“Oh, Americans will never play that soccer. Oh, what a ridiculous game.” he recalled being told. ”Messi is coming to a country which has millions of soccer players, where its national team draws packed crowds, its women’s national team draws packed crowds, its professional teams are at all kinds of levels - there are minor league teams tucked into villages and goodness where across the country, and kids playing soccer everywhere every day.
Roughly 22 teams are in new or substantially rebuilt soccer-specific stadiums and just six play on artificial turf. ABC and ESPN televised 34 MLS games last year that averaged 343,300 viewers, while the league averaged 443,000 on Fox, 138,000 on FS1 plus 254,000 for Spanish-language broadcasts on Univision and UniMás.