BOFFMEN:
The highest spike in Internet traffic belongs to the opening day of the 2010 World Cup."
Jump on the bandwagon here
I appreciate your efforts, B-man, to hype the bandwagon for Soccer in the US. Perhaps someday soccer will actually be taken seriously by the nation as a whole.
But not today.
Considering the Internet is still a relatively young thing, and social-networking sites are even younger, used mostly by 18-30 demographic, basing the popularity of anything on 'internet statistics' is misleading. Internet usage statistics are not a gauge for the population as a whole. Sorry.
Sure, the World Cup is a spectacle a' la the Olympics... sure, the US moving to the 'knock-out round' is becoming big news... and there is lots of "internet traffic"... but in a couple of weeks, after the US has been eliminated by one of the South American power houses and the NFL season starts to fire up most of your 'fans' today won't remember anyone on the US team other than Donovan.
Americans have short attention spans... and they will automatically latch on to 'winners'. For examples... Yankees, Lakers, Celtics, Cowboys, etc. Teams that have a history of winning garner and keep the most fans. (Exception, the Raiders. They suck but still can market their gear.) The US does not have soccer 'winners'. There is nothing for the general population to hang their hat on except for 'this moment in time' as the US side moves into the next round.
Perhaps as the nation ages some more... and dinosaurs (like me) either get with the program or find the 'tar pits'... there will be more acceptance of soccer. But until that time, soccer will always be a 4th tier sport played (mostly) in the 3rd World.
Something I read/heard the other day sums it up nicely... the 4 biggest national economies in the world are: USA, PRChina, Japan, and India. None of these have ever had a strong soccer presence in their countries.
I wonder why?
So, while we have the World Cup let's sit back and enjoy the spectacle, the glory and and the agony, like any good competition. And when it's done let's congratulate the winners and console the losers... but let's not kid ourselves and think that this in any way matters to the people of the US past this event.