Some time ago I asked why soccer is not more popular in the United States. The Brookings Institution now has produced a new book -- yes an economic analysis -- on the distribution of soccer and baseball around the world. I gleaned a few tidbits:
1. In the nineteenth century, soccer was used to cement business relationships, just as golf might be used today. The British elite - led by "gentlemen amateurs" -- spread soccer through the empire with deliberately imperial goals.
2. American baseball was commercialized to greater degree. Monopoly leagues made the game more profitable and better organized, but were less effective for spreading the sport overseas. Monopolists, after all, do restrict output to some degree. The U.S. organized few overseas baseball tours, but we did get baseball to the Caribbean and Japan.
3. The rise of nationalism in the early twentieth century boosted soccer as a means of expressing rivalries; no comparable international network existed for baseball at the time.
4. The combination of hierarchical leagues and not-for-profit clubs, which has characterized soccer for the twentieth century, is poorly suited to the age of modern commercial sport. Its days probably are numbered.
Of course, the bigger puzzle, in my view, is why anyone likes either sport at all.
Addendum: Daniel Akst offers some observations on why soccer is gaining ground in the U.S...
–Baseball has a tremendous emphasis on individual performance. When you strike out, everyone can see, and some kids come out of the batter’s box crying. Hitting is *extremely* hard, as is pitching to a four-footer. Really lousy baseball players are more marginalized and embarrassed than really lousy soccer players. Soccer is more "everybody run around," although of course individuals matter.–Contemporary parents are obsessed with safety. Soccer is perceived as safer, and may well be, at least until the kids get a little older and start banging into one another harder.–Girls seem to like soccer better, and co-ed soccer seems to go on longer than co-ed baseball, perhaps because girls can compete more effectively at this sport. My son’s little league is already probably 97% male, and he’s only 8.
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