170. Why America Doesn’t Love Soccer (Yet)

Every four years, the U. S. takes a look at the World Cup and develops a slight crush. What would it take to really fall in love?

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. There's no hiding how convenient Southern New Hampshire University makes college. They offer over 80 career-focused graduate programs online. Classes have no set meeting times, so you can balance life and learning, and online tuition rates are some of the lowest in the country, making it all a little more manageable. A school this willing to work with you is worth the investment. Visit SNHU.edu/freakonomics to learn more. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds, because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready

• 0:46Stephen J. Dubner?

  to face the day. So, switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company, affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring. Great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it. Which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example? Well, PNC Bank did, since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking

• 1:29Stephen J. Dubner?

  strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely not YOLO type. PNC Bank: brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work is a new way to work in ChatGPT. ChatGPT Work can pull info from across your apps and connect to your tools to help you create finished work. You can even automate work in ChatGPT with the Scheduled Tasks feature, and the whole time, you stay in control.

• 2:13Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 2:33Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, time for a guessing game. I'm thinking of something that only happens every four years and that everyone gets really excited about.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Well, this year's a leap year.

• 2:44Speaker 02

  Anyone with a special Leap Day birthday today can get in on some good deals. How does a dozen free cupcakes sound? Sounds fantastic.

• 2:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  No, not leap year.

• 2:53Speaker 02

  The race for 2016. 2016. 2016.

• 2:56Speaker 03

  There are still almost 1,000 days before the first votes in the 2016 contest.

• 3:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, presidential elections are pretty exciting, but that's not what I'm after. So when am I after? Here's what I'm after.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  This one drops in. Forget about it. It's ecstasy. Astonishing. This is not just a dream. It's a wet dream of orgasmic proportions.

• 3:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  The last World Cup, held in South Africa in 2010, drew a total TV viewership of some 3.2 billion over its four-week run. This year's tournament, getting underway this week in Brazil, is expected to do even better. The world is pretty much crazy about soccer.

• 3:50Speaker 04

  What's soccer?

• 3:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  You don't let me say the word soccer, do you?

• 3:54Speaker 04

  No, I do not.

• 3:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's my son.

• 3:57Speaker 04

  Solomon Dubner.

• 3:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  Age?

• 3:59Speaker 04

  13.

• 4:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  Profession?

• 4:01Speaker 04

  Sports writer.

• 4:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  Uh huh. Can you tell me where you've published your work in, then?

• 4:06Speaker 04

  I had an article published on World Soccer Talk and I occasionally write on my own blog.

• 4:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  What is your blog called for interested listeners?

• 4:13Speaker 04

  Solomon on footy.

• 4:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  What is footy?

• 4:16Speaker 04

  Football in American and in soccer, the game played and loved worldwide.

• 4:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Loved worldwide, yes, for the most part. But here, in the U.S., eh.

• 4:29Speaker 05

  Let's just be honest. The reality is, when the World Cup is over, soccer is not going to be a dominant sport in the United States.

• 4:35Speaker 03

  Nothing can help me care about soccer. What the hell? That's not a tackle. It's just sliding around. Soccer tackle, sir. If nobody wants to see it, why it's the most popular sport in the world? No, nobody here wants to see it. Nobody here? Nobody here. We're a tiny speck. There's a big world out there, you show-ness. What's wrong with you? I'm an American.

• 4:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  Many Americans, of course, do love soccer. Here's a hardcore fan, who also happens to be one of the best players in a sport known to the rest of the world as American football.

• 5:06Speaker 06

  Hey, Andrew Luck, quarterback for the Indianapolis Colts.

• 5:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  He spent a lot of his childhood in Europe.

• 5:11Speaker 06

  I think if we had stayed in Europe, I probably would have ended up playing soccer. I don't know if I'd be nearly good enough to be a professional.

• 5:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  Andrew Luck, as you will hear later, is a soccer fanatic, as is Solomon Dubner. Nor are they alone in this country. A variety of TV networks now broadcast European club matches all year long. MLS, or Major League Soccer, the U.S. and Canadian professional league, continues to grow. Next year, it will add a 20th team, NYCFC, or New York City Football Club, which is co-owned by the New York Yankees and Manchester City, which just won England's Premier League for the second time in three seasons. David Beckham, the sport's biggest star of the past few generations, is trying to start another MLS team in Miami. And indeed, if you take a look at a magazine rack this week, it's hard to find a magazine

• 6:11Stephen J. Dubner?

  without the World Cup on its cover. Every four years, we hear the same mantra. This time, soccer will really take root in the US, the way it's taken root elsewhere in the world. But let's be honest, it probably won't. Many of the people who are most fanatical about the sport in the US have some kind of ties to Europe, or South America, or Africa. All those magazine covers, they're really an excuse to put a great-looking international superstar on the cover. The pouty, metrosexual Cristiano Ronaldo of Portugal, Leo Messi, the magical, undersized Argentine who plays for Barcelona, and Messi's 22-year-old Barca teammate, Neymar, cultish

• 6:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  and exuberant, plays for Brazil. So, yes, we may profess our love for soccer over the next month, but how deep is our love? One poll, conducted by Harris Interactive, found that just 2% of Americans who follow at least one sport consider men's soccer to be their favorite. Fewer than 1% name women's soccer as their favorite. American football, meanwhile, between its pro and college versions, gets 46% of the vote. Baseball, 14%. So, on today's program, we will ask a few questions. Number one, why doesn't America love soccer the way the rest of the world does? Number two, would that change if the US ever managed to win a World Cup?

• 7:39Stephen J. Dubner?

  And number three, is number two possible without number one? Among the favorites in this year's World Cup, home team Brazil, its next-door neighbor Argentina, and defending champions Spain. Also expected to do well are mighty Germany, and, believe it or not, tiny Belgium. And who is Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck picking to win the World Cup?

• 8:04Speaker 06

  My best guess, well, shoot, I'd love to say the Americans.

• 8:08Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, your best guess after the Americans. Let's assume the Americans.

• 8:11Speaker 06

  After the Americans. I'm a true fan, Stephen.

• 8:29Speaker 07

  From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 8:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  Today on Freakonomics Radio, we are talking World Cup and why the US, unlike the rest of the planet, typically doesn't get very excited about watching a soccer game. Don't you mean a football match? Yeah, sorry, Solomon. Football match. Played on a pitch, not a field. Wearing a kit, not a uniform. Boots, not shoes. Just how popular is this sport that Americans don't care about all that much? Consider this: the Super Bowl, America's biggest sports spectacle, is seen by about 125 million people worldwide, but roughly 90% of them are in the US. And how about the World Cup? In the 2010 final, when Spain beat the Netherlands, nearly a billion people tuned in worldwide.

• 9:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  And how many of those viewers were in the United States? Less than 3%. The journalist Jason Gay, writing in The Wall Street Journal, says the World Cup, quote, "makes the Super Bowl seem like open-mic night at a coffee shop." OK, so let's look for some answers. Why don't Americans care more about soccer? We'll begin with Sunil Gulati.

• 9:57Speaker 08

  I teach economics at Columbia University. I'm also president of the United States Soccer Federation and on the FIFA Executive Committee.

• 10:04Stephen J. Dubner?

  FIFA is the sports international governing body. The US Soccer Federation oversees our national teams and Major League Soccer, which Gulati helped get off the ground.

• 10:15Speaker 08

  We started essentially 1992, 1993, putting together a business plan. And it was a small group of people that were working at World Cup. Part of our manifesto from a successful World Cup was to start a professional league.

• 10:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's right. The US hosted a World Cup in 1994, won by Brazil. Soccer fever did not sweep the nation.

• 10:36Speaker 09

  As soon as you left the stadium, and I remember this very clearly, once going downtown, and it was as if there was no World Cup going on.

• 10:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Jonathan Wilson. He's a British-born author, an English professor at Tufts. He covered the 94 Cup for The New Yorker.

• 10:53Speaker 09

  I used to feel during the World Cup in 94 that if the INS had raided one of the grounds, they could have arrested 90% of the people who were inside.

• 11:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  But even Wilson admits the sport is growing here.

• 11:06Speaker 09

  I feel that it's actually sort of, it's becoming indigenous.

• 11:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  A lot of this has to do with the success of the MLS. Sunil Gulati again.

• 11:15Speaker 08

  So the attendance is approximately 18,000, which puts it in sixth or seventh, eighth in the world in terms of attendance, which is, which is obviously a phenomenal accomplishment after 18 years. The economic trends are generally positive. Number of teams has increased, overall attendance has increased. The one area where we've still got some challenges is in the media side in terms of television and television ratings.

• 11:49Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, so the growth is real, but again, soccer here isn't what soccer is elsewhere. Why not? Here's Jonathan Wilson.

• 11:58Speaker 09

  Well, I think it's a number of things. First of all, it's the competition of other sports. I mean, it'd be hard to dislodge football, or American football, from the number one position. And soccer has to compete against football, basketball, hockey, and baseball.

• 12:15Stephen J. Dubner?

  So, true, that's a lot of competition from other sports. Plus which, to many sports fans in America, there's something just un-American about soccer. Here's what you'll hear on ESPN.

• 12:26Speaker 03

  Let's move to a real man's game soccer. Tony, I could not be more fired up for this. How about you?

• 12:33Speaker 10

  I'm just gonna take issue with that real man's game soccer.

• 12:35Speaker 03

  Man's game.

• 12:36Speaker 10

  I mean, people take dives like divas all the time. When somebody comes within three feet of them, they fall down, hold their ankles for years and years and years.

• 12:44Speaker 03

  It's a real men's men who are actors?

• 12:45Speaker 10

  Yeah, it's a Julia Roberts kind of situation as far as.

• 12:48Speaker 09

  You know, it's viewed as too nice here.

• 12:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  Jonathan Wilson again.

• 12:52Speaker 09

  I remember when I, when I first came and I first started coaching here, I had a kid on a team who I was coaching and he was six and he was fantastic. And, and he'd scored something like five goals in, in a game. And the parents started screaming at me, "Take him out, take him out." And I thought, "Why would I take him out? He just scored five goals. We're crushing the other team, these other kids." And they were in a panic, you know? And I never saw this happen in Little League. You know, I never saw anybody say, um, you know, "That kid, you know, he just struck out two players in a row. Take him out." You know? It didn't happen.

• 13:28Stephen J. Dubner?

  So, why?

• 13:29Speaker 09

  It didn't happen in basketball.

• 13:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  Why in soccer, then?

• 13:33Speaker 09

  Because soccer became a sort of site of middle-class angst in America. You know, the whole soccer mom phenomenon and a, and a feeling that somehow it's tied to your suburban team's victory and the U9 league is tied to your kids getting into Harvard in 10 years' time.

• 13:55Stephen J. Dubner?

  In most places, soccer has been a bootstrap sport. In England, where the modern game developed, the posh kids played rugby while the rough kids played soccer. Even today, in the most soccer-mad countries like Brazil and Argentina, soccer is still a hard sport, played with elbows out. You don't see a lot of soccer moms toting Ziploc's full of cut-up oranges. Sunil Gulati.

• 14:19Speaker 08

  I think there's some truth in that. Soccer in the US has been traditionally a suburban sport, but that's changing. So if you look at some of the other American sports and where those players have come from, in lots of cases, inner cities, we'd love to have more players from inner cities and have more diversity. And I think that's starting to happen. And so you're absolutely right that, you know, in Argentina or traditionally in England, it may be kids that were learning how to play in the streets rather than perfectly manicured fields and $200 soccer shoes.

• 14:50Stephen J. Dubner?

  This also means a different career trajectory for a young soccer player in the United States.

• 14:56Speaker 09

  The American system of how you kind of come up in soccer is very different to the rest of the world. Most of the world's great soccer players did not and do not go to college, and they are plucked very early.

• 15:13Speaker 06

  I think there's a fundamental difference in how soccer is taught in the rest of the world or sort of the structure surrounding it.

• 15:19Stephen J. Dubner?

  That's Andrew Luck again, the American football quarterback, who, before he went pro, graduated from Stanford in architectural design.

• 15:28Speaker 06

  It seems that kids go professional at age, you know, 13, 14, and then they're professional soccer players, you know, with sort of a supplement of education, maybe, you know, up to those years. And then, once they're age 16, 17, they're full-fledged professionals, which doesn't mesh, I think, with our system, you know, the college system, how every other sport in this country is run, you know, really. So I think there's a difference there in terms of, you know, just practice hours for kids who are, you know, 15 years old, right or wrong. You know, I'm not saying either one is right or wrong. So I do think that creates a disparity.

• 16:12Stephen J. Dubner?

  So when you look at the US national team, the ones who will be competing this month in Brazil, trying to survive a group of death that includes Germany, Portugal, and Peskigana, what do you see?

• 16:24Speaker 09

  The US has never produced a truly world-class player. They're a good team, they play well as a team, they have world-class goal-- although I, maybe I take that back a little, they have world-class goalkeepers.

• 16:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  And that's because they can use their hands, presumably, yes?

• 16:41Speaker 09

  Probably, yeah, yeah, and they're big, you know. But they're not, you know, they're not the great artists of soccer. So the US is not huge fun to watch as a team, you know. They're workman-like, they're athletic.

• 17:01Stephen J. Dubner?

  I love how only in soccer is the word athletic an insult, I've noticed, right? In every other sport, to be athletic is, you know, it means something different in every sport, but in soccer, it means that, well...

• 17:14Speaker 09

  It means your skill level's on.

• 17:16Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, your muscles are fairly coordinated.

• 17:18Speaker 09

  You have to run around like a nutcase because you don't have the skill to just stand in one place and do something extraordinary.

• 17:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  Something extraordinary like Leo Messi, who dribbles at full speed as if the ball's attached to his boot, or Luis Suarez of Uruguay, who scores mind-bending goals, occasionally bites his opponents, or the 36-year-old Frenchman Thierry Henry, who after a legendary career in Europe, now plays for the MLS's New York Red Bulls, who play in New Jersey. This is becoming common. International stars, their speed and skills fading, come to the US to play in our league for a few sunset years. Beckham did it. NYCFC has just signed the Spanish striker David Villa. But the MLS traditionally hasn't attracted the best players at their peak, even the ones born in America.

• 18:11Speaker 09

  The MLS, the league that we have, is a sort of second-rate league. So if the players want to be great players, they've got to go and play in Europe, in Germany, France, Spain, Italy, or England.

• 18:26Stephen J. Dubner?

  So what about the correlation between a country's professional league and the strength of their national team? Sunil Gulati says there are two successful models.

• 18:37Speaker 08

  One is to have a strong professional league and the other is to essentially have an export-driven model where you develop players and your clubs survive either by having those players play until they're 17, 18, 19, 20, or maybe a little bit later, and then they're transferred overseas playing in some of the best leagues in the world.

• 18:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  So this is the Brazil model, for instance.

• 18:55Speaker 08

  The Brazil, the Argentina, the Chile.

• 18:57Stephen J. Dubner?

  South America, most of—

• 18:58Speaker 08

  Denmark, you know, all of those countries are in that situation. My view is that in a country like the United States, with the population base that we have, with the economic strength that we have, the long-term model has to be the first one for us. Americans want to have the best players in the world, and we've got a big population. And so I don't think eventually we're going to be an export-driven model, and that's changed over time. So in the short term, when we started Major League Soccer, it might have been best to have all of our best players playing abroad because the league wasn't as strong as other leagues around the world. Over time, that's changed, and now, you know, a number of our players are playing at home in the league, others are playing abroad. That's fine, that'll continue to happen. But as the league gets stronger and players want to play in the best environment, then

• 19:43Speaker 08

  I think our—we will follow Model A where we've got a top-flight league and a top-flight national team to match.

• 20:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  Okay, so we've learned a few things about why US soccer isn't like soccer elsewhere in the world, but maybe we're better than we think. This spring, the US national men's team has been ranked number 13 or number 14 in the FIFA standings. Pretty good for a country that's not so enthusiastic about the sport. And coming up on Freakonomics Radio, we are world champions in the women's game. Why the disparity?

• 20:28Speaker 08

  So whether it's women in the workforce or voting rights, all of those sorts of things, that movement, that liberation, those positive steps happen in the US much earlier than they did in many countries around the world.

• 20:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  And what will it take for US men's soccer to become truly world-class?

• 20:46Speaker 06

  I do think people tend to follow money when it comes down to it.

• 21:06Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Southern New Hampshire University. There's no hiding how convenient Southern New Hampshire University makes college. They offer over 80 career-focused graduate programs online. Classes have no set meeting times, so you can balance life and learning, and online tuition rates are some of the lowest in the country, making it all a little more manageable. A school this willing to work with you is worth the investment. Visit SNHU.edu/freakonomics to learn more.

• 21:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive. Whoever says saving money is hard doesn't know that new customers who bundle and save with Progressive save hundreds, because switching your home and auto insurance is better than cutting down on the things you love, like those iced lattes that help you get ready to face the day. So, switch your home and auto to Progressive and see if you could save and keep sipping away. Get your quote today at progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company affiliates and other insurers. Not available in all states.

• 22:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by PNC Bank. Boring, great word, bad rep. Yet, time and time again, here at Freakonomics, we find that when something culture-changing happens, boring things like calculations and careful planning are usually behind it. Which begs the question, why not apply it to other aspects of life? Like banking, for example. Well, PNC Bank did since its inception, proving time and again that the best banking strategy isn't the exciting type, but the steady, reliable, definitely not YOLO type. PNC Bank, brilliantly boring since 1865. Brilliantly boring since 1865 is a registered mark of the PNC Financial Services Group, Inc. PNC Bank, National Association, Member FDIC.

• 22:59Speaker 07

  From WNYC, this is Freakonomics Radio. Here's your host, Stephen Dubner.

• 23:10Stephen J. Dubner?

  The World Cup is upon us. Soccer, as you probably know, is the most popular sport on the planet, but not in the US. Perhaps not coincidentally, we've never won a World Cup. Our best finish? Third place in 1930, when only 13 teams played. In our last two World Cups, the US was eliminated by Ghana, which has fewer people than Texas. I talked to Sunil Gulati, president of the United States Soccer Federation, about this lack of American exceptionalism.

• 23:42Stephen J. Dubner?

  Now, the average American sports fan, let's say, someone who understands that soccer is how soccer works and understands the World Cup, that person probably thinks, oh, US national soccer men's team, failure. Last six World Cups, they've not gotten out of the group stage in three of those, and the others reached the round of 16 twice and quarterfinals once. That's it. And this is the US, which is a sport power in many, if not most, ways. So what's the story? Why not better?

• 24:12Speaker 08

  Well, a couple of things. So there aren't many countries that have qualified for the last seven World Cups like we've just done. There are some. But unlike some of the other sports in which the US is dominant in, this sport is played in every country in the world and is the number one sport in probably 95% of those countries. There's a few where baseball or cricket may be number one. So this is a real world champion, where it's, you know, I don't want to use terms like life and death, but where it's extraordinarily important, where you've got countries with several million inhabitants who take it very, very seriously. So, you know, to be world champion, leaving aside some other sports in the US that we're where we declare world champions.

• 24:53Speaker 11

  And the first world championship in franchise history. The Seahawks are world champs.

• 25:00Speaker 08

  In this case, there are 208 countries that play. We're not a newcomer. We've been doing this for a long time, but other countries have taken it far more seriously at a much earlier stage. And it's not just down to the fact that we've got 320 million people or a relatively affluent country, because then China would be very good in one of those areas and some other European countries which haven't done as well would also be at the top. So we've made a lot of improvement, and if we could replicate the progress we've made both on and off the field over the last quarter century, then I think we will be where we want to be in the next quarter century, which is one of the elite powers in the world.

• 25:34Stephen J. Dubner?

  That said, the US used to be relatively good at soccer. I mean, the first World Cup in 1930, it played, and they famously beat England in 1950. But then, there were those, I think, 40 years, so 10 cups or nine cups, where the US did not qualify. So I know you're not technically an historian of soccer, but you kind of are. Can you explain what happened? How did a sport that was pretty prominent in a country like this fall off so far?

• 26:01Speaker 08

  Well, in many ways, what was happening, you know, 70 or 80 years ago, there weren't professional leagues in the same way there are now. That's changed very much. Second in the US, American football and baseball took hold in a major way. So what you had back in the 30s, the 40s, and even in our 1950 team, were a number of ethnic players who were first or second generation young players and came to the US either, you know, were born here or with their families. And so we were competitive. But saying that we were a very good team or competitive in the 30s is, for me, the same as saying, well, at one time, India on an economic development level was one of the richest countries in the world. Right? That doesn't, you know, obviously, it's a different time horizon and a different issue,

• 26:44Speaker 08

  but that doesn't mean that it's got all the necessary ingredients to stay the course for several hundred years or, in the soccer case, 80 years.

• 26:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  You've given a lot of, I think, compelling and resonant suggestions for why US men's soccer is not, quote, "better," and that it seems to be heading in a direction where it is better than it has been. But here, to me, is the biggest mystery. Men's team ranked 14th. If we look at the women's rankings, however, number one is the US women's soccer team. Beyond that, they've had massive success in winning the World Cup twice, never finishing lower than third. So how can it be that our men are so, let's call it promising for the moment, very good and promising, and the women are just totally kick-ass? Why such a divide?

• 27:32Speaker 08

  Well, I think there's a few different reasons. One is, the role of women in American society is very different, and has been different, for a longer period of time than it is for many countries around the world. So whether it's women in the workforce, or voting rights, all of those sorts of things, that movement, that liberation, those positive steps happened in the US much earlier than they did in many countries around the world that we could name pretty easily. Second is, we invested far more resources in the women's team than almost anyone else in the world at an early step. So we had a head start. And unlike technology, where you might have a patent, we didn't have a patent on this, and the gap has narrowed, certainly. But we had lots of girls and women playing. We had early

• 28:16Speaker 08

  success, which gave us role models, and Mia Hamm, and world champions. We had something that was very important in that whole process, Title IX. And that changed dramatically the number of girls that had university scholarships. So I think all of those things changed the landscape in terms of women's soccer.

• 28:37Stephen J. Dubner?

  One more reason the US women's national soccer team is so great: the best homegrown American female athletes aren't necessarily diverted to big-money sports like basketball or football, like this guy was.

• 28:50Speaker 06

  Hey, Andrew Luck.

• 28:52Stephen J. Dubner?

  Luck, you may recall, is the Stanford graduate who's also an NFL quarterback.

• 28:57Speaker 06

  And also a die-hard Houston Dynamo fan, and happy to be here.

• 29:02Stephen J. Dubner?

  Luck's father, Oliver, used to run the Houston Dynamo. Before that, he was an NFL quarterback himself. When he stopped playing, he helped run NFL Europe. So when Andrew was a kid, the family moved to Europe. Andrew grew up playing and watching a lot of soccer in Germany and England.

• 29:20Speaker 06

  I think part of my affinity for soccer is, you know, not necessarily the game, but the, I don't want to say pageantry, but the emotions, you know, involved in the clubs and the people. I think the political, the geopolitical struggles, I think is the most powerful thing. You know, I think we always, when talking to people who maybe don't know the sport as well, I always bring up the Barcelona versus Madrid. You know, Madrid, the seat of power in Spain, and forcing really the culture of Barcelona down at one point, right? You couldn't, you couldn't speak the language, you couldn't read the books, you couldn't wave their flags. So the stadium, I think the Nou Camp is what it's called, and I may be totally off here, but this is, this is my understanding of it, was, was one of

• 30:03Speaker 06

  the few platforms where, you know, you could express yourself as a, as a citizen of Barcelona and speak the language and wave the flag. And, and I think that's, that's a very powerful thing. And it's obviously something we don't, you know, have in this country. The closest might be, you know, college football down in the south.

• 30:22Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 30:23Speaker 06

  But I think even, you know, that's different. There's, I think, a different culture surrounding it with the tailgating and everything else. I think, you know, in Europe, the soccer seems much more, you know, physically it seems ingrained in the neighborhoods. You're walking along and, and oh, there's a stadium and right next to a bunch of houses or...

• 30:38Stephen J. Dubner?

  Yeah, yeah. Well, because like you said, you know, a color of a flag or a uniform or a scarf, whatever, represents hundreds of years of political history and everything else. So, translate that then, blow that up for me to the bigger stage, which is now World Cup. And talk to me just for a minute about how, again, you see fans' attachments to their national teams and to the World Cup generally, again, versus US sports fans' attachment to our national team.

• 31:07Speaker 06

  I think it's very funny. In, in one sense, you think about watching the Olympics, you know, probably about every two years, our country really cares about the, you know, who's representing us. And we tend to forget all the names. I think you'd find folks, you know, around the world with their soccer, their national soccer teams who remember every starting lineup of every game that was been played, you know, in the past 30 years. It seems to be sort of the stage for how their country is viewed around the world. If you think of a country as a business, it's almost their marketing. It's almost their PR side of it.

• 31:44Stephen J. Dubner?

  Let's talk about the economics of professional soccer in this country. So, you know, first of all, talk to me about the financial incentives at play. MLS, Major League Soccer salary caps have risen a lot and attendance has risen and even viewership is rising. How much of a factor do you think it is in building a sport like the MLS is the pure financial incentive? In other words, as soccer pays more, will some of the best American athletes start to move into that more? That's what theory would predict the least, right?

• 32:17Speaker 06

  Yeah, you know, I think people tend to follow money when it comes down to it. And, you know, I think there's now three designated player spots for MLS teams. And I want to say the salary caps at around 5 million, that doesn't include, you know, those DP slots. So, you know, I'm sure you get stretched a little thin towards the back end of a roster, which I think from my understanding are probably, you know, same in all sports, which the longer you go into the season, the more you get worn down. I think that's where you may lose your quality on the pitch, you know, or on the field or, you know, whatever arena you're in. I think by having Dempsey and Michael Bradley guys, you know, in their prime, come back

• 33:01Speaker 06

  to the States and get good money and show that it is quality, you know, soccer, it's a quality product you're putting on the field, I think that's huge for, you know, for the league and great for fans, great for me, great to be able to watch those guys.

• 33:17Stephen J. Dubner?

  What do you think it would take for American soccer to explode? When Tiger Woods started playing professional golf and dominating in a way that nobody had ever seen, even Nicholas didn't dominate in the way that Tiger did, it changed the perception of literally a generation of potential athletes. So, all the guys playing in the PGA now who are in there, let's say between 20 and 30 really, say that, you know, when Tiger began doing what he did, they paid attention in a different way and Tiger's dominance brought a

• 33:54Stephen J. Dubner?

  A lot of money to the sport, which trickles down to everybody. And there are a lot of people who became golfers who wouldn't have become golfers without Tiger Woods, plain and simple. I'm curious, A, if you think a sort of parallel like that might exist or be worthwhile in pro soccer in the US, and if so, who's out there, who might be out there to be that Pied Piper?

• 34:14Speaker 06

  I think more of a Pied Piper would be a US national team, you know, winning the World Cup. I think that, you know, as we know, we, we love winners in this country, you know. I was a little angry and sad we didn't win the medal count at the Winter Olympics. I think it's just sort of ingrained in our society. So, so I don't know if there's one player that would be a Pied Piper that would bring everything with him, be a Tiger Woods. I, I do think, you know, our national team winning a World Cup would be, would be unbelievable.

• 34:51Stephen J. Dubner?

  I'm curious, I've always wanted to ask you, I don't know if you want to answer this question or not, but I did always want to ask you. When you became, you know, you were the number one overall NFL draft pick a couple of years ago, which is a big, big, big deal. And you signed a four-year contract for a reported $22 million over four years, which to most people listening to this program, or any program, is an incredible amount of money. So I don't expect anyone to feel sorry for you, but through a quirk of history and labor relations, you came into the league just one year after this new labor agreement went into effect between the players and the owners. And that vastly lowered the amount that a team could pay rookies, rookie signings on the top level. So for instance, the guy who came in two years before you, Sam Bradford, also the number one overall pick, got 78

• 35:36Stephen J. Dubner?

  million over six years. Now, I guess I'd ask you two things about that. First of all, and again, if you don't want to answer this, it's fine, but I'd love to hear what you say. First of all, you kind of got legislated out of an extra 20, 30, 40, depending on how you want to count, at $50 million. A, how did you feel about that? It was through no fault of your own, it was through a labor agreement. Did you have, you know, were you, were you burned or bummed? Or did you just think, hey, you know, my timing was a little off and I'm still extremely fortunate?

• 36:08Speaker 06

  Yeah, you know, there was, there was an initial, maybe half a second pang of bitterness at my parents for not having me earlier. Uh, but, but once I realized that, you know, you can waste your whole life worrying about things you can't control, right? So I, I haven't, I haven't lost any sleep over it. And, and actually, as I've, you know, sort of going into year three now and, and talking with folks from our union and, or each other, you know, our teammates and folks at the front office, you know, I realize, you know, the, the thought process behind it all, you know, and I'm okay with it, yeah.

• 36:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  Uh, that is the best blaming of parents I've ever heard, I have to say. People blame their parents for a lot of things, but that one was, that, that's worth it, really. No. So, okay, so, but here's, here's the real question having to do with that. So the NFL is easily the most successful sport in America, probably in, in American history.

• 36:57Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 36:58Stephen J. Dubner?

  And yet, there are these pressures on the NFL. There's the concussion issue, which is surely scaring some potential participants away. There's the financial issues, so people are still getting paid a lot to play in the NFL. But if you look at the aggregate numbers, the average NFL salary, considering how short the career is and how difficult the career is physically and otherwise, in a lot of ways, soccer begins to look like a really nice viable alternative. If you're a great American athlete, you can play for a long time. It's a contact sport for sure, but not the way the NFL is. And now, there seems to be this money flowing in. So I'm curious, I know, you know, predicting the future is impossible, but could you look

• 37:41Stephen J. Dubner?

  down the road and envision a future where soccer does establish, if not a dominance, then at least a real secondary or tertiary prominence in the American sports landscape? Or do you think we're destined to be the country that doesn't go along with all the other countries? We have our sports and they have theirs?

• 38:00Speaker 06

  Yeah, you know, I think, I think two things. One, I think there's definitely enough room in this sort of sports culture for soccer to take, you know, to keep gaining traction. I don't want to say take traction. I think it is, you know, big in some areas, you know, of the States. And two, I don't think we're going to always be the little brother in a sense in the soccer world. I think this, you know, our mindset in this country is we have to be the best. All right. And eventually enough people are going to care about it. And hopefully it's this year. Hopefully we are the best, you know, at this World Cup. But I don't, you know, I think it's a matter of time before, before we are the best. Only a matter of time.

• 38:53Stephen J. Dubner?

  For the final word, I went back to the source who follows the sport more closely than anyone I happen to know. Conveniently, he also lives under my roof.

• 39:03Speaker 04

  Sam Dubner, 13, sports writer.

• 39:09Stephen J. Dubner?

  So what do you think it says about how soccer or football is different as a sport than the American sports that we're used to?

• 39:17Speaker 04

  Well, it definitely unites the whole world because it's, in some ways, it's a universal language. Almost everywhere in the world plays and follows football, in every country, pretty much. And it just unites everyone somehow. It's kind of crazy.

• 39:30Stephen J. Dubner?

  Why do you think Americans generally are less enthusiastic about footy than most people around the world? Because as you said, it's this kind of universal love, universal sport, but here, not so much. Why do you think that is?

• 39:45Speaker 04

  Well, there are so many other sports that Americans are good at, and we've just never been the best at football. It's kind of an unknown mystery anyways. I think, though, that a success in Brazil this summer will go a long way towards promoting football in the United States.

• 40:00Stephen J. Dubner?

  You hear that Team USA? It's on your shoulders. Don't let my kid down, huh?

• 40:14Stephen J. Dubner?

  Hey, podcast listeners. Next time on Freakonomics Radio, we try to figure out why so many restaurants give you free food as soon as you sit down when they're in the business of selling you food.

• 40:25Speaker 01

  It seems to go against the restaurant's financial interest. I'm not sure it is good logic. You know, it really doesn't make much sense.

• 40:31Stephen J. Dubner?

  Or maybe it does make sense. After all, dessert is a relatively low-priced item. You're going to occupy a table. Or maybe it's just an accident of history.

• 40:43Speaker 12

  When you went to one of these taverns, you were paying for the meal with a single charge, and it was in the interest of the tavern owner that you filled yourself up with bread so that you would eat less of the expensive fishes and meats.

• 40:56Stephen J. Dubner?

  There's no such thing as a free appetizer. That's next time on Freakonomics Radio.

• 41:07Speaker 07

  Freakonomics Radio is produced by WNYC and Dubner Productions. Our staff includes David Herman, Greg Rosalsky, Greta Cohn, Borey Lamb, Truthy Pennimanani, Susie Lechtenberg, and Chris Bannon. If you want more Freakonomics Radio, you can subscribe to our podcast on iTunes or go to Freakonomics.com, where you'll find lots of radio, a blog, the books, and more.

• 41:35Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 42:08Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 42:39Stephen J. Dubner?

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• 43:16Speaker 13

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