EA’s FIFA Spreads Homegrown Interest

Impressive sales numbers aside — Electronic Arts’ (EA) FIFA games have sold over 100 million copies throughout the franchise’s life — the game has been sowing the seeds of genuine soccer interest in the United States. While the latest version of the game, FIFA 2015, has been out for more than two months now, one of the best signs of increased home interest in the beautiful game is the record of online play for FIFA 14.

Even since March of this year — prior to the United States men’s national team improbably making it out of group play in the World Cup — soccer in general and Major League Soccer in particular was growing. As a joint effort between ESPN Sports Poll and Luker on Trends shows, for the first time ever MLS has reached the same level of fandom (measured by 12-17 year-olds who claimed avid interest) as Major League Baseball.

Luker on Trends partnered with EA again to release their latest data, showing distinct growth in online play as an MLS club from 2014 to 2015. The most popular clubs, Seattle Sounders, New York Red Bulls and L.A. Galaxy, come as no surprise given the super stars such as Clint Dempsey, Thierry Henry and Landon Donovan respectively, are all available to start slotting goals home.

It would be difficult to understate the importance of the US youth showing such an interest in the world sport for the future of the USMNT and USWNT teams. With more violent sports such as football being ruled out by certain professional athletes, specifically citing soccer, it is possible that some of our nation’s best young athletes will be turning to soccer for their competitive outlet.

(Header and graphic via EA.com)