Visiting a US football stadium as the only away fans

[Ivan NWG]

A couple of months ago, we went over to Columbus in Ohio to see our MLS team, the Vancouver Whitecaps, play.
(MLS is the highest level of US football, soccer as they say, probably equivalent in skill to the English Championship or Bundesliga 2)

I am pretty certain we were the only 3 Vancouver fans in the entire stadium. When the Caps scored (their only goal of the night) and we started cheering, the entire row was staring at us, since I think they were surprised.
That being said, everyone was super nice. I did meet two different people who thought we were Canadians and were super excited we were visiting their city. I didn't want to ruin that for them, so I didn't begin to explain that I am Danish and my wife and kid are Americans

Match attendance was 23000. Almost everyone was decked out in yellow and black. We were joking my kid could have brought his Dortmund jacket and tried to fit in. We were holding up the sole blue Vancouver scarf up in one corner.



I only took one photo since we were busy enjoying the game. That is the Nordecke North side where the Columbus supporters sit.
(And yes, the pitch looks like shit, a lot of US stadiums have turf instead of grass)



Also fireworks afterwards. The stands had emptied out by then since it was about half an hour after the game was over. The batteries were set up on the roof of the stadium and we were sitting right underneath so it was loud as shit

All in all, a fantastic experience and while it doesn't get as crazy as the hardcore ultras elsewhere, the crowd was super into it.
Columbus is also a really fun city to visit as a tourist.



Here is Lancelot the cat with the (now battle worn) Whitecaps scarf.

 

[Ivan NWG]

Oh and feel free to ask questions if you are curious about the stadium experience (I've gone to a number of Portland Timbers games in the past as well), footie culture in the US or the MLS in particular.

 

[Hundenilunden82]

I say as pete says to matt in green street hooligans for fucks sake mate don't call it soccer

How big is the football scene and culture in the states, my preconcived notions is that it never hit big over there or well never as big as it is here in europe.

 

[Ivan NWG]

I say as pete says to matt in green street hooligans for fucks sake mate don't call it soccer

How big is the football scene and culture in the states, my preconcived notions is that it never hit big over there or well never as big as it is here in europe.

It is certainly not as big comparatively. The "default sport" in America is NFL and then baseball behind that. Something like 5% of Americans have football as their main sport (more so for hispanics). Its a little unclear how many are interested in total though all accounts say its been increasing. The womens Euros final had 1 million people tuning in according to Fox, which seemed a lot given the US was not involved in any way. MLS said recently that they get about 120k unique accounts on average for each game stream, though bear in mind thats on a paid subscription service.
Ironically the biggest competition for MLS is not really NFL, its the English premier league and Liga MX.

Live attendance for MLS games is something like 20-21k on average, depending on the team. Seattle pulls 30K crowds pretty regularly.
20k is about at the same level as NHL or NBA though those draw far, far more viewers on tv. Its nothing compared to baseball and NFL of course.
The womens league is big compared to Germany: 10k crowds are average and the biggest teams are pulling 20k regularly.

The main draw for "soccer culture" is that its younger than the audience for other sports, more diverse and very live match oriented. You will sometimes hear people say they were won over by going to a game and being part of that.
It also has gotten popular in places that either did not have big sports teams already (Columbus) or in the Pacific North West where people like to consider themselves a bit more cosmopolitan and apart from the rest of the country (sometimes literally due to the Rockies being a wall).

The US culture within the fans is a bit of a mix between European traditions (swinging scarves, chants with capos, tifos) and American ones (like tailgate parties before games). One upside is that they don't really have hooligans, its very family friendly.

 

[Ivan NWG]

Oh, that ended up sounding like a fucking infomercial lol. I just read some articles the other day so it was on the top of my mind hah

 

[Mogger]

Om man tycker om fotboll och vill lära sig lite svenska så är (den numera nedlagda) fantastiska podden When We Were Kings ett guldkorn! Några hundra avsnitt som handlar om allt från New York Cosmos på 70-talet till ikoniska fotbollsspelare och klubbar. Det är alltid omvälvande och intressant och till skillnad från en bunt andra fattar Erik Niva och Håkan Andreasson att fotboll och politik hör ihop. Eftersom fotboll är kultur.

Jag kan verkligen inte rekommendera den nog! Även för folk som inte förstår fotboll (men som undrar vafan det handlar om) är den intressant då jag skulle säga att även om nördnivån till och från är rätt hög så är det ffa fotboll som kulturellt fenomen som avhandlas. Extra intressant är det när fotboll och ideologi vävs samman. Ibland på vackert sätt, som i fallet St Pauli, ibland mindre vackert, som i fallet Röda stjärnan (under brinnande krig i forna Jugoslavien). Men alltid intressant. Rätt mycket svensk allmänbildning med på alla möjliga plan.