Steven L. Hellerman

Women's soccer in the United States: yet another American 'exceptionalism'.

Arguably, womens soccer in the United States has been among the best played and extensively watched in the world. Not only has the American national team won more international championships than any other national team, but the WUSA (Womens United States Soccer Association), a professional league, has become the top womens professional league in the world, attracting the best women soccer players from countries such as Germany, Norway, Brazil and China. Furthermore, in terms of female soccer players, the United States – with nearly 10 million registered participants – leads the world by a wide margin. Yet, unlike in many countries of the world, soccer remains a minute feature on the topographical map of American sports space. Why is this the case? This study will consider this fascinating dilemma.

The “Olympianization” of Soccer in the United States

What the world calls “football,” far and away the globes most popular sport, has led a marginal existence as soccer in the United States, where football denotes a different game that has remained an integral part of American sports culture since the late 19th century. In the past two decades, soccer in the United States has undergone a substantial metamorphosis that has altered its former marginality without, however, giving it cultural power anywhere near that still exerted by baseball, basketball, football, and even ice hockey. Soccer in America now exists in three universes that overlap yet still remain distinct from each other: the world of millions of soccer players who pursue the game on the field but have no interest to follow it beyond their active involvement, a small group of soccer aficionados whose main identification with the game rests precisely in following not playing it, and a newly developed segment that neither plays much soccer nor follows the sport yet has come to delight in the quadrennial event of the World Cup.

Die „Olympianisierung“ des Fußballs in den USA: Von der Marginalisierung in der amerikanischen Mainstream-Kultur zur Anerkennung als ein alle vier Jahre stattfindendes Ereignis / The “Olympianization” of Soccer in America: From Marginalization in the Cultural Mainstream to a Quadrennial Event

Zusammenfassung In dem Beitrag wird argumentiert, dass sich aufgrund verschiedener Entwicklungen in den letzten zwanzig Jahren die Position des Fußballs in den Vereinigten Staaten im Vergleich zu seiner früheren vollständigen Marginalisierung im Sportraum Amerikas auffällig verändert hat. Zwar vermag der Fußball nirgendwo in den Vereinigten Staaten die kulturelle Vorherrschaft der nordamerikanischen „Großen Vier“ (Baseball, Football, Basketball und Eishockey) - die eine hegemoniale Sportkultur ausgebildet haben, die vergleichbar ist mit dem, was Fußball praktisch überall sonst in der Welt darstellt (besonders in Europa und Lateinamerika) - nur ansatzweise streitig zu machen. Gleichwohl hat er sich in den letzten beiden Dekaden in zwei Richtungen verändert: Auf der Seite der Produktion hat er sich zu einer weit verbreiteten sportlichen Aktivität entwickelt, die Millionen von Spielern auf dem ganzen Kontinent in Ligen, Vereinen und im Rahmen der gesamten, zu jeder Sportart gehörenden Infrastruktur betreiben. Auf der Seite der Konsumtion hat sich ebenfalls eine interessante Verschiebung ergeben, insofern als das Topereignis des Fußballs - die Weltmeisterschaft - Bestandteil der amerikanischen Sportkultur geworden ist, ohne dass der Fußballsport selbst aber eine solche Position einnimmt. Vor diesem Hintergrund sprechen die Autoren von einer „Olympianisierung“ des Fußballs in Amerika, wo dieser seit nunmehr zwei Dekaden alle vier Jahre Interesse hervorruft, was vorher nicht der Fall war. Ähnlich wie die Olympischen Spiele wird er in Amerikas Sportöffentlichkeit aber nur in diesem vierjährigen Rhythmus verfolgt. Summary The article argues that by dint of developments of the last twenty years, soccer’s position in the United States has changed from its previous complete marginalization in America’s sport space. While clearly having nowhere near the cultural predominance of the North American “Big Four” - baseball, American football, basketball and ice hockey - all of which comprise a hegemonic sports culture comparable to what soccer assumes virtually everywhere else in the world (certainly in Europe and Latin America), soccer in the United States has changed over the last twenty years in two ways: On the production side, it has become a huge world of physical activity in which millions of players engage all across the continent in leagues, clubs and the entire infrastructure associated with any sport. On the consumption side, we have also experienced an interesting shift in that soccer’s premier event - the World Cup - has in fact become part of America’s sports culture, if the sport of soccer has actually not. Thus, the authors speak of an “Olympianization” of soccer in America, where the sport has now attained a quadrennial level of interest over the past twenty years that it simply did not have before. But just like the Olympics, the vast number of the American sports public only follows soccer every four years.