Honor to whom honor is due.
This past weekend, I had the chance to watch two major sporting events — LSU baseball’s Baton Rouge Super Regional games against University of Louisiana-Lafayette and the UEFA Champions League Final between Juventus F.C. and FC Barcelona. Both lived up to the hype.
Everyone knows that football (or soccer, as it’s called here in the United States) has been growing exponentially both locally and nationally in the past few years.
According to The Londoner Pub & Grill bar owner Luke Betts, who has a local live soccer show on ESPN radio every Sunday night, the only way to catch a Champions League match on TV 20 years ago would have been on an obscure channel at 3 a.m., six hours after the game was actually played.
Now, you can watch soccer on nearly every major TV network. NBC airs the English Premier League every weekend, Fox Sports plays the FA Cup and on beIN Sports, you can watch the Bundesliga, La Liga and Serie A.
Betts and many other fans believe the catalyst to this evolution of the sport is due to U.S. Soccer and the U.S. Men’s National Team gaining popularity.
“Now that U.S. plays, the people can recognize and see them week in, week out,” Betts said.
Just a year ago, Betts said he was seeing at least a thousand soccer fans a day come through The Londoner’s doors when the U.S. was playing and had all three local TV stations recording the World Cup-fevered fans.
On Saturday, I couldn’t find a seat at The Londoner to watch the dominant Barcelona team led by Lionel Messi win its fifth Champions League title.
Soccer fans are currently a minority, but with the exponential growth soccer has shown in the U.S., I agree with Betts when he says soccer will be fighting to be the top sport in the nation alongside football.
Even if sports fans unfamiliar to soccer disagree, it’s no secret baseball is no longer a national game, as it has become more of a regional sport.
While football, baseball and basketball have a wide audience, it won’t be for long. It may only take the U.S. hosting a World Cup to reach the No. 1 spot in sports fans’ hearts.
Betts assures that if individuals go somewhere like the Burbank Soccer Complex, there are about 3,000 to 4,000 kids cued up playing soccer from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m., rotating through the soccer fields.
If fans want to catch a soccer match, their safest bet will probably be The Londoner. According to Betts, they’ll turn off any LSU game to show soccer, and they will be playing every single match for the FIFA Women’s World Cup.
Other places near campus showing the number one sport in the World are The Chimes, The Varsity Theatre (which plays most of the UEFA Champions League games on the big screens), Walk-On’s Bistreaux & Bar, Buffalo Wild Wings Grill & Bar and sometimes even Pluckers Wing Bar.
Javier Fernández is a 26-year-old creative writing senior from Guatemala City, Guatemala.