Soccer Culture in America: Essays on the World’s Sport in Red, White and Blue ed. by Yuya Kiuchi (review)

Through a collection of essays written mostly by professors at American universities, Yuya Kiuchi seeks to find the meaning of soccer in American culture. Kiuchi, a faculty member at Michigan State University, argues that contrary to popular belief, soccer has long been an American sport, and a popular one at that.

The first section of Kiuchi’s text, which provides the strongest contributions to the field, addresses the unique history of soccer in the United States through well-crafted essays. First, David Keyes explains the origins of the sport in the U.S., emphasizing how this “foreign” game became “American” and “safe” for consumption by American children and their parents through the efforts of the American Youth Soccer Organization (AYSO). Then, Andrew M. Guest explicates the uniquely American relationship between the U.S. soccer system and the U.S. educational system, a connection that is often difficult for the rest of the world to understand. Finally, Dennis J. Seese provides a substantial literature review of soccer-related academic studies to demonstrate how the increase of soccer’s popularity reflects a change in “traditional America.”

The second part of the book provides an intriguing analysis on the economic aspects of soccer in the U.S. Cliff Starkey’s ironic essay stands out. He argues that despite America’s capitalist economic model and anti-socialist sentiments, U.S. sporting leagues have adopted socialist economic models (e.g. profit sharing, teams subject to league decisions, a “draft system” designed to increase competitiveness, salary caps, player distribution systems, and no risk of being “relegated” to a lower level of competition). On the other hand, Western European countries that tend to have left-leaning socialist systems have long implemented cut-throat capitalist models for many of its soccer leagues (including relegation, non-existent salary caps, bidding wars for player contracts, and teams being corporations).

Part III of Kiuchi’s edited volume provides empirical support for the argument that soccer already is a significant part of the American sporting landscape. The central thesis of Glen M.E. Duerr’s article “Becoming Apple Pie” is that the growth of Major League Soccer (MLS, the U.S. top-tier pro soccer league), a large immigrant population, and very high youth participation in soccer have made it the fifth or perhaps even fourth most popular sport in the U.S. An essay by Danielle Sarver Coombs uses the well-documented success of the U.S. Women’s National Soccer Team to explore issues of gender and sexuality.

The final section of the book is also the weakest. It contains interviews with a graduate student and former Japanese League referee, but does little to shed light on the importance of soccer in America or enhance the preceding chapters. A chapter directly addressing the consumption of soccer among U.S. Latino communities would have enhanced the book. Nevertheless, the quality of scholarship in the chapters of Kiuchi’s text is solid, and the editor succeeds in demonstrating that soccer has long been a part of American society and is continually increasing in popularity. The book is accessible to non-academic audiences as well as specialists in the field.