The History of Soccer - The Beautiful Game - World's Leading ::
With the U.S. making an unbelievable showing in last years World Cup andBeckham controlling the mass media, soccer, more than ever has been dominating the
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In a telephone survey of 508 Houston-area residents, soccer did quite well, ranking as the 5th most popular spectator sport.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/story.hts/front/1558549
Here're the percentages of Houston adults at least moderately interested in various sports:
Football........73%
Basketball:....71%
Baseball........60%
Boxing..........50%
Soccer.........44%
Tennis..........41%
Golf..............40%
Auto Racing...39%
Ice Hockey....30%
Wow--Houston appears to be one of the final bastions of boxing fans in this country.
MLS is certainly already aware of a survey such as this.
Clearly, if owners and stadiums were not an issue, Houston would be MLS's top choice, hands down, even if Phlly and Detroit are bigger markets.
Originally posted by Dr. Wankler
Scoreboard: Men's Basketball, Soccer - The Mason Gazette - George ::
Nov 18, 2008 Meanwhile, 2008 Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) Champion Mason men's soccer will host a first-round match in the 2008 NCAA Division I
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Actually, boxing does pretty well with the same latino demographic that drives up soccer's popularity in that market.Fer sure.
And also the fact that George Foreman is a local celeb and very active in the community (when he's not grilling). ;) There's a lot of pro/semi-pro and youth boxing in Houston with fighters coming in numbers from both the Latino and African-American communities. Foreman and his brother are also local promoters.
What makes this pole so significant is that BigSoccer posters didn't have an opportunity to skew it.
But would this big Hispanic population turn up to MLS games. I think stadium location is key.
Originally posted by Lark Howorth
And one other interesting thing is that this poll shows that hockey, which is sort of the darling sport among many of the local sports radio talk jocks, is easily the most despised sport of all (other than horse/dog racing, which of course are just gambling events). I generally like hockey, but I do think it's gotten a disproportionately large share of media attention among sports pundits.
It just confirms what I already knew to be true: soccer is far more popular in Houston than hockey. And its not just Hispanics, either. You're absolutely right: far too many of Houston's sports radio "personalities" are from the Northeast. Consequently, hockey gets disproportionately greater coverage than it deserves, and soccer gets the short end of the stick. Interestingly, the only guy on 610 who likes soccer is Matt Jackson, a native Houstonian. Pendleton High School Buckaroo OR high school Soccer videos and ::
High school Soccer photos, news and videos for Pendleton High School Buckaroo in Pendleton, OR 97801-1198.
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Timbers forward Chris Brown retires from soccer - Oregon Sports ::
Get Oregon breaking sports news, scores, updates and more. Find sports teams, schedules, statistics and photos and join forum discussions at OregonLive.com.
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Originally posted by photar74
Wow--Houston appears to be one of the final bastions of boxing fans in this country.
Hispanics = Boxing fans.
Originally posted by Lark Howorth
It's just too dang bad we don't have a local MLS team that could have been put into the comparison hopper for the other poll question that involve the Rockets, Texans, Aeros, Comets, and Astros.
I'd bet that Chivas could at least beat out the Aeros and Comets, and maybe even give the Texans a run for their money. :D
Actually, part of the reason that we don't hear more soccer on English-language sports talk radio in Houston is that much of that 44% is probably listening to Radio Unica (1230 AM) instead. Not sure how much more audience guys like Carl Dukes or Kenny Hand would get if they talked seriously about soccer.
Originally posted by Mattbro
They should call the team the Houston Tejanos or something like that. As long as they stay away from Tex-Mex culinary influences that would work. ;)
BrothersJudd Blog: SOCCER, THE PERFECT EXPRESSION OF EGALITIE:::
In the past several years, youth soccer groups have formed all across the country and have expanded the access that kids have to organized sports.
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Soccer news, live scores, and results - ESPN Soccernet::
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Something that also works in Spanish would indeed be very helpful. It's just about sending the right signals. For better or worse, people draw some conclusions about your product based, in part, on the sort of image you project.
Then again, Dallas seems to be doing well enough with Los Burns. :D
Originally posted by anderson
Then again, Dallas seems to be doing well enough with Los Burns. :D
The Dallas Burn is OK as a name -- it kind of grows on you after a while -- but a lot of Dallas fans, including myself, would like to see our club renamed the Dallas Diablos.
Great find.
Couple interesting snippets of general interest for people who may not be particularly interested in Houston:
Re demographic change and fragmentation of sports interests:
What may be surprising for some, he said, is the level to which sports interests have become fragmented as Houston's population has changed over the last two decades.
Although 73 percent of respondents express at least moderate interest in football, Murray said, "If we had asked this question 10 years ago, football would have ranked much higher.
"I think we have a pretty good sports community here, but we are seeing fragmentation in sports interests," he said. "Part of it is the changing demographics. The generation, for example, that grew up listening to Southwest Conference football is passing from the scene. There is an incredible array of choices now that people didn't have 10 years ago."Re Hispanics and soccer:
Soccer is the most popular sport among Hispanic respondents, with 49.5 percent expressing high to very high interest and 20.2 percent describing themselves as moderate fans. That range of interest was the highest for any ethnic group in any sport outside the big three of baseball, football and basketball.We've been talking about these trends for a while, but it's always good to see numbers.
Originally posted by CrewDust
But would this big Hispanic population turn up to MLS games. I think stadium location is key. It's hard to really estimate accurately, but the stadium situtation would only be very helpful in terms of attracting many Hispanic fans. An MLS team in Houston would most likely play in either Reliant Stadium (the Texans' shiney new place) or Roberston Stadium (35,000 cap., wide grass field, on the campus of the Univ. of Houston).
Robertson is located in the East Side of Houston, which has a large Hispanic population. But Hispanics are very widely distributed throughout the Houston metro area. UH is next to a major freeway and not far from two others.
Robertson has also hosted many friendlies and Pre-Pre-Libertadores featuring Mexican clubs over the last few years. Those games draw well enough to bring the Pre-Pre and friendlies back for more on a regular basis. The recent U-20 match between the US and Mexico was also held there and drew pretty well, IMHO, for being held on the heels of a torrential rainstorm.
Most Hispanics in the Houston area probably also know how to get to Reliant. It forms part of a complex, Reliant Park (formerly Astrodomain), that includes the Astrodome and is just across a freeway from Astroworld (the Six Flags park in Houston). The Reliant Park campus also houses the old AstroArena and AstroHall facilities, which would, from time to time, host Tejano and other concerts, area hs and juco graduations, various community gatherings, etc. The complex is located relatively centrally and next to a loop freeway that makes it easily accessible from most parts of town.
Another likely factor favor of Hispanic support for MLS in Houston is that the local Spanish-language media may be very supportive.
On the way to the US-Mexico U-20 match, I had my radio tuned into one of the local Spanish-language sports-talk shows on which the host was cajoling his audience to get out to Robertson because they needed to support soccer in Houston. That station also had an on-site reporter who would call in from Robertson to tell the audience that the rain wasn't really so bad and that it's no problem getting out there and parking.
That was US-Mexico, but the local Spanish-language tv and radio stations have given some coverage to US and MLS games from time to time. MLS has gotten relatively good ratings in Houston, and I'd be willing to bet that much of that audience is Hispanic. I may be overly-optimistic, but I think the local Hispanic media would be all over an MLS club.
They should call the team the Houston Tejanos or something like that.
And what's also interesting is soccer gets the 3rd most respondents (11%) in the "very high interest" category, only behind football (23%) and baseball (13%). Boxing got 10%, golf and auto racing=6%, tennis=5%, and basketball=5%.
It's just too dang bad we don't have a local MLS team that could have been put into the comparison hopper for the other poll question that involve the Rockets, Texans, Aeros, Comets, and Astros.
And one other interesting thing is that this poll shows that hockey, which is sort of the darling sport among many of the local sports radio talk jocks, is easily the most despised sport of all (other than horse/dog racing, which of course are just gambling events). I generally like hockey, but I do think it's gotten a disproportionately large share of media attention among sports pundits.
Originally posted by photar74
Wow--Houston appears to be one of the final bastions of boxing fans in this country.
Actually, boxing does pretty well with the same latino demographic that drives up soccer's popularity in that market.
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Soccer the #5 spectator sport in Houston poll