A lot of people just see sports as a game. They say “at the end of the day it’s just a game” which is true, it really is just a game that usually involves a type of ball. It could be a football, a baseball, a golf-ball, a tennis ball and even a basketball that can give you so much excitement and joy for the period of time the game is going on – but there’s one ball that’s just different. This ball creates more joy and magical moments than any other sport. That ball is the soccer ball, or more well known in Europe as the football. American sports have a massive following of course but Football is more well known worldwide and is way more popular than American sports combined.

For example the Champions League Final in 2022, which is when the best 2 teams in Europe face off and play a game that generates around 380-400 million spectators watching around the world. The Super Bowl had 113 million spectators. The World Cup, which is the biggest competition in sports, had a grand total of 1.5 billion spectators watching from home.

Obviously soccer will have more viewership than the Super Bowl because soccer is worldwide and Football is mostly watched by just Americans, but what makes soccer more special and magical than any other sport is how fans support their teams or national team. Soccer has the most passionate fans in the world by far. There are many things that Soccer does differently than sports here in America. For example in america the top sports like the MLB, NFL, NBA, NHL and even soccer here in american the MLS do not have a promotion or relegation system.

Usually soccer everywhere else around the world has a relegation and promotion system which is great for the league. This is good for leagues because we get new faces, new teams and new atmospheres that people experience. It can also give a good Cinderella story like what happened to Leicester city.

2 years after they were promoted from the Sky Bet Championship which is the 2nd division of soccer in England they went on to have an unbelievable run in the league and win the Premier League. Thats like a triple A team in baseball getting promoted in baseball and in 2 years defeated teams like the Dodgers and the Braves and Yankees to win the world series.

With relegation and promotion opportunities in leagues in Europe, it focuses on more small and local teams. What this means is that fans choose and are able to support their local team near or at their town and don’t have to choose a big team because they know that they have a chance to be in a better league and they aren’t playing for nothing. For example soccer here has a professional league called the USL Champions. They are the league below the MLS and since they have no promotion they just stay in the second division and a championship doesn’t mean much cause they stay in the second division.

Another thing that is different from leagues here in America is mid season-tournaments.

In Europe soccer has league cups mid season. These cups gives a chance for local teams as well to compete with top teams and get more money for their teams from broadcast revenues. It also gives the chance for local and smaller teams to host big teams.

For example a team in England called Tottenham, which is considered to be apart of the “top 6” teams in England and is worth about 1.9 Billion dollars, traveled to a semi-professional teams home called Marines and played at their stadium. Marines teams were filled with part time soccer players and they had to go against a top team in England. With this happening, Marines made a good amount of money from broadcast rights.

American sport leagues are very different from soccer leagues in Europe, and I believe these differences are what really make European soccer more exciting.