What remains of the North American World Cup in America

By the time the final World Cup match had ended, almost all the stadiums had already been dismantled. Many had reverted to being American football stadiums – which, in the United States, is not the same as football, but a different sport altogether. Seeing the images of the venues for almost all the matches (78 out of 104) stripped of all their staging, with even the green pitch gone, gave the impression of a circus taking down its big top, or a funfair loading its rides onto a van and heading off to another city. Perhaps this is what the World Cup was for the United States: a gigantic attraction. One which, like all giant American-style attractions, drew huge crowds and captured people’s attention.

The latest figure is: sixty-six million four hundred thousand people. In the United States, 66.4 million people watched the World Cup final: 42.5 million on Fox, and 23.9 million across Telemundo and its streaming service. Excluding NFL matches and news events, no American television programme has attracted such a large audience since 1998. If we consider sport alone, and leave out the Super Bowl, we have to go back to the 1994 Winter Olympics. These are huge figures, which apply to the entire tournament and not just the US national team’s matches, and which show that, yes, the World Cup has made a huge impact in the United States: it has managed to become a daily fixture. For thirty-nine days, there was always a match – often more than one – almost always scheduled at a time convenient for the American audience. There was no need to get up at five in the morning, as is often the case for many events taking place on the other side of the world. It was broadcast almost entirely on mainstream channels: on, accessible, practically unavoidable.

The point is to understand whether it has taken the football world by storm, or what. Because, to be fully embraced by the United States, the World Cup has learnt to speak American. During half-time, there were flypasts, cheerleaders, boisterous commentators, gigantic screens, fan cams, decibel meters and people tasked with urging the crowd to make noise. There was non-stop music and celebrities being sought out by the cameras. There was an attempt to fill every single second in which silence might have fallen and to turn football into entertainment.

Above all, there were the breaks. FIFA has made hydration breaks compulsory in all matches, even in closed, air-conditioned stadiums, effectively turning the two halves into four quarters. This has opened up two new advertising slots for TV broadcasters, but it has also given the public the chance to enjoy, in smaller doses, a sport that has never been particularly popular: forty-five minutes in one go would have been too much.

Then came the final, with the half-time break transformed into a twenty-seven-minute half-time show. No longer just a break between the first and second halves, but an event within the event. The World Cup asked Americans to watch football. But to win them over, it offered them something they were already familiar with: a 39-day-long Super Bowl – not coincidentally the metaphor used by Infantino at the outset. So the World Cup didn’t just break television viewing records. It exceeded five billion dollars in ticket sales and hospitality revenue. For the first time, this revenue was expected to exceed the value of the competition’s television rights. FIFA’s overall forecasts for the cycle have risen from eleven to fifteen billion dollars. In seeking new fans, it has found new customers, but the two do not necessarily coincide: the customer buys a ticket because the event is exceptional. The fan returns when the event is not exceptional – when the match is at half past seven in the morning, when Messi isn’t playing, when Madonna isn’t singing.

Being a country capable of watching a final does not mean becoming a footballing nation, like those in Europe or South America. And perhaps America has not become ‘footballised’. Rather, football has become ‘Americanised’. The World Cup, in fact, has won over the Americans not by asking them to adapt completely to football, but by asking football to adapt: it has taken the ninety-minute matches and split them into four, it has taken the half-time break and extended it. Furthermore: it has taken the medal ceremony and added the rings. It has taken the crowd and turned it into part of the show. It has treated the fan as a consumer willing to buy anything, even a patch of grass on which, just a few hours earlier, a footballer had slipped. It cannot last, or at least it is by no means certain that it will, especially if football does not become a truly popular sport. And sixty-six million Americans watching a match is not enough: we need to see what remains now that the circus has packed up and moved on.