The most popular sport in the world, hands down, is soccer. No question. No contest. No comparison. Nothing draws the world’s interest like the World Cup. It’s far and away the biggest sporting event in the world. It’s one of the few competitions that truly deserves the title of “world championship.” Many countries send their very best athletes to this soccer tournament.

You can’t count the United States in that group, however. Our best athletes tend to be busy with other things. That’s not meant as a knock on the U.S. soccer team. It’s just a reflection of the fact that football, basketball, and yes even baseball are still bigger than soccer.

Some thought that would change as youth soccer leagues grew in popularity. It did make soccer slightly more popular, but not on the same scale as the number of kids that have played the game. Most of them still prefer other sports.

Here are some unscientific, half-baked ideas as to why that is true:

• The commercial aspect. Soccer does not lend itself to advertising as other sports do (though part of that is the fact that networks in the U.S. don’t seem to have figured out how to run commercials during the game, as they do in other countries). Commercials basically only run before the game, at halftime and after the game, not at the times when people are truly focused on the set. The United States even made a push to switch world soccer to be played in quarters, rather than halves, just to get more commercials in. Without commercials, companies don’t put as much money into soccer. Lack of funding hurts the game.
• The strategy aspect. We like games where you stand around and talk. Seriously. People from other countries complain about American football, where they play for 5 seconds, then stand around and plan for 30. Baseball is like that. Even American-style basketball is slower paced than international basketball. Rugby doesn’t give you that. Soccer doesn’t give you that. Hockey, which is losing popularity every year, doesn’t give you that. We want to strategize. During the game.
• Comprehension level. Adults in the United States don’t tend to understand soccer at the level they do other sports. I thought that the proliferation of youth soccer leagues would change that, but it hasn’t seemed to. To me, it’s a bit like opera, ballet and modern art; I recognize that my lack of appreciation for those art forms speaks to a lack in me, not a deficiency in them. I don’t understand them, so I can’t appreciate what I’m seeing. I think that happens a lot with soccer.

This last point also speaks to a lot of complaints I hear about soccer. The same people who gripe about the lack of scoring in soccer can love a no-hitter in baseball. They can see the beauty of a well-executed draw play, but can’t see the elegance of a corner kick.

Will time change the States’ views toward soccer? Maybe. The first World Cup was played in 1930, and the United States was one of 13 nations that participated, placing third overall. It’s taken almost 80 years to get the United States back to a respectable international level. It will be interesting to see what the future holds.