Soccer Fans?

[ollie]

They support the Thunder really well, but can't see them as a soccer town. For the love of GOD, will someone start a team in St. Louis? I have never figured that one out. Everyone knows that town is a huge soccer town.

[Nick Williams]

Before the Thunder came to OKC though, OKC was, and I would dare to say still isn't, a basketball town. I don't see St Louis as a soccer town though. St. Louis is know for it's baseball (definitely not football).

[Nick Williams]

Wasnt***

[On The Fly 6]

Nick, OKC ( the whole state actually) is now a huge basketball town. I think it has a lot to do with how successful they are, but anytime I go home to visit I can't go anywhere in the state without seeing at least a dozen people wearing Thunder stuff. I started watching the Nba because of them.

St. Louis does have a big soccer atmosphere and it is really surprising that they don't have a team yet. I wonder if they've ever discussed an expansion team there? I think it could work.

[ollie]

St. Louis by far has a huge support for soccer. I know they had a MISL team at one time and they played in the old checker dome. They definitely have it at the youth, HS, and college level and in a big way.

[joeD]

We support our children in soccer. But that doesn't mean we'll support a pro team. I wouldn't.

Thing is, professional soccer in the US is a dead issue. Americans just don't want it enough. We go through this over and over. If we wanted soccer, we would have it already.

[ollie]

Stats show otherwise joeD.

[Nick Williams]

It's really interesting though, I asked someone just the other day because of this thread, and this guy travels to both St Louis and OKC and used to live in Springfield and now lives in Tulsa, about what he thought of this. He doesn't think OKC is a basketball town or even OK is a basketball state. We're a football state through and through. But the chance at getting an NBA team was awesome and exciting, and then it practically exploded because of how successful they are. That's the only reason you can go anywhere in OK and see Thunder apparel. (About 85% of those people probably couldn't tell you the starting 5 on the team.) The same thing can be said about The Cards, I can go to Joplin and see Cards stuff. From the outside that makes St. Louis a baseball city, with a very successful baseball team at that! Playing through club teams and into the collegiate level, I never played a club team from St Louis, and only one collegiate team if I remember right, though I can't remember what school... I believe on my college team there was only 2 or 3 guys out of the group of 30 of us that we're from STL. And that school is in KC, so not to far away.

[Nick Williams]

Saying Pro Soccer is a dead issue is like saying fly fishing is a dead issue and that it's not growing. Both of these sports are taking leaps and bounds in growth! Yeah, both sports 10-20 years ago were not the "popular" thing, but they still had their groups. Those groups are just exploding now. I credit the Internet!

[On The Fly 6]

Joe must not have payed much attention to the tv since 1996 because that's when the MLS started.

Here's some stats that show that we "don't want soccer." Notice the increase in recent years...

MLS REGULAR SEASON ATTENDANCE TREND

SEASON GMS TOTAL AVG.

12 323 6,074,729 18,807

11 306 5,468,849 17,872

10 240 4,002,053 16,675

09 225 3,609,048 16,040

08 210 3,456,641 16,460

07 195 3,270,210 16,770

06 192 2,976,787 15,504

05 192 2,900,716 15,108

04 150 2,333,797 15,559

03 150 2,234,747 14,898

02 140 2,214,978 15,821

01 158 2,363,889 14,961

00 192 2,641,086 13,756

99 192 2,742,102 14,282

98 192 2,747,897 14,312

97 160 2,336,529 14,603

96 160 2,785,001 17,406

Plus, NBCUniversal just payed 80-85 million dollars for the rights to broadcast all 380 premiere league games in the US in both English and Spanish. Pretty gutsy move for an American company to make that kind of investment on a sport that we "don't want."