American Soccer Supporters’; and Wagner and Shobe, ‘Identity, Scale and Soccer Supporter Groups.’

2. I would like to sincerely thank the supporters’ groups who have been willing to accept me in their sections, who have talked to me and volunteered their time for interviews and who have allowed me to tag along to meetings, events, road trips and away matches; specifically, the Cosmos supporters’ groups that make up the Five Points, as well as the Red Bulls’ Empire Supporters Club.

3. Markovits and Hellermann, Offside. See also: Wangerin, Soccer in a Football World; and Wangerin, Distant Corners.

4. Markovits and Hellermann, ‘Die “Olympianisierung” des Fußballs in den USA.’

5. Depending on the specific demographics of the community a club team is located in, the demographic diversity of supporters’ group membership varies significantly with fans of Hispanic background making up significant fractions of supporters’ groups memberships in some areas. For immigrants (and fans of immigrant heritage) from countries where soccer is the national sport (such as Mexico, and many Central and South American countries), socialization into soccer fandom takes place in the family and ethnic communities rather than the US National Team playing a major factor. In other words, the focus of this chapter is on fans who are truly new to the game and end up following club teams religiously despite being socialized in a culture and in communities where soccer is not one of the hegemonic spectator sports.

6. All names of interviewees have been altered to protect informants’ privacy.

7. From 1996 until 2006 the team was known as the MetroStars, one of the original MLS teams. In 2006, the team was taken over by the Red Bull energy drink company and rebranded as the Red Bulls.

8. Unless indicated otherwise, all quotations are taken from interviews with soccer supporters in the United States, conducted by the author.

9. Markovits and Hellermann, ‘Die “Olympianisierung” des Fußballs in den USA.’

10. In 2013, the New York Cosmos were re-established after the Cosmos name was sold to a new ownership group. A professional team bearing the Cosmos name took the field for the first time in close to 30 years that season in the newly formed North American Soccer League (itself reusing the name of the league of the 1970s and 1980s).

11. In our interview, Jeff described the US National Team as ‘our super club’ in the absence of internationally know club teams.

12. Billings et al., ‘From Pride to Smugness and the Nationalism Between’; Elling et al., ‘Creating or Awakening National Pride through Sporting Success’; Ismer, ‘Embodying the Nation’; Mutz, ‘PatriotenfürdreiWochen’; and von Scheve et al., ‘Emotional Entrainment, National Symbols, and Identification.’

13. Brown, ‘Fleet Feet’, 377.

14. Jake’s use of ‘historical references’ when it comes to banter against England specifically also connects historical and geopolitical issues to international soccer competitions. For instance, by referencing the United States winning independence from the English crown and the demise of Great Britain as a military power when supporting the US national, the fans virtually imagine a changing of the guards in the hierarchies of international soccer that parallels the historical shift of power between England and its former colony.

15. The 2016 MLS Cup Final between Seattle and Toronto was watched by only about 2 million viewers in the United States (3.5 million in the United States and Canada combined) and previous MLS Cup Finals have attracted only close to or slightly above 1 million viewers per game (MLSSoccer, ‘MLS Cup 2016 sets record for most-watched title game in league history’; Sports Illustrated, ‘USA-Japan Women’s World Cup final shatters American TV ratings record.’).

16. For a discussion of the reasons for the exceptional success and popularity of the Women’s National Team in the United States, see: Markovits and Hellermann, ‘Women’s Soccer in the United States.’

17. Gerke, ‘Building a Supporters Culture and Growing the Game’; and Gerke, ‘Supporters, not Consumers.’

18. That is, the MetroStars being rebranded as the Red Bulls.

19. The writing of this article as well as the interviews quoted herein predates the elimination of the US Men’s national team.

20. The USMNT’s elimination also coincided with the election cycle for the presidency of the US Soccer Federation, whose long-term president Sunil Gulati – president of US Soccer since 2006 and FIFA Executive Council member since 2013 – who had been considered the clear favourite for yet another term, ultimately withdrew his candidacy for re-election amidst public pressure for changes in the federation. However, despite multiple candidates – including most prominently former national team players Hope Solo, Paul Caligiuri and Eric Wynalda – publicly lobbying for the favour of federation voters on platforms of change, the election was ultimately won by a status-quo candidate in the federations’ vice president Carlos Cordeiro.

21. This tendency will likely be counteracted by the excitement about the choice of the United States as co-hosts of the 2026 World Cup (together with Mexico and Canada) that was announced shortly before the start of the 2018 tournament.