honestly, soccer's kinda weird here. if i'm not mistaken, it's the most-played organized sport for kids, even higher than baseball or basketball. but there's just not the following at the professional or int'l level prolly b/c it hasn't been that well established at those levels. i guarantee the vast vast vast majority of americans don't know that the us just moved into fifa's top 10 recently for the first time in the nation's history. pretty impressive, but it just didn't receive that much attention in the media. in the summer, it's baseball; fall & early winter is football; by the time the NFL is done, college basketball is getting good; then baseball's back on. that's, unfortunately, how it works. i'd love to see soccer get the respect here it deserves & receives everywhere else in the world, but that likely won't happen until mexicans overtake caucasians as the greatest percantage in the next hundred years lol.