The Geeks in the Stands: Its About Subcultures

This is my response to a great post by D just below. Please read it first. Basically my thesis is that soccer is a sub-culture outside of mainstream American culture and that the same people who choose to take the path less followed in one aspect of their lives are more prone to do it in another.

I soccer attracts what most people call geeks in America because it is currently out of the mainstream. Just like being a geek is almost by definition. Right now, soccer is like a good indie band before it gets the major record deal. Seriously, I don't know 3/4ths of the bands named at most music discussions I hear at Barra or Screaming Eagles events. The same people that follow indie bands follow soccer. There is a certain amount of overlap in subcultures that buck the mainstream, and the soccer/indie thing is just one example of this.

Soccer doesn't really attract the computer nerd that lives at home in front of the screen. It attracts the people who like the world, but don't want to just follow everyone else and instead consciously avoid the normal. This isn't a dis on fans of other sports as I am someone who basically follows other people when it comes to music or fashion or whatever, but for random reasons really like soccer. So I don't really think it is bad to follow the mainstream (and we all do it in some aspects of our lives). But the fact remains that soccer right now is outside of the mainstream and attracts people that live in an independent world.

An interesting thing that I have noticed is that given a small amount of exposure to soccer at a youth level, American sports fanatics also really like soccer. I am not talking about JoeSixPack who sits down to watch Football on Sundays, and catches the NBA and MLB playoffs. I am talking about the people who have 3 to 5 fantasy football teams, can tell you how the Washington Wizards (for DC fans) match up against the rest of the NBA on a team by team basis, and can explain a balk in baseball. That last one was a little weak, I am not a huge baseball fan, but you get the picture.

I have two friends who are like this, both of whom like other sports teams much more than United. The Washington (darn you KC for making me write out Washington every time) Wizards and Skins in one case and the Yankees, Mets, Giants, Michigan, Tulane, etc., etc., in the other case. But for these guys soccer is just another sport to learn and watch, which is what they love to do. These two guys are the ones that I bring most often to games because they get it, they are already fans and not just spectators, just because that is the way they approach all sports.

Again, I think this is because they are part of a sub-culture of sports fanatics lost in the sporting culture of America. In this case the overlap between the sub-cultures of soccer and sports fanatics is quite obvious, but is hidden because watching sports is mainstream. However mainstream watching may be, being a sports junkie is not. These guys are exactly the people that we can sway to support soccer in the USA. To some extent you can already see this with some of the DCenters commentators, or with the overlap between soccer and hockey fanatics on the Sports Bog. Just like our indie friends of the music world, they have a lot of cachet in their community, because they are usually the most knowledgeable. I think soccer would do well not just to look into our overlap with the regular geeks, but also with the somewhat hidden sports geeks.

That's my take. I would love to hear some other comments on D's idea below.