How popular is Football(Soccer) is in America

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I am Polish, European and Aspie
In my country, a very popular discipline is soccer. While the level of soccer in my country declined it is still very popular. I personally do not do any sport, except perhaps running on a treadmill at the gym and eating peanuts and potato chips while watching the UEFA Cup this time to organized by my country. The last is obviously a joke

I would like to know how popular is Soccer in America. I know that in the U.S. and Canada is a very popular American Footbal, once out of curiosity I watched the match on TV and I do not know too much about what the sport. I know it is based on the Rugby invented by the British Universities in the nineteenth century at the same time as soccer

As I watch the rugby match on television is to me more like wrestling or a fight, a similar behavior at a soccer match, the referee will expelled to the players from the field

I also have a general question and poll to all what kind of football you prefer soccer or rugby (American footbal)

There's a game going on pretty much right now, isn't there? A quarter final in the European Championship?

Neither are popular in America. Soccer is more popular than Rugby, but the most popular is our mutant game of American football that's not rugby. In this game, all plays last like 4 seconds, and the ball only moves 5 yards per play unless there's a freak play where it moves 20-30, and it's extremely boring to watch at the pro level, each play lasts like 5 seconds, and yeah, though college the ball moves a bit more per play because not everyone is 300lb monsters. College is more fun to watch. But as far as being close to rugby, it's not really, besides the ball being sorta similar and being played on a field and all. The biggest difference is, intensity, football isn't played continuously like soccer, the way rugby seems to be.

Overall, nobody really plays rugby here, though soccer is sorta popular here, just not on the pro level. People enroll their kids for soccer, and people perhaps play a bit in high school, but that's about it. On the pro level, nobody makes any money playing pro soccer here, check out the salaries. I'd say only 1 out of 2 or 1 out of 3 people you meet on the street would even know what rugby is in USA.

N.H.L.: $525,000
M.L.B.: $480,000
N.B.A.: $473,604
N.F.L.: $390,000
M.L.S.: $33,750

Football steals a lot of good athletes, as you can see, it makes money. It's why USA hasn't won an Olympic medal in weightlifting in years. They all go play American football.

Overall, rugby seems cooler than American football, I don't really like American football, as it's too "stilted" of a game, it's not continuously played. But, I prefer soccer, I like playing soccer a decent amount, and it's fun to watch, just the only problem with soccer is, it's hard to fit commercial breaks into it, as it's constantly being played for long periods at a time, and there's very few timeouts/breaks, and we're all xenophobic and hate anything that's not American, so...yeah.

It's cool you're from Poland, I'm part Polish myself, I'd like to go to Poland sometime, most of the Polish people I've met here have been quite nice and I get along well with them.

I played soccer as a kid. Soccer is more popular than rugby but not the most popular of all in the states. It's getting there though.

I have noticed that soccer is most popular in very specific segments of American society. My impression is that most soccer players are in their teens, and come from middle class or wealthier families. I live in the Northeast, where I would say it's more popular than football among some groups. Of course, I imagine there are places, like Texas, where the massive popularity of American football crowds out all other sportsl. I find it an irony that soccer is regarded as a sport of privilege in this country, whereas soccer is viewed as a working class sport virtually everywhere else.

Soccer is also popular among Latinos in this country. Many of them grew up with soccer in their countries of origin.

Soccer on the pro level is not very popular here in the United States. In fact there is a video that explains this better than I can.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RUVNjaFZqjo&list=UUbh4Z757sb6RRylZQB13XSA&index=10&feature=plcp[/youtube]

I prefer union-style rugby over American football any day. Soccer's a popular sport in my State, but it's obvious that American football rains supreme to the majority of the residents here in the states.

Many Latin Americans are good at football, It is a shame teams such as Argentina and Brazil can't compete in the Euro but I guess that would neglect the point of it being called Euro, I guess we'll have to wait for the world cup. I predict it will be Germany and Spain in the final since Germany have played well this year.

I missed this match as I was watching Euro 2012 but it looked good.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylrvg0hDqQE[/youtube]

They do play in Europe, in fact Europe usually snaps up all the best players from Latin America. I'm surprised they haven't signed Neymar like they did dos Santos.

It's become a wide problem in Brazil and in other places as their very best players get signed overseas and it results in worse result when it comes time to play for the national team because there is much less cohesion amongst players.

I think it's understandable that the US is on Neptune when it comes to sports. The country is so big, and the states are so different from each other, that it is basically a world unto itself. So the competition between states is the equivalent of international competition.

Also, imagine what would happen if the US started taking international sports seriously. The US spends so much more money on sports than any other country, and has such a gigantic pool of potential players, that it would be bound to dominate. Do we really want a world where the US always wins the soccer, rugby and cricket world cups?