Why America Doesn't Love Soccer (Except When It Does)

Is there anything more distinctively American than its sports culture? In a previous episode of this podcast, we discussed the tragic decline and partial revival of American cricket. As the 2026 World Cup kicks off in the US Adam asks why a sport that took over the world has been so marginal for so long in America – and wonders if that’s finally changing. In the nineteenth and early twentieth century, a form of football that had begun in English public schools became a global phenomenon, played almost everywhere except in the United States. There, a strange alternative form of football was played instead, one in which men in helmets stand around for long periods, interrupted by occasional violent bursts of energy. This is a story about culture, gender politics, race, class and migration – and, as with the story of cricket’s demise -- about nationhood.

Guests on this episode: Frank Guridy, Dr. Kenneth and Kareitha Forde Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies and Professor of History at Columbia. His most recent book is The Stadium: An American History of Politics, Protest, and Play (Basic Books, 2024) which tells the story of the American stadium as an institution that has played a central role in American civic and political life and in the struggles for social justice over the last 150 years. And by Uta Balbier, Professor of US History at Oxford, a transnational historian of the modern United States with a particular interest in sport history. 

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Producer: Emily Williams. Presenter: Adam Smith