FIFA, America's 250th Birthday, And Our 30th Anniversary I Podcast #154

So is it, what do you think it is that's brought soccer so, made soccer so popular? Because I grew up, when I grew up, nobody even talked about soccer.

David Beckham, I remember coming in and- Everybody loved David Beckham.

And like everything changed.

It was almost like what Tiger Woods did for golf, David Beckham did for soccer.

But it does seem, is it, do you think we're just more global now or is it just where we live?

I think the question, it's amazing when you look at the question that you're asking, what made soccer so popular? Yeah.

And soccer's been around for a thousand years.

I think the real question is what made soccer so unpopular in the U.S.? And I think that baseball

and

football and basketball and ice hockey from our Canadian friends to the north helped make soccer popular.

unpopular in the U.S. Sure.

For the Americans in the late 1800s and mid-1900s.

Then don't forget we have golf.

All right.

So we look at our influences.

Our influences are English and Irish, right? We were English and we were invaded by the Irish.

So we're going to have golf, tennis, cricket, then rugby, which becomes football, football Americano.

And then baseball, which we created here.

And hockey from Canada.

So, soccer is more of a Central Latin America and Middle Eastern

sport.

Well, I think also, especially for where we are, like the stadium.

We've never had soccer here in the Bay Area, which is where I was born and raised.

Like, I'm from here.

And so...