While most of the world goes crazy to the point of even rioting over World Cup Soccer — the passion hasn’t been as high in the United States. One of the people who is staying up to watch the early morning action is Drake University men’s soccer coach Sean Holmes. Holmes says part of the lack of interest in the U-S is because the games played in Japan and South Korea are on so early in the morning.He says the Olympics didn’t do so well either when they were shown early in the morning. Holmes says soccer is vying for attention among fans of football, basketball, baseball and auto racing in the U-S. He says soccer is the only established sport in other countries, while there are several here. He says it wasn’t that long ago though that you couldn’t find many NBA games on tv in the U-S. Holmes says soccer has made some inroads in the U-S market.The U-S team has advanced to the quarterfinals, and Holmes says they need to sustain that success for Americans to take notice, as Americans like a winner, and the U-S doesn’t have a great history in the World Cup.And he says the relatively low scoring soccer games aren’t what Americans are used to.He says we live in a time of instant gratification and it’s hard to sell low scoring soccer games to people used to things like NBA games that have scores in the 100’s. Holmes says the popularity of the sport has increased as evidence by the girl’s and boy’s high school tournaments and the growth of the sport among kids.
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