US slowly replacing gridiron in the soul

“Now, Manchester United against Arsenal in the FA Cup, we’ll have all four floors full,” says McCarthy, looking out over the bar. “Two of the most popular teams, on at the perfect time: 4pm. People will leave work and come and watch, here or somewhere else. There is a lot more competition now, but there is a lot more appetite too. It’s great.”

Across the Hudson in Williamsburg, Banter is riding the same wave. Chris Keller and Conor Carolan set the bar up four years ago. In Keller’s words, they had to “make a call” whether to show the traditional American sports or go for football. Their location made their decision for them. As Keller speaks, the phone rings. It is a customer inquiring if the Paris Saint-Germain game will be on later.

“It has just grown and grown,” says Carolan, a Liverpool fan long since transplanted from Leopardstown, outside Dublin. “Not just the enthusiasm, but the knowledge. You used to have to explain the game to people. Not now. That has all changed. It is great for bars, of course — what other reason can you have to be open and serving from 7am? — but it is because there is that demand.”

There is no question that New York likes football. Not just New York, in fact, but the United States as a whole. One survey has suggested that there are 70 million confirmed followers of the sport — more football fans than there are people in Britain. In a country of 300 million, it may not be a majority, but it is enough to render redundant the old issue of when the United States will learn to love soccer.

Now, they are more concerned with pinpointing when exactly it happened. McCarthy says that he noticed the change during and after the Women’s World Cup of 2009; Carolan says it has been a more gradual process, accelerated by US success in the men’s tournaments of 2010 and 2014.

Connor Farrell, a Spurs fan drowning his sorrows at Nevada Smiths, has a different explanation. “Fifa has been one of the best-selling video games for about five years,” he says. “That has been the entry point for a lot of people.”

Jeff Agoos, vice-president for competition at Major League Soccer, attributes it in part to the rise of the internet. “As a country, we have access to what is going on in the rest of the world,” he says. “We are now part of the global conversation.”

Whatever the reason, sporting or sociological, the effect is the same. The New York Times has ramped up its coverage of the game. A host of specialist magazines — including Eight by Eight, launched by the design firm Priest+Grace, based in TriBeCa — have risen up to cater for the new market.

“The days when football was seen as un-American have gone,” Carolan says firmly. But for all the success the sport has had, there has been one notable problem: the US might love football now, but it is not quite as keen on domestic soccer as it is in the European or, indeed, the Mexican or South American forms of the game.

“You can see more Premier League games here than in England,” Agoos says. “It is available on NBC Sports Network, but a lot of the bigger games are just on the main NBC channel. Then there are subsidiary channels, so you can watch eight or nine games a weekend if you want.”

La Liga and Serie A are widely, easily available, too, and the Bundesliga will be broadcast from next season.

A host of clubs from across the old world have been here in recent years to win hearts and minds; Bayern Munich even have an office in New York, designed to co-ordinate their US operation. The issue is that there is one substantial victim of this shirts-and-boots colonialism: the native game. As Agoos says, MLS knows “the European clubs are not coming here for charity”.

On the wall of Agoos’s office at MLS headquarters on Fifth Avenue is a piece of paper on which is written the “MLS mission”. This is a league determined, he says, to be considered one of the best in the world by 2022. They understand that — just as there is more appetite for the NFL in the UK than there is domestic gridiron — they are dealing with sophisticated fans who will naturally be drawn to the best version of their chosen sport.

“Meeting that target is dependent on the quality of the product we are putting out,” Agoos says. “We have developed modelling alongside Opta to look at the quality of our attacking play and how much entertainment we provide. We are comparable with the better leagues in terms of entertainment.

“We have seen some very strong indicators. A few years ago, we were selling franchises for $5 million [now about £3.3 million]. New York City and Atlanta paid $100 million. We used to have just a handful of owner-investors: now we have 46. Our average attendance is about 19,000. We will have 24 teams by 2020. And we have a competitive balance, because of the salary-cap system. Every team has the same tools. Fans of any club can feel they might win a championship at the start of the season.”

For all that optimism, they are aware that there is much work to be done. Agoos, like Jason Kreis, the New York City head coach, identifies the need to revamp youth coaching to enable the country to produce its own stars.

“We have always produced goalkeepers, defenders, athletic midfielders,” Agoos says. “Now we need to make our own No 9s and 10s.” Kreis feels that requires a sea change in the attitude of the national team. “We are very reactive,” he says. “It is impossible to create attack-minded players if you are always chasing the ball.”

That, doubtless, would help. There are other problems, though. The salary-cap system may introduce competitive balance, but it limits the number of gifted players any one team can have. A side with three expensive designated players, such as Toronto, must balance that out by having a host of youngsters on less than $100,000 a year.

Then there is the “single entity” model, which means that much of the revenue the league brings in is shared among all 20 clubs. It is the league that signs players, too, then assigns them to teams. When they are sold, the majority of the money is held by MLS. There are plenty inside the game who feel this may well make for a level playing field, but that it also fails to incentivise excellence.

These were among the issues at the core of the dispute between the league and the players’ union that almost delayed the start of the season. That wrangle has been resolved, but the core problem has not. The MLS system has worked well for the first two decades of its existence. It is not clear, though, how much change is required to maintain that level of growth.

There is no need to ask, any more, when the United States will learn to love football. It already does, in huge numbers. The more pressing question is when — and how — it will not need to look abroad to satisfy its yearning.

Leading contenders

Los Angeles Galaxy

The reigning champions and rapidly emerging as MLS’s Bayern Munich. Robbie Keane, last year’s MVP, will be joined in mid-season by Steven Gerrard, but the real key is the league’s most successful coach, Bruce Arena.

Seattle Sounders

Clint Dempsey and Obafemi Martins lead the attack for the best-supported side in North America: 43,000 regularly attend their home games. Had the best regular-season record last time out.

Toronto

Money is not and has never been a problem at Toronto — as Michael Bradley, Jozy Altidore and Sebastian Giovinco, their three designated players, would attest — but it has yet to translate into success.

Orlando City

Adrian Heath’s team look slightly better placed than New York City to hit the ground running. They have built on the core of a side from the minor leagues and, in Kaká, they have a player who was worth £56 million not all that long ago.